In diving, if you abide by the rules it is one of the safest sports. One of the safety regulations is that whenever you make an ascent, after a dive, it is mandatory to make a three-minute stop at 5 metres. By breathing in a regular manner, at this juncture, the body is slowly able to adjust as it comes up to the surface. Sometimes, when this stop does not take place and you go up too fast, a diver could suffer from decompression sickness (DCS).
DCS is caused by the formation of nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream and, in the worst cases, can cause death. However, Divers Alert Network, an organisation focused on safe-diving research and promotion, estimates that less than one per cent of divers experience this condition. A study conducted on military personnel in Okinawa who do thousands of dives each year found an average of one case of decompression sickness for every 7,400 divers and one death for every 76,900 dives.
Subin J Kalarikkal, 27, a diving instructor in the Lakshadweep islands, experienced DCS a few months ago.
On April 30, he was with a client, Rukmini (name changed), at 18 metres below sea level. When they were going back up Rukmini started moving very fast. So he swam rapidly to her, and slowed her down. But by doing this, in three seconds, he covered 10 metres. Hours later, when he was at home, Subin experienced a pain in his hip area. He realised that in hurrying up to Rukmini, he might have risked decompression sickness.
The next day he went to the general hospital at the nearby island of Agatti and inhaled oxygen to eliminate the nitrogen bubbles. But the pain persisted. On May 2, he was airlifted to Kochi where he was treated in a decompression chamber for four-and-a-half hours. “I was taken down to 18 metres and oxygen was administered,” he says. “Soon, I felt fresh and energetic once again.”
Today, he is back at work in the Lakshwadeep
Islands.
