Auckland Harbour Bridge Workers Suffer From “Bends”

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28053, 22 August 1956, Page 16

Auckland Harbour Bridge Workers Suffer From “Bends”

“The Press’’ Special Service

AUCKLAND, Aug. 21. A man could have died one morning last week for all the help a doubting motorist gave him. The man is a volunteer worker in a high pressure caisson at the Auckland Harbour bridge site, and he was suffering from a mild form of the “bends.” A motorist he stopped, however, thought he was drunk, and refused to take him to the special medical unit at Westhaven, a mile away. Although the man was only affected mildly from the bends, which is an extremely dangerous form of compressed air sickness, his legs had buckled and he could not walk. On Thursday, the men who volunteered to work under pressure deep below the surface of the water in the caissons began operating around the clock. They had been delayed for about three weeks and little work had been done. Consequently, the compressed air unit at the medical centre at Westhaven is now almost continually occupied, as workers come up from 80 feet down after an eight-hour shift and spend up to two hours working off the pressure. Every man who is working under pressure carries a white plastic disc around his neck. This disc says he is a compressed air worker, and if he is taken ill he should be sent at once to the medical lock at Westhaven. There is an instruction to ring 11-097 immediately. “Delay is dangerous,” says the disc. A good instance of the working of this system was shown early on Satur-

day morning. At 3.30 a.m., Mr William Parkinson, of Crummer road, Auckland, rushed into a telephone box and called the St. John Ambulance, saying he had the bends. The ambulance was there four minutes after receiving the call, and Mr Parkinson was taken to Westhaven. Meanwhile, the ambulance driver. Mr Leo Marshall, asked Mr Parkinson his disc number, and radio-telephoned the figure back to the station at Pitt street. This number was immediately communicated to Westhaven, where it could be ascertained at a glance that Mr Parkinson had been working under a certain pressure. Consequently, the man on duty at the medical unit knew exactly what pressure to give to Mr Parkinson.