An invaluable experience, learning & practicing not only the Science & Art of Hyperbaric Medicine and Treatment of Dive Accidents, but actually seeing the LA County Medical Alert Center (MAC) System coordinate and integrate the various Departments on a recovery or rescue mission (for example, Sheriffs & Fire Dept. Choppers bringing in the County Coroner and an attending ER/Hyperbaric Physician from the Mainland; Baywatch Boat Paramedics at Avalon/Two Harbors responding to & transporting the victims; and the Chamber Crew at Big Fisherman's Cove settng up & getting the Chamber on-line: all for two separate incidents that happened during my training over at Catalina this past weekend).
Although actual treatments are in 60fsw (DCS) and 165fsw (AGE), training runs are only done at 40fsw with only two five minute oxygen periods, and one O2 period at 20fsw. The most fun & satisfying position on the Team is the inside Tender, where you would under direction apply O2 therapy to the patient and hopefully see the direct curative results of the treatment. Going down to depth inside the Chamber is kind of like sitting in your Scuba Tank (if you could!) during a fast fill: it gets very hot inside 88-90deg F very fast! Conversely, on a wide open 10fpm ascent, the ambient environment can cool down just as fast and get a little chilly & foggy inside (fun with Adiabatic Expansion first hand
).
The trickiest and the position requiring the most mechanical dexterity is the Chamber Operator. You're moving & turning various valves & levers; monitoring depth & pressure gauges of the supply gas gauges; keeping the patient at the right depth as well as bringing the Physician down to depth in an ancillary Lock Chamber if needed to attend to the patient.
The most demanding is the Recorder. He is responsible for keeping track of treatment schedule; calling out the intervals for when the Tender is to administer O2 and Air Breaks to the patient; timing the descents & ascents; keeping track of all Total Dive Times, Decompression Times, Nitrogen uptake etc. for all personnel entering the Chamber to assist the Patient -and keeping a written record of all of this as it's happening on an elapsed timeline. This is the most difficult of the three positions on the team, since you're setting up the entire profile of the "dive", and trying keeping track of the all various time segments involved in the treatment by toggling a set of six stopwatches in front of you -and somehow officially writing/logging it all down simultaneously on paper.
Finally, the Catalina Chamber is the only one able to administer immediate aid to a stricken diver covering an entire weekend period (Friday night to Sunday Evening): there is no back-up Chamber on the Mainland LA County that can be up and running as fast on any given weekend, or IMHO, on any given day 24/7. But talking to the Veteran Crew training me, they would prefer having an asymptomatic diver come in the afternoon for a suspected case of DCS, rather than of having that same diver later choppering back to Catalina from the mainland, with full-blown Type 1 & 2 Signs and Symptoms -
at 3AM in the Morning. . .
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First Training Weekend with Catalina Chamber Crew (Read 223 times)
