Pulmonary Barotrauma in Diving Accidents

Abstract

Pulmonary barotrauma (PBT) of ascent is a well known complication in compressed air diving. It amounts to 16% of decompression illness cases and is the second largest death in diving accidents .Clinical features of PBT are pulmonary overinflammation damage, pneumothorax, mediastinal emphysema, and the most serious sequela is the arterial gas embolism (AGE). In the respective survey, 6 cases of PBT were analysed. Clinical features of PBT were pulmonary overinflation (n=4), arterial gas embolism (n=1), and mediastinal emphysema (n=1). The reason of causing of PBT were breath-hold ascent (n=3), buoyancy ascent (n=2), emergency ascent (n=1). Clinical signs and symptoms onset time was less than 5 minutes after surfacing in 5 cases, in one case it was within 10 minutes. Precipitating dive factors were buoyancy ascent (n=2), emergency ascent (n=1), and breath-hold ascent (n=3). After US Navy Table 6A (hyperbarix oyxgen treatment table), 5 cases were cured .One coma case received US Navy Table 6A-1 with improvement only tinnitus residual symptom.