Chamber may have saved diver’s life

Press, 10 July 1987, Page 2

Chamber may have saved diver’s life

By

RODGER KINGSBURY

in Blenheim A young Auckland diver who was treated for decompression sickness after diving on the sunken ship the Mikhail Lermontov recently could have died but for the fact that she was placed immediately in a recompression chamber on board the diving tender Little Mermaid. The diver, Miss Anna Nicholls, aged 23, a promotions and marketing consultant, was later given further recompression. treatment at Princess Margaret Hospital in Christchurch. Miss Nicholls, who has had eight years diving experience, said from Auckland yesterday that she had completely recovered from the misadventure but there was still considerable doubt as to whether it was in fact a bends attack. “The symptoms were pretty unbends-like. At this stage no-one has actu-

ally said, ‘Yes, it was the bends.’ “I am still seeing a specialist about it and I have really got them quite puzzled,” she said. As the dive itself went on June 27 there was nothing to suggest the possibility of a bends attack. Miss Nicholls said she was well within diving limits and it was not cold, factors which often contribute to an attack. “I am pleased that the chamber was there. I would not like to have chanced the incident without it. I might have been all right otherwise but I imagine I was lucky the equipment was on board. “Seeing what happened in the next couple of days in Christchurch I think I could have got a lot worse without it but we don’t know for sure.” Miss Nicholls said she discussed the incident with Dr Mike Davis and a neurologist at Princess Margaret Hospital and later with several doctors in Auckland. She was now undergoing a few tests to see if they could come up with a solution.

One of the possibilities being considered is a sideeffect from using Scopoderm, a seasickness medication taped behind the ear. It could have been this or something else so far unidentified. Miss Nicholls said the incident occurred just before 3 p.m. on June 27 when she was on her second dive for the day with the tour guide, Mr John Hawkins, of Divers’ World, Wellington, near the stern of the Mikhail Lermontov. She had been to 24.3 m and was on her way to 18.2 m when she experienced pain in an elbow. She had a safety stop at 3m before boarding the diving tender. "The pain was still there, no worse, and the skipper decided as a safety precaution to put me in the recompression chamber just in case it was the bends,” she said. Miss Nicholls spent almost 6/2 hours in the chamber under radio-tele-phone directions from Dr Davis at Princess Margaret Hospital and the Devonport naval base at Auckland. , She was examined by Dr John Walsh at Picton at 2 a.m. the next day and taken by ambulance to Princess Margaret Hospital where she was immediately put in the hospital’s recompression chamber for two hours 20 minutes. The chamber was used again in the evening and again the next morning. Miss Nicholls was discharged from hospital on the Tuesday afternoon and returned to Auckland. The master of the Little Mermaid, Captain Bill Day, confirmed from Wellington yesterday Miss Nicholls’ account of the incident.