{"id":43901,"date":"2014-08-01T04:00:05","date_gmt":"2014-07-31T18:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=43901"},"modified":"2014-08-01T04:00:05","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T18:00:05","slug":"nbg-dive-locker-provides-recompression-treatment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/nbg-dive-locker-provides-recompression-treatment\/","title":{"rendered":"NBG Dive Locker provides recompression treatment"},"content":{"rendered":"

SANTA RITA, Guam<\/strong>\u2014On June 14, when 68-year-old retired U.S. Navy sailor Chuck Bressie was diagnosed with severe type II decompression sickness, U.S. Naval Base Guam\u2019s Dive Locker activated their emergency chamber team to treat him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just sitting on the bench and all of a sudden my toes started going numb,\u201d he said, recalling the day he was diagnosed with decompression sickness after a dive. \u201cThen probably within two or three seconds it was up to my ankle, then I was numb up to my knees, then I got numb up to my waist, and then I felt like I couldn\u2019t move anything. They brought me [to the Dive Locker], the crew here loaded me up, put me in [the dive chamber] and from there, I don\u2019t remember. I was in so much pain. How many hours I was there, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

After three weeks of treatment from the NBG chamber team, Bressie was able to walk out on his own on July 3.<\/p>\n

\"Sailors<\/a>
Sailors from the U.S. Naval Base Guam Dive Locker are happy to see retired sailor Chuck Bressie at the installation in Santa Rita on July 23. Bressie, a recent patient who suffered severe decompression sickness, received treatment in the NBG dive chamber for approximately three weeks before his recovery. (U.S. Navy\/Shaina Marie Santos)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Decompression sickness, also known as the bends, is a sometimes fatal disorder characterized by sharp bilateral hip pain, paralysis and difficulty breathing caused by the release of gas bubbles from the tissue upon a rapid decrease in hydrostatic air pressure after an extended period of time in a compressed atmosphere.<\/p>\n

For divers, this means if you surface too quickly from a dive, you run the risk of contracting this dangerous disorder.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people go down and they dive for a long time and they come back up, it\u2019s a little like taking a soda can and vigorously shaking it and then popping the top, except instead of soda coming out, we\u2019ve got nitrogen \u2013 all these nitrogen bubbles coming into our body,\u201d said NBG Navy Diver 2nd Class (DSW\/SW) Mark Dvorak. \u201cThose nitrogen bubbles can accumulate around your spine or brain, and they can cause multiple maladies\u2014personality changes, paralysis, unconsciousness, and death. What we do here is recompress the bubbles, allow time for re-absorption while flooding the body with 100 percent oxygen, allowing it to heal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bressie suffered from spinal cord decompression sickness, partial paralysis, and severe hip pain. After three weeks of intensive care at U.S. Naval Hospital Guam and 17 six-hour oxygen treatments at the NBG Dive Locker, he was able to independently leave the treatment chamber.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first three or four rides in the chamber, I don\u2019t remember,\u201d said Bressie, a Guam resident. \u201cI was in so much pain. But as the rides got a long, they got better. I could remember the people; I could remember them taking real good care of me. I couldn\u2019t ask for anything better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The experience for Bressie was an emotional one that restored his ability to walk after being paralyzed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese people here and the doctors are very professional; know what they\u2019re doing and how to do it and how to get the results from it,\u201d he said. \u201cAs it went along, my days in the hospital got better; I got better at this and I told the master diver, \u2018I\u2019m going to walk in there and I\u2019m going to walk out.\u2019 And I finally did that. I can\u2019t praise these guys enough that they gave up so much of their time for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

NBG Command Master Diver, Master Chief Diver (MDV) Rodney Atherton said the dive chamber on NBG is the only one in the region that serves to treat both military and civilian personnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur main mission here is to serve the civilian population and military population and all of the active duty that are actually getting qualified here [in] Guam,\u201d Atherton said. \u201cWe have a huge pool of people and probably one of the largest in all of the military that sees so many dives and then, on top of that, so many diving injuries. Without this chamber, there would be so many people hurt and no ability to get treated. We\u2019re part of this island; these are our brothers and sisters underwater and even though we\u2019re military and they\u2019re civilian, we\u2019re all part of one team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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