I had the good fortune to take part in a hyperbaric chamber dive today. It was in the chamber at Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, IL, a near suburb of Chicago. LGH has the only chamber open to divers and other emergencies in the Chicago area. It's also a Level I Trauma center. This chamber can hold 12 people packed very tightly in. My instructors were the ones who scheduled this, months ago. It's only held once a month.
We were taken down to 130 ft. There were 12 of us. We had empty water bottles and balloons to demonstrate Boyle's Law. When we were descending it was very hot - around 100 degrees. As we were coming up, it cooled down quite a bit and actually got foggy in the chamber (they can't totally dry out the air fed to the chamber). It was funny to see. We brought our dive computers into the chamber with us, immersing them in water to activate them. It was neat watching my computer throughout the "dive."
I was told a lot of divers say they equalize more throughout a chamber dive than on a real dive. Not sure how true that is, but I did equalize a lot.
I got very silly and giggly when narced. I had a very high pitched voice at depth due to the pressure change. Minnie Mouse on steroids! One diving family was there - dad, mom, and their teenaged sons, who were very funny to watch as they got narced.
The respiratory therapist in charge of the chamber did a very good 45 minute lecture beforehand. He has been at the hospital for about 30 years and has been doing these presentations and chamber dives since 1994, when they began at the request of the local Chicago dive community. He said more than 1000 divers have been through the chamber for this presentation. Only one person out of all those divers has gotten DCS from the chamber dive. This hospital only sees 2-3 cases of DCS a year. He talked about DCS, AGE, etc., from a medical perspective, which was an interesting difference from the way it was taught in OW class.
The dive profile is from my computer. The picture is from the video screens showing the inside of the chamber while our dive was taking place. It was almost like we were astronauts. LOL
We were taken down to 130 ft. There were 12 of us. We had empty water bottles and balloons to demonstrate Boyle's Law. When we were descending it was very hot - around 100 degrees. As we were coming up, it cooled down quite a bit and actually got foggy in the chamber (they can't totally dry out the air fed to the chamber). It was funny to see. We brought our dive computers into the chamber with us, immersing them in water to activate them. It was neat watching my computer throughout the "dive."
I was told a lot of divers say they equalize more throughout a chamber dive than on a real dive. Not sure how true that is, but I did equalize a lot.
I got very silly and giggly when narced. I had a very high pitched voice at depth due to the pressure change. Minnie Mouse on steroids! One diving family was there - dad, mom, and their teenaged sons, who were very funny to watch as they got narced.
The respiratory therapist in charge of the chamber did a very good 45 minute lecture beforehand. He has been at the hospital for about 30 years and has been doing these presentations and chamber dives since 1994, when they began at the request of the local Chicago dive community. He said more than 1000 divers have been through the chamber for this presentation. Only one person out of all those divers has gotten DCS from the chamber dive. This hospital only sees 2-3 cases of DCS a year. He talked about DCS, AGE, etc., from a medical perspective, which was an interesting difference from the way it was taught in OW class.
The dive profile is from my computer. The picture is from the video screens showing the inside of the chamber while our dive was taking place. It was almost like we were astronauts. LOL
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