Several agencies respond to research vessel distressed diver - Lake Superior

[DandyDon]

Federal agencies respond to diver in distress on Lake Superior

GRAND MARAIS -- A research vessel was calling for help for a scuba diver in distress on-board on Lake Superior off Grand Marais.
At 4:50 p.m., the Coast Guard out of Sault Ste. Marie contacted the Alger County Sheriff Office about a research vessel called the David Boyd. A diver on the vessel was reported in distress and in need of immediate medical attention.
A Valley Med Flight helicopter was dispatched by the Alger County Sheriff's Office, and the Coast Guard scrambled a helicopter out of their Traverse City base. Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Rangers launched a boat. That boat, with EMT's aboard, met up with the David Boyd about eight miles off Grand Marais.
The person in distress was treated and they stayed on the vessel. The diver was transported via the David Boyd back to Grand Marais, where the Valley Med Flight chopper is waiting to transport the patient to Marquette General Hospital.
The diver's condition is unknown at this time.

 

[Centrals]

The diver should be very grateful that he/she is living/working in a developed country where human life is valued.

 

[Jared0425]

The diver at this point and time is paralyzed below the waist. He was on the newly discovered wreck at around 250ft. The diver had some undisclosed problem which caused him to blow through his stops. The diver was taken to Marquette, but the chamber is only rated to 160. They transferred him to a chamber in Minneapolis that has the capabilities needed to take him down to the neccesary pressure.

 

[Warren_L]

Rare treatment for record 53 hours saves diver | Star Tribune

Rare treatment for record 53 hours saves diver
Article by: JEREMY OLSON , Star Tribune Updated: September 27, 2014 - 5:58 AM
For Lake Superior diver forced to surface too quickly, HCMC doctors try protocol that they looked up in the U.S. Navy Diving Manual.




Terry Begnoche recovered in a hyperbaric chamber at HCMC on Friday from a nearly fatal diving accident on Lake Superior.
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Terry Begnoche remembers every chilling second of his rapid rise from 220 feet deep in Lake Superior — how an ascent that should have taken at least 45 minutes took two minutes, how he couldn’t stop it, and how he hit the surface of the great lake knowing he was in deep trouble.


“What I was worried most about was holding my breath if I panicked,” said the 64-year-old diver, because that could have caused a fatal embolism in his lungs. “Panic is what really kills people.”


Begnoche and other volunteers dove Sept. 18 to capture shipwreck footage off the coast of Grand Marais, Mich. After he was pulled onto the boat, he started feeling prickly sensations in his body and he lost control of his arms and legs. His rapid ascent caused nitrogen bubbles to form in his bloodstream, cutting off blood to his spinal cord and other parts of his body.


This decompression sickness was so severe that saving Begnoche required a helicopter rescue to Marquette, Mich., and then a low-altitude flight to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis — where doctors tried a rare treatment protocol that they looked up in the U.S. Navy Diving Manual.


Along with a nurse, Begnoche spent a record 53 hours last weekend in HCMC’s hyperbaric chamber, a room in which air pressure can be adjusted, to give his body a chance to slowly clear out the damaging nitrogen bubbles.


“It’s really rare to have to do that protocol for a couple reasons,” said Dr. Chris Logue, medical director of HCMC’s center for hyperbaric medicine. “One is that most people die. They never make it to treatment.”


Begnoche was like a “human soda bottle” that had been shaken up, Logue said, and caregivers needed to figure out how to deflate the bubbles.


Most of the time, HCMC’s hyperbaric chamber simulates a depth pressure of 45 feet to 60 feet below the surface and promotes healing by creating an oxygen-rich environment for patients suffering severe wounds or conditions such as anemia or carbon monoxide poisoning.


In this instance, Logue needed to simulate a depth of 165 feet — only 10 feet above the chamber’s maximum limit — to mimic Begnoche’s actual dive depth. That would drive the nitrogen in his body from bubbles into a solution and allow it to escape his body slowly and safely.


That’s what would have happened naturally if Begnoche ascended slowly from the lake as planned, with three or four decompression stops on the way to the surface.


Nurse Kimberlee Nerling, who was in the chamber with Begnoche the entire time, said she noticed immediate movement in the man’s arms when the chamber reached its maximum depth.


Begnoche has since regained control of his arms, and concerns about his lung functioning have been resolved. But the semiretired environmental manager and university lecturer cannot yet walk or move his legs.


He is receiving additional daily treatments in the hyperbaric chamber in the hopes that they will stimulate healing and reduce inflammation in his spinal cord. Whether he can fully recover is unclear.


“It’s such a rare event, it’s impossible to tell,” Logue said. “What we’ve gained back, I’m thrilled about.”


Begnoche, who lives in Michigan, had movies to entertain him during two-plus days in the chamber. He struggled to sleep and replayed how the dive went wrong.


Loaded with underwater lighting and a video camera to examine the recently discovered Nelson, a three-masted schooner that sank off the coast of Grand Marais, Mich., in 1899, Begnoche had neglected to put on a weight that would have otherwise controlled his ascent. The project was part of his work with the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum.


Given the amount of oxygen in his tank, he had only 20 minutes to spend by the ship. At 19 minutes, just to play it safe, he started to rise and pointed the video camera back down at the ship on the lake’s floor. That’s when he noticed how rapidly he rose past another diver.


With 40 years of experience and numerous deep-water dives, Begnoche knew he couldn’t stop his momentum.
“I was doing everything I could do to push any air out of the suit or any buoyancy devices that I had,” he said, but with the pressure decreasing and the gasses in his suit and his body expanding, it was “like a self-fulfilling prophecy.”


When he reached the surface, Begnoche immediately submerged a few feet to try to decompress and then returned to the boat when his oxygen tank was nearly empty. A Coast Guard helicopter was dispatched along with a boat from the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore Rangers.


Flying Begnoche to Minneapolis was complicated, because a high-altitude flight would have worsened his decompression sickness. So the pilot was ordered to keep the plane below 800 feet.


Nerling, the nurse, was in for an unusual shift, having never spent more than three hours in the hyperbaric chamber before. The 53 hours in the chamber was necessary for her as well. Bringing them out of a simulated depth of 165 feet any faster would have caused her to suffer decompression sickness.


So Nerling made sure her daughter could stay with her father and grabbed a textbook she needed to study for an upcoming nurse practitioner exam.


“It’s me and you,” she told Begnoche in the chamber.


Once the air pressure in the chamber rose back to a simulated depth of 60 feet, additional caregivers were allowed in so that Nerling could rest.


Begnoche said he is grateful for the help he received in the lake, for the national Divers Alert Network that assessed his injuries and referred him to HCMC, and for the proximity of the hyperbaric chamber in Minneapolis.


He hopes that continued hyperbaric treatments along with physical therapy will help him regain strength, but he’s also worried. In the water, his expertise helped him focus and stay calm. In the hospital, he is burdened with the knowledge of just how devastating a rapid ascent can be to the body.


“It’s scary,” he said, “especially when you know what’s going on.”

 

[danvolker]

If he immediately went back down to about 100 feet, and then did his planned deco, he most likely would have been fine....Instead, he was too panicked to do anything but breath his deco gas near the surface--which should have been obvious to him as a non-solution.

 

[DandyDon]

where doctors tried a rare treatment protocol that they looked up in the U.S. Navy Diving Manual.

Good that they had access to the Navy manual. I see that DAN was also consulted - good. It took a lot of people and equipment to get him to a chamber that goes that deep, many don't, but the biggest hero is that nurse who spent 53 hours with him on the ride. I don't guess she was allowed any sleep. Whew!

He "neglected to put on a weight that would have otherwise controlled his ascent."

 

[scooterintexas]

So what really caused the out of control ascent?

 

[danvolker]

He "neglected to put on a weight that would have otherwise controlled his ascent."

I don't buy this....he had the needed weight to reach the ship at his max depth. Either he dropped lots of weight( by accident or on purpose)....did a purposeful or accidental inflation of BC, or he got a darc narc, panicked, and made a polaris missile type ascent.

It sounds to me like panic started this accident, and then fear prevented him from correcting it.

 

[FinnMom]

If he immediately went back down to about 100 feet, and then did his planned deco, he most likely would have been fine....Instead, he was too panicked to do anything but breath his deco gas near the surface--which should have been obvious to him as a non-solution.

If someone has experienced something that has a very high chance of bring on DCS, I don't think it is generally considered wise to put them back into deep water (60, 80, 100 feet). There is too much risk that their condition might deteriorate quickly and in that case it may no longer to get them back to the surface alive.
6m/20ft where he would have been to breathe 100% O2 is a hugely more manageable depth for someone in questionable contition.

 

[DandyDon]

If someone has experienced something that has a very high chance of bring on DCS, I don't think it is generally considered wise to put them back into deep water (60, 80, 100 feet). There is too much risk that their condition might deteriorate quickly and in that case it may no longer to get them back to the surface alive.
6m/10ft where he would have been to breathe 100% O2 is a hugely more manageable depth for someone in questionable contition.

In water decompression has been debated here frequently. I had a friend try it after a narced descent to 250 on air and fast ascent. She made it back to the boat and the clinic, but died in Florida. 6 m = 20 ft, but he needed to go to 165 ft as the article explained.