A U.S. Coast Guard air crew came to the rescue of a recreational diver Saturday when the diver began to experience symptoms of decompression sickness.
Coast Guard Sector New Orleans received the call around 2:30 p.m. that a 60-year-old man was in medical distress, approximately 36 miles south of Port Fourchon.
Watchstanders dispatched a Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter, which landed on a nearby offshore oil platform where the diver was located.
The crew loaded the patient and flew him to West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero, where the diver was last reported in stable condition.
Decompression sickness, commonly known as the bends, is caused when gases dissolved in a diver's bloodstream emerge from solution, forming bubbles. It can be caused by divers ascending too rapidly, or by not taking stops during ascent after a prolonged period at depth.
It is treated by placing the patient in a decompression chamber, where pressure is increased until the bubbles dissolve back into the bloodstream, and then pressure is gradually decreased until it reaches ambient pressure without causing bubbles to form.
