Diver rescues herself
Helen Bamford, July 05 2008 at 12:03PM
An award-winning filmmaker, who lives in Cape Town, was looking forward to a blissful three-week diving break on a remote tropical island in South East Asia.
Instead Julika Kennaway developed decompression sickness, commonly known as the bends, while diving on the island where there were no medical personnel, and had to organise a rescue on her own with help from South Africa.
Kennaway, a qualified dive master, first raised the alarm by SMSing a friend, freelance cameraman Brian Uranovsky in Cape Town, who sprang into action with the help of local doctors.
To get cellphone reception she had several times to wade through waist-deep water, avoiding deadly stone fish on the ocean floor and climb up a three-storey bamboo tower built on stilts.
"The alternative was to climb a really high tree, which I tried but lost my nerve halfway up. I could also have gone to the tower through a stiflingly hot mosquito-infested forest, but I didn't feel up to it."
She used a phone, borrowed from the Swiss dive resort manager because when leaving South Africa she had activated 'roam-on' but unknowingly blocked her phone's ability to make or receive calls.
She said she had been diving on the Indonesian mainland before travelling to the island, three hours away, by boat. There she began experiencing symptoms, and there was no one on the island to ask for medical advice.
"My left hand and foot were tingling and I felt compression in my lung area, but although I felt very tired, I didn't feel really ill.
"I wasn't sure whether or not to be alarmed," she said.
The bends involve the presence of nitrogen bubbles in the body's bloodstream and in severe cases can be fatal.
Fortunately Uranovsky is also a diver and had been involved in countless rescue stories during his 19 years as an SABC cameraman, so he knew what to do.
He contacted doctors Cleeve Robertson, head of Emergency Medical Services in the Western Cape and Jack Meintjes, medical director of Divers Alert Network Southern Africa, known in the world's diving circles as Dan.
"They were fantastic. Professional, competent and incredibly fast," Uranovsky said.
"They liaised and agreed that Julika had decompression sickness and had to be evacuated from the island."
Dan SA liaised with Dan South East Asia to ensure Kennaway got to a quality facility with proper medical skills and equipment such as a recompression chamber.
"Out of sheer loyalty towards a fellow diver they immediately put everything into operation, even though Julika wasn't a Dan member.
"Julika was told to get to a recompression chamber as soon as possible to start treatment or she could suffer permanent damage."
But the island was three hours away, and only one boat arrived a week.
"I eventually paid a fortune for a ride to the mainland on a boat that dropped off fuel."
Kennaway braved rough seas on the boat before taking a two-hour flight to an airport where she caught a connecting three-hour flight to Singapore.
"At 38 000 feet I lost all sensation in my fingers.
"My whole arm went numb and started aching and pins and needles starting spreading to my right side."
Once she landed at the airport she had to get to the chamber at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital and a doctor specialising in hyperbaric medicine.
"Brian was giving me directions to the hospital via SMS while I was in the taxi from the airport but once I arrived, there was a team waiting."
Kennaway was immediately put into the chamber for five hours, which involved being given oxygen to force nitrogen gas and bubbles from her blood.
"I came out for a few hours' rest and then went back twice more for a total of 13 hours."
After returning to Cape Town on Friday she still has intermittent symptoms but hopes these will go in time.
More worrying is whether she will be able to dive again.
"It is an environment I am passionate about. I find peace and oneness in the water and it's a time when I am right in the moment."
Uranovsky is just happy she is home and safe after his sleepless nights trying to organise the extraordinary evacuation.
"Next time either of us travel it will be with a satellite telephone for sure," he said.
