Am I reading this correctly. Chuuk Lagoon.

[RJP]

I'm not sure the fact that the victim was "buxom" or "blonde" has much to do with the incident. I should have followed my instinct to stop reading after reading "CDNN" at the very top of the story.

 

[Leadking]

The chamber in Chuuk is about 800 yards from Blue Lagoon Resort. The hospital is over 5 miles I would guess. The 5 miles would take a normal car at least 30 minutes due to the state of the roads, of course you could to a bit quicker in an emergency. This means it would have taken a minimum of 60 minutes plus the time for the doctor's examination before she could have been put in the chamber.

The Chuuk hospital is not real good, although the doctors are very good from my personal experience. It really would seem that the Coroner does not have an understanding of what a third world country's roads and medical infrastructure are like. As to whether they should have contacted the hospital and tried to arrange for the chamber to be staffed immediately, not sure.

Very sad case.

Been to Chuuk twice and totally agree with the above statement. Chuuk is definately third world... and the diving is great.

 

[Garth]

Sounds like this occurred in 2008 and the report was from 2010.


Sent from my Shearwater Predator...

 

[fire_diver]

C D NN is a sham of a "news" website. The stories are either plagerized from legitimate sources or are complete lies. The owner uses the site trash wreck and cave divers, especially Leigh Bishop. The advertisments are false, nobody is paying to advertise on that site. The complanies he pretends to be sponsors have attempted to shut down his site and sue him numerous times, but he uses fake names and addresses and just reopens the site through a new server.

 

[boulderjohn]

The chamber is only staffed on demand and is not located at the hospital. Protocol to activate emergency operation of the chamber is initiated by the doctors at the hospital, who can also assess the patient and provide appropriate intervention until transfer to the chamber is feasible. Yes it is a third world facility so the treatments provided may not match our expectations,...

Third world poblems? I don't think so.

DAN sent out one of their quizzes today, and one of their questions matches this situation perfectly. When you have a suspected DCS case, you take the victim to the nearest HOSPITAL and NOT the nearest chamber. The hospital will determine if the chamber is necessary and activate the procedures needed to make it work. If you go directly to the chamber, what will likely happen is exactly what happened here--NOTHING. In this situation, DAN is not talking about 3rd world cultures; it is talking about anywhere. If you take someone to a chamber in the middle of the U.S. in anything other than peak hours, the odds are there will be no one there to meet you, and you will have wasted a lot of precious time.

 

[Kevrumbo]

The chamber in Chuuk is about 800 yards from Blue Lagoon Resort. The hospital is over 5 miles I would guess. The 5 miles would take a normal car at least 30 minutes due to the state of the roads, of course you could to a bit quicker in an emergency. This means it would have taken a minimum of 60 minutes plus the time for the doctor's examination before she could have been put in the chamber.

The Chuuk hospital is not real good, although the doctors are very good from my personal experience. It really would seem that the Coroner does not have an understanding of what a third world country's roads and medical infrastructure are like. As to whether they should have contacted the hospital and tried to arrange for the chamber to be staffed immediately, not sure.

Very sad case.

I concur . . .it took about 15min to get me from the Truk Stop Hotel to the Chamber facility -a little over a mile- on that "main road", then turning onto an unimproved residential access "side street". Very sad & tragic case indeed, about three months before my DCS hit.

As patient #45 in Oct 2008 for "ordinary" DCS type I, I can give some personnel info at the time, on the Chuuk Chamber above (when staffing is available):

Chamber Operator:
Larry J. Bruton
Director, Hyperbaric Chamber Facility, Chuuk
Bruton Enterprises
Appropriate Technology Store
PO Box 700
Chuuk, FM 96942
Phone: +691 330-2318
E-Fax: 1 910 401-1002

Attending Physician: Glen Hawkins M.D. (remote consult from Australia)
Administered by: Hyperbaric Health, Melbourne Australia.

Ancillary Physician, post-HBOT/TT6: Christine Bocek M.D. Sefin Health Clinic, Weno Chuuk FSM.

Third world poblems? I don't think so.

DAN sent out one of their quizzes today, and one of their questions matches this situation perfectly. When you have a suspected DCS case, you take the victim to the nearest HOSPITAL and NOT the nearest chamber. The hospital will determine if the chamber is necessary and activate the procedures needed to make it work. If you go directly to the chamber, what will likely happen is exactly what happened here--NOTHING. In this situation, DAN is not talking about 3rd world cultures; it is talking about anywhere. If you take someone to a chamber in the middle of the U.S. in anything other than peak hours, the odds are there will be no one there to meet you, and you will have wasted a lot of precious time.

That's not quite true John . . .in offshore SoCal waters, the preferred chain of care for dive accidents 24/7 should always start with Los Angeles County Baywatch Lifeguard/Paramedics or US Coast Guard, with evacuation to the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber. Even if shorediving off mainland beaches, a dive accident should always be routed or referred to LA County EMS, with possible chopper transport to the Catalina Chamber in lieu of mainland clinic chambers.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/so...dcs-age-always-go-la-county-usc-catalina.html