US EPA

8215691 

Technical Report 

Risk of Decompression Sickness in Shallow No-Stop Air Diving An Analysis of Naval Safety Center Data 1990-1994 

"Flynn, ET; Parker, EC; Ball, R" 

1998 

60 

"Naval Safety Center (NSC) dive and incident reports for calendar years 1990-1994 were analyzed to determine the risk of decompression sickness (DCS) in shallow no-stop air diving using current U.S. Navy no-decompression limits (USN57). Navy and Marine Corp divers performed 163,400 no-decompression dives between 21 and 55 feet of sea water (fsw) during this period and reported 48 incidents that could be interpreted as DCS. The overall DCS rate was 0.29 cases/i 000 dives. There was a clear pattern of increasing DCS risk with increasing bottom time. The DCS rate in the 4th quartile of USN57 no- decompression time (1.28 cases/i 000 dives) was nearly six times the rate in the 1st quartile (0.22 cases/lOOO dives). Nevertheless, the DCS rate even in the 4th quartile of USN57 no-decompression time was still quite low in absolute terms. The majority of the 48 incidents reported to NSC were labelled Type II DCS. This is in marked contrast to previous reports of military diving operations where Type I cases predominate." 

Safety | Sea water | Divers | Diving | Decompression sickness | Military operations | Risk | Navy | Time | Patterns | Bottom | Labeled substances | 01a1510