DIVER SAVED FROM BENDS

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28422, 31 October 1957, Page 13

DIVER SAVED FROM BENDS

Use Of American Space Suit

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, October 29.

Edward Cwick, a diver on the St. Lawrence Seaway project, was relieved of the agony of the bends yesterday when the Defence Department authorised doctors to put him in a secret Air Force spacesuit. The bends, which can cause death, result from too sudden exposure to normal pressure after a diver has been working at high pressures below sea level. Cwick flew into New York City from northern New York State early today, sure that somewhere in the city he would find a decompression chamber to ease his pain.

He was taken to the Mitchell Air Force base on Long Island, where officers sent an emergency request to Washington for permission to put Cwick into the new pressure suit designed for high-altitude flying. The suit, which had arrived at the base only last Saturday, was the last resort. Officials had been unable to find a decompression chamber anywhere in the city. The only other apparatus at the base was a recompression chamber for flyers returning from rarefied atmo-sphere-just the opposite of what Cwick needed.

Washington permission for use of the new suit on Cwick came quickly. He was put into it and the helmet with the winged star of the air force placed over his head. Within minutes the pain in his arms, legs and shoulders began to lessen.

Lieutenant-Colonel Vincent Fay, chief of aviation medicine at the base, explained that Cwick was subjected to 301 b of pressure inside the suit, the equivalent of being 80 to 100 ft under water. The pressure was gradually reduced to normal.

Cwick had been stricken yesterday afternoon as he searched 180 ft under the surface of the St. Lawrence river for a sunken bulldozer.