The Oban Dive Chamber is at SAMS so as we have a chamber at Rothera we need to be trained in operating the chamber should we have a dive emergency involving a case of decompression illness. Currently SAMS treats around 18 patients per year between 28 and 62% of decompression illness cases in Scotland.

The course yesterday involved a morning of lectures including:
Basics of recompression operations
Identifying decompression sickness symptoms and subsequent treatment
Basics of therapeutic recompression tables
Oxygen handling, cleanliness and breathing at high pressures (oxygen toxcity)
Basic external chamber operation
Basic internal ‘nursing’ job of the patient
Rules and regulations relating to recompression theory

Yesterday afternoon we were treated as patients in the chamber and were taken down to 18m where we breathed heliox which makes you have a very funny high pitched voice like after inhaling helium from a ballon. So we all had some fun on that before changing to pure oxygen.

This morning we each get to do one of the jobs involved in chamber operation. Being the patient, internal ‘nurse’, supervisor and supervisors assistant. The ‘dive’ is to 14m for 45 minutes. If the chamber is being used for an emergency situation there would also be a docter on hand and it is better to have two assistant chamber operators if possible especially if the compressions are for more than a few hours e.g. the Royal Navy 64 tables are a min length of 4.75 hours and max of 6 hours 50 minutes.

This afternoon we have the local diving Dr who works at this chamber coming in for some more lectures.