Climbing a mountain after diving?

[Gene_Hobbs]

Dive-Fly Testing

All laboratory tests involve [hyperbaric] dive and [hypobaric] fly intervals that involved sedentary subjects. During the surface interval, none totes dive gear bags, lugs gas cylinders, drags suitcases, or rushes up and down stairs.

The current phase of "calibration dives" are the first to include exercise and immersion with exercise during the dives.

As I have told the students in my Decompression Physiology classes for decades, “If you do not use the tables under the conditions in which they were tested, you might encounter some untoward results.”

Absolutely!

 

[drbill]

I think the issue revolves around not only climbing a high mountain, but also the exertion involved in doing so. Heavy exertion following diving can apparently increase one's susceptibility to DCS. Back in the days when I used to carry 125# (or more) of SCUBA gear home on a hand cart from our dive park, I used to worry less about the increase in elevation (I live on top of a hill), but rather the exertion involved in dragging the gear up the hill.

Of course I solved this by buying the Dr. Bill Mobile, a golf cart that now transports all my dive gear up (and down) my hill.

 

[peterbj7]

In England we've largely solved the problem of excessive exertion directly at the end of the dive by installing lifts on many dive boats. You simply sit fully kitted up on a webbing seat lowered into the water, and are winched up and over onto the deck. May seem to be laziness, but it's actually prudence.

 

[vladimir]

The Palau Aggressor has (had?) an elevator that lifts the whole skiff up onto the deck in a cradle along an incline. The whole process is vaguely embarassing, as if you were on a Disneyland ride, but it is an efficient way of safely getting a dozen or more divers back aboard the mother ship with a minimum of exertion.