Gas!

I was on a Basic Life Support training course today which set me off thinking about all sorts of things . . . is there enough room to do CPR in Carpe Diem? If there is enough room, how long could you carry on if everyone was in a drysuit? Not very long at all is my feeling!

Since there isn't sufficient room in the boat to lay someone totally flat, is it OK to put their legs over the tubes? The answer to this is yes, because during trauma the body returns blood to the core. If you have someone with a suspected bend (decompression illness or DCI) you raise their feet to encourage any gas bubbles to go to their feet rather than their heart or brain. Result, 2 problems and one solution, excellent!

We had quite a long discussion about DCI, which one or two folks didn't know very much about. When you dive, the added pressure of the water encourages more gas to dissolve in your blood stream. As you come back to the surface the pressure reduces and if you come back too quickly the gas in your blood forms bubbles - just like when you take the top off a fizzy drink. This is VERY bad for your health!

This is the bottle of fizz I used to demonstrate what I meant.