where's info about diver incident at flower gardens?

[donnad]

hi, i haven't been able to get on this board for a couple days. was the site down??? anyway, people here at work that know what a diving enthusiast i am came to my desk yesterday and were asking if i heard about the guy at flower gardens (sometime over the weekend i guess) that got the bends and was life-flighted outta there. am looking on the board for info, and don't see it yet. what's the scoop??

 

[Ice9]

hi, i haven't been able to get on this board for a couple days. was the site down??? anyway, people here at work that know what a diving enthusiast i am came to my desk yesterday and were asking if i heard about the guy at flower gardens (sometime over the weekend i guess) that got the bends and was life-flighted outta there. am looking on the board for info, and don't see it yet. what's the scoop??

Ya, I heard last night about that. Info would be appreciated...

 

[DandyDon]

Information on this incident would be best posted on Accidents & Incidents, it available...

 

[ReefHound]

Not sure if you're ferring to something different, but a woman was picked up by helicopter last Thursday, a type I hit in the elbow, nothing too serious and all is well now. Here's a ZD thread about it with several detailed posts from the victim herself.

 

[Bbarnes]

I was on the trip and have talked to Debra via email. She is doing fine. She had pain in her elbow upon ascent from a dive on the third day of our trip. She carried up a weight belt that she had found on the reef and attributed the pain to muscle strain from that, as ibuprofen got rid of the pain for a while. Upon ascent from another dive her pain increased. The captain decided to give her some O2 to see if her pain subsided, indictating a greater likelihood of the bends. It did and so they got in contact with DAN and the decompression chamber tech. She was always stable, alert and oriented. There were 3 physicians and a paramedic on board. All of them felt that she was stable enough for the boatride back to Freeport. (We only had 1 dive left and were headed in anyway). From my understanding it was the TECH from the chamber that ordered the airlift from the coast guard. Something about the diver needing to be in the chamber prior to 4pm or she would have to wait until the next morning... What the airlift DID do is save her a couple of hours between the boatride and the ride from the dock to the hospital. Even though none of us saw a whale shark this trip, we did get some nice pictures of a big helicopter pulling one of our divers off of the boat in a little metal basket. Even though this did not turn out to be an actual urgent crisis, it was comforting to know that the Coast Guard is standing ready and can respond to an emergency very quickly. Just don't tell my sister about the whole event, she worries too much about us as it is.
Captain Frank, Melanie, CP and the rest of the crew were fabulous. They were calm, reassuring and compassionate. This is a fabulous team that I would trust my well being to any time!

 

[TwoBitTxn]

Capt Frank said there were three hits on that trip.

The Galveston paper had a blurb about Debra and about a another individual.

TwoBit

 

[TwoBitTxn]

From the Galveston paper:

Coast Guard Rescues Injured Diver

HOUSTON — The Coast Guard rescued a diver Saturday afternoon from a dive boat in the Gulf of Mexico approximately 110 miles southeast of Galveston, near an area known as the Flower Gardens.

A 66-year-old man, from Freeport had been diving in the Gulf of Mexico when he began complaining that his shoulder was very sore. From his elbow to his shoulder, his skin was mottled and splotchy, and his hand to his shoulder was slightly numb, a sign of the bends.

The master of the dive boat Spree contacted the watchstander at Coast Guard Sector Houston-Galveston for assistance.

An HH-65C Dolphin rescue helicopter crew from Coast Guard Air Station Houston was dispatched. The helicopter arrived on scene at 2:18 p.m., hoisted the diver and transported him to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston. They arrived at the hospital at 3:30 p.m. Herman Memorial Hospital is equipped with a decompression chamber. The diver is reported to be in stable condition.

Debra's story is in the TSD section.

These occurrances happened on separate trips. I thought it was the same trip.

TwoBit

 

[Bbarnes]

Debra was the only one on the trip to get bent. You get to know people pretty well after spending 6 days with them on the boat. No where to hide... Maybe Frank meant that he had had 3 people get bent while on the Spree at some point??? I know that he said that this was the first person that he had bent while diving nitrox.