“They’re more anxious, or are unsure of the processes, and are more likely to ascend rapidly or have equipment failures.” How ‘The Bends’ works “Inexperienced divers have an increased risk because they have more difficulty following safe-diving practices,” he says. Michael and his team at the Department of Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney treat about 60 cases of the bends – ranging from mild to severe – each year. It’s most common among divers using scuba tanks, but can affect free-divers and people at high altitude.Īssociate Professor Michael Bennett knows all too well its effects on the human body. After 16 visits to the recompression (hyperbaric) chamber, he regained some feeling, but was left with symptoms similar to spinal-cord injury.ĭecompression sickness (DCS), known as ‘the bends’ because of the associated joint pain, is a potentially deadly condition caused by bubbles of nitrogen gas forming in the blood and tissues. Daniel, an experienced diver who says he’d followed all safety procedures and used both dive tables and a dive computer, was suffering a severe case of the bends – which happens in roughly one in 20,000 dives. “I could hear everything around me, but couldn’t even open my eyes.”īack on dry land he walked to waiting paramedics. “When I got to the surface, I blacked out and had to be pulled into the boat,” Daniel, now 28, says. He felt exhausted and noticed sharp pains in his lower back.
It wasn’t until the rugby union player got to his first decompression stop at 5m that things started to go wrong. IT WAS A BRIGHT winter day in 2001 at Kingscliff in northern NSW, and 18-year-old Daniel Trollope was on one of his regular dives to the reef. Scuba diving can transport you to a magical underwater world, but in rare cases the pressure can be dangerous.
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