DEPTH Blog

The most useful snippets from our authors, all in one place. DEPTH discusses topics of diving, equipment and environment, physics and physiology, technique and technology, and hyperbarics.

The Choice of Life or Death

Photo Caption: The decompression chamber aboard the USS Dixon where David Scalia suffered his third cardio-respiratory arrest. Dr. Greg Adkission successfully resuscitated David and remained with him in the chamber for 12 hours.

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The Origins of Saturation Diving

Curious to explore the undersea world, Alexander the Great used a glass diving bell to submerge himself below the surface. The fish, it is said, “crowded around him in homage.” In 332 BCE, he ordered soldiers to submerge inside diving bells and destroy the enemy’s underwater defenses.

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Decompression in a Hyperbaric Chamber Explained

More than 100 years ago, Sorbonne Professor Paul Bert, the father of pressure physiology, explained, “All symptoms, from the slightest to those that bring on sudden death, are the consequences of the liberation of bubbles of nitrogen in the blood [on-gassing], and even in the tissues, when compression has lasted long enough. The great protection is slowness of decompression [off-gassing].”

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Dive Accident Management: There's no hyperbaric chamber nearby, now what?

In 1982, when David Scalia was evacuated to San Diego after suffering an air embolism to his brain, there was no hyperbaric chamber in the city.

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The Physiology of the "Bends"

If you're a diver, you've most likely heard of the "bends" or "divers disease."

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