>On Monday, March 12, 2001 1:21 PM, J.M. Vitoux wrote:
>
>> David Strike wrote:
>>> Excess gas is always a problem!  (And bear in mind that there have
>>> been cases of embolism from people moving from a kneeling to a
>>> standing position in the shallow end of a swimming pool.)
>
>> I've heard this one several times and was just wondering wether
>> there were documented facts on these or if it was some kind of
>> UL.

Just having a quick glance in one of the SPUMS mags I found general details
about 3 dive incidents involving CAGE from shallow depths.

1. In Perth - During final dive of initial training course (max. depth
4.4metres, total dive time 37 min.) female diver develops neurologial
symptons. Most of the time spent at 2m practising the skills. No suggestion
of a rapid ascent. While snorkelling to shore she felt exhausted. About an
hour later she complained of feeling weird & had to sit down. Numbness
developed in her left hand & then went up that arm. On admittance to
hospital put on oxygen. She appeared alert but confused. When she stood up
to be reassessed for co-ordination she failed to perform a sharpened
Romberg test, became drowsy, confused & agitated. Speech was unintelligible
tho she had been erect for no more than 30 seconds. Diagnosis was CAGE so
they began treatment with a modified Table RN62. Because of persistant
tiredness she received 2 follow up treatments (RN61). She made a full
recovery but discontinued diving.

2. A weird case of a female diver at Stony Cove in the UK who lost
consciousness at the surface following an abort from a deep rescue dive.
She was brought ashore & regained consciousness appearing fine. Later she
walked to the dive shop, washed down her dive gear & out of the blue fell
over dead.

3. 2 metre dive in a swiming pool in Christchurch, NZ. Dive instructor (who
was grossly obese with symptomatic hiatus hernia) got out of pool during a
class, became very dizzy & fell over. He walked in to hospital but was
hopeless at sharpened Romberg test so had a session in the chamber.

4. Woman standing at shallow end of pool during scuba class. Water chest
height with mask down by her feet in the pool. With tank on she had to lie
down in the pool, put mask on, clear it & come up. She embolised in about 4
feet of water.

I remember vaguely a weird case of a novice diver doing a feet first entry
from a dive boat. Overweighted to hell she dropped down under the water
nearly 2 metres & then immediately popped back up to the surface, due to an
over-inflated BCD. I dont recall her surviving that.

Dr Bove commented - novice divers using scuba during their course do things
like octopus breathing, ascents & descents. It is very easy to slip for a
few seconds and ascend one & a half metres & get an air embolism, even
though they would have been totally unaware that it occurred.

Dr Veale commented - original studies involved inflating the lungs of
cadavers clearly showed lung rupture with a one metre or 1.3 metre ascent
so transthoracic pressure changes of 75 to 100 centimetres of water
pressure are enough to rupture lungs.
Viv