Teach me about Emergecy O2 Kits, please (DAN o2 Etc.) esp Bottles

[beanojones]

Teach me about Emergecy O2 Kits, please (DAN o2 Etc.). What I would like to be able to do is to more than say The Big Green Box please, and would like to know anything about how to piece together stuff for emergency O2 kits. I got O2 ponies and regs but they are all scuba.

Since my main lack of knowledge is about medical O2 size designations, and there is no gathered info on Wikipedia, I request to be enlightened.

I don't even know if there is a Emergency O2 Kit talk place. SInce I want to know more than "DAN kit please", I did not post in the DAN forum.

 

[KD8NPB]

A Jumbo D is probably going to be what you want. But, more gas isn't necessarily a bad thing. DAN specifies 15l/min of O2 to flush the nitrogen out of the bloodstream. How much O2 you need should be calculated off how long it will take for emergency responders to get there. Also, how many casualties you want the capability of dealing with.

 

[beanojones]

What's the one in the Standard DAN box? Basically I am trying to figure if piecing a second and third set together would save money over buying a used DAN box.

 

[supergaijin]

We have a 2.5L for the boat- the one in the Big Green Box. It does constant flow and demand and you can have 2 divers breathing from it at the same time. It is just an interim measure before getting to a hospital which for us is about 10mins from the hotel. Max drive time on the boat about 1hr if the weather is bad. 2.5L is not a lot of time, but better than a bottle of N.

DAN shop online shows you the standard tanks and setup.

 

[Wookie]

First of all, be careful where you get your regulators. There was a rash of bad regulators out there for a while that routinely caught fire. Fire is harder to breath than oxygen is. I have 3 different regulators, one brass the others aluminum. All of my regulators are suitable for demand valves. Additionally they should have 2 hose barbs for constant flow non-rebreather masks. The DAN regulators are set up this way, the ones that catch fire only have one hose barb. Again, breathing fire is hard on the bent diver. The recall applied to Allied Healthcare products regulators sold under the brand name Life Support Products. 2 of my demand masks are equipped with simple demand valves (like a scuba second stage), but one is equipped with an MTV, or Manually Triggered Ventilator. The MTV pushes O2 into the victim, but you must be trained to use it. A regular demand valve should be sufficient for what ails ya.

A O2 regulator has 2 pins which have to mate properly to a emergency O2 cylinder. I have an adapter to fit the O2 regulator directly to a T bottle of oxygen. I have enough regulators, valves, and masks to keep 9 divers on O2 for 10 hours. That would be a bad day indeed.

Medical oxygen may be difficult to get. In Florida, Airgas (the big gas house) will not sell medical oxygen to anyone but a doctor. Not even with a doctors prescription will they sell it. It is a huge pain in my butt, but there you go.

What else do you want to know?

 

[beanojones]

I always think that as a trimix blender I should know about this stuff, but it;s not really the same thing.

So the are the big DAN boxes like on the boat, and then the littler boxes like we carry in our vans. What are the letter sizes for those?

(Non metric tank designations make my head hurt.)

 

[ktomlinson]

Wookie, did you find a place to get medical oxygen or did you end up settling for aviation oxygen?

 

[Wookie]

Wookie, did you find a place to get medical oxygen or did you end up settling for aviation oxygen?

Aviator isn't really settling, it's 4x as expensive as medical, comes out of the same hose, and is tested for all of the things medical is plus moisture content. Yes, I "settle" for Aviator. What a joke.

 

[blue sky]

Wookie, did you find a place to get medical oxygen or did you end up settling for aviation oxygen?

Try Airgas. They got me med gas. see link Florida Dept of Health recognizes PADI emergency...

---------- Post added May 23rd, 2012 at 07:14 PM ----------

We have a 2.5L for the boat- the one in the Big Green Box. It does constant flow and demand and you can have 2 divers breathing from it at the same time. It is just an interim measure before getting to a hospital which for us is about 10mins from the hotel. Max drive time on the boat about 1hr if the weather is bad. 2.5L is not a lot of time, but better than a bottle of N.

DAN shop online shows you the standard tanks and setup.

I spent weeks trying to put together an O2 kit from scratch. Couldn't match DAN. Ultimately bought the DAN Dual Rescue Pak Extended Care with MTV100. $899 on DAN's store web site. Besides having the best kit and easiest to purchase set up, think of all of the things DAN does for us divers. That has an intangible value. Support DAN, they are there for all of us free of charge.

 

[DevonDiver]

Medical Oxygen Cylinders by size/category:

A selection of medical oxygen regulator types: