Hospital trains for Oriskany diving injuries

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Pensacola News Journal
By Sean Smith
February 28, 2006


The soon-to-be-sunk aircraft carrier Oriskany is expected to become a prime divers' playground, but local hospitals and emergency officials are bracing for dive injuries.

Baptist Hospital will be the only local facility with a hyperbaric chamber to treat civilian dive injuries. The chamber at Pensacola Naval Air Station is for military divers.

The Baptist chamber, currently used to treat wounds and other ailments, will be ready for dive injuries by April or May, Dr. Kelli Wells said.

The treatment of dive injuries is a very involved process that requires enhanced training as well as 24-hour staff, she said.

"What we're doing is increasing the level of training," she said. "We'll treat dive injuries as they occur, but my real desire is that we get information out there to prevent the injuries."

Currently, emergency crews divert dive-injury patients to hospitals in Mobile and Panama City, which each see about a dozen dive-related injuries a year.

The 32,000-ton, 888-foot long Oriskany, to be sunk before June 1, is expected to rest at about 210 feet down, 22 miles southwest of Pensacola Pass. The superstructure will be at about 60 feet and the flight deck at about 130 feet -- the limit for recreational divers.

"There are a tremendous amount of unknowns," said Navy Cmdr. Ward Reed, director of the hyperbarics program at the Naval Operational Medicine Institute at Pensacola Naval Air Station. "What we do know is it's going to be pretty far out, and it's going to be deep."

Most dive injuries occur from decompression sickness -- dubbed "the bends" -- which is caused by surfacing too quickly.

"In order to see more of the Oriskany, divers will have to reach significant depths, and that increases the risk," Wells said. "If divers alter their plan and stay longer than they should, they run out of time and then return to the surface too quickly, and they get sick."

For a typical dive to 130 feet, divers have five to eight minutes from the time they leave the surface, said Reed, who has been advising local emergency officials for 18 months.

"You get enough time to get down to the flight deck, touch it and look around," he said. "Then it will be time to leave."

Bay Medical Center in Panama City also is gearing up for a potential increase from the 10 to 12 dive injuries it treats each year, spokeswoman Christa Hild said.

The Warrington dive shop MBT Divers is preparing a multimedia briefing on the Oriskany and plans to take certified advanced scuba divers there, owner Jim Phillips said.

Oriskany dives should not create too many problems because divers will be advanced, Phillips said. Escambia County's artificial reef program includes more than 110 reefs in the area -- most of them at less than 100 feet.

"As long as they put forth a reasonable effort to follow the guidelines, everybody should be fine," Phillips said.

Robert Turpin, chief of Escambia County Marine Resources Division, said safety was in the forefront as Oriskany plans were made.

The ship has been stripped of anything of value, he said. The superstructure, which will be at a shallow depth and likely will be teeming with sea life, may well be the most attractive part, he said.

But Turpin, who has logged more than 2,500 dives, said caution still will be critical when diving the Oriskany.

"It is an advanced dive -- it's not for the newly certified, not for the inexperienced," he said. "Divers are pretty smart, and they are very well trained. When you put a tank on your back and a mask on your face, the only thing between you and disaster is yourself.

"There's nothing inside the Oriskany worth dying for."


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