Meeting of 11/08/05

The meeting was held at the Elk’s Rehabilitation Hospital. There were 41 members attending. After Earl called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM he went over the coming meetings. In January we will be having our annual bowling meeting at BSU, in February we will be having a guest speaker to be announced. Other speakers are in the works for the March and April meetings also, so watch the web page for further information. He also talked about the upcoming elections in December. We will need the membership to be thinking about people to nominate for the various officers or be thinking about offices that they personally would be willing to take on.

Next Earl introduced Dr. Eric Johnson. Dr. Johnson then began his talk about the Hyperbaric Chambers that have been added to the hospital. He gave a very interesting overview of Hyperbarics and reviewed DCS in general. He reiterated the fact that even if you do everything right you can still get a DCS hit and that our chosen hobby is not 100% safe. But with only 0.002% out of every 100,000 dives (2.05/100,000) getting a DCS hit of some kind it is still safer than driving! Still, it is a good idea to get either DAN or PADI dive insurance, because in the off chance that you do need a trip to a chamber when on a dive trip, it can cost as much as $40,000. He said that alcohol consumption has no correlation to DCS, as long as you stay hydrated. It is still not a good idea to drink alcohol and dive for other obvious reasons. He also talked about the different methods that the different computer manufacturers use to calculate the amount of dissolved gases in your blood as you dive. He uses different computers for different types of diving. He feels that some methods are better in different situations. The method that all of the manufacturers are going to, more and more, is the RGBM method. Also he talked about the new recommendation for ascending from depth, the Rule Of Halves. When using this you make an extra stop at half the maximum depth below 40’ for 1 minute. Then make the stop at 15’ for 3 minutes with a slow ascent. This method makes a lot of sense and just adds another level of safety. The different methods all are just a statistical approximation of what is going on in your body as you dive. So anything that will help get rid of the dissolved gas in your tissues is a good thing.

After the talk he led all of us to the room where the four chambers are used. Each chamber costs $200,000. The chambers are round Plexiglas chambers (see pictures), just large enough to lay down in. You lay on a tray that is pushed into the chamber. A television screen is positioned above each one so that you can watch a movie while having your treatment. You must not be wearing any jewelry or anything metal of any kind. Also only cotton, no artificial material, is used in the bedding and garments that are put into the chamber. This is so there is no chance of any accidental sparking of static electricity happening. As the treatment is with pure oxygen this would be a very bad thing. The patient is grounded to the chamber and the chamber is grounded to the building. But as with anything, accidents do happen and pieces of chambers have been blown through concrete walls! So every precaution is taken at all times with very strict protocols followed in the set up and use of the chambers and patient. These protocols are the same as a no static room at an electronics assembly plant.

In the chamber room the talk was taken over by one of the Hyperbaric Technicians, Brenda Freymiller. She told us about the different times of treatment. A light DCS hit, being characterized by numbness and pain, called a Type 1, is usually treated by a dive of 1 hour at 60 ft. A Type 2, where there is actual neurological damage, will be treated for 285 minutes at the same depth. More than one treatment over several days will be done for cases that need it.

After Brenda finished her talk we were able to look at the chambers and ask questions. The meeting was very interesting and informative as all meetings with Dr. Johnson have been. The chambers are very interesting pieces of equipment, but I hope I never have to use one! But it is nice that if you do need one here in Boise you will not have to be air lifted to Salt Lake City to get treatment. Thank you from the club to Dr. Eric Johnson and Technician Brenda Freymiller for a great meeting.

Dirk Spackman, Sec/Treas.