We started Fri, and finished up yesterday. I was assisting with up to 8 students, on various specialties. Deep, night, multi-level, navigation, etc. Weather was nice on Fri, but was colder and much windier for the rest of the weekend.

24 year old male student. Reasonably fit. His current level is AOW. On Sat. morning, the primary instructor took 2 students down for Deep Diver 2 dive. I was acting as shore support for that particular dive. If you've dived Blue Hole, you know it's a constant 61-63 degree water. Air temp at the time was about 45, but with a steady 15mph wind, and gusting to 25. So, as soon as you're out of the water, you're freezing.

We all went into the warming room to do just that, and perform debrief. Student went into the shower room, and got under the shower. For those who don't know, it's a problem with the showers that the water well exceeds safe temperatures, but that's a different story. It's just freakin' hot. He'd let the hot water run over his wetsuit, and then backed out some to start opening up his wetsuit. At this time, there was an AI that happened to be in the shower room at the same time; no other staff was in there. The student started to feel light headed, and lost the use of his left arm. Thankfully, he got the AI's attention before he collapsed.

The AI came out and notified us of what had happened, and we immediately checked on him. Of course, we're all Rescue trained as Instructors, but it was good that one of our other students was an EMT. I went outside and grabbed our oxygen kit, and we started him on O2. At no time did he lose conciousness. After 15 minutes or so, he regained the use of his arm and hand.

We had multiple Instructors and AIs on hand. We sent the initial AI with a staff instructor to take him to the local hospital. *At this point, any further information was relayed to me, and is not first hand knowledge.* It was relayed to us that they continued to have him on O2 at the hospital, as well as put him on an IV; I can only assume saline. They X-rayed his chest, but I have no knowledge if they found anything. The hospital staff was on the phone with DAN and the hospital at Albequerque. We found out later that the 2 instructors drove the student ALL THE WAY to Colo. Spgs, where his girlfriend drove him the rest of the way to Denver, to go to the chamber.

Apparently, and even the ABQ dive shop didn't know, that either the chamber at UNM is down, or was completely removed. Kind of important information when we used that info for our EAPs.

It's the belief of most of us that the student simply vasovagal'd when he had the hot water hit his body, hence the near black out. We suspect he probably had a small bubble come out of solution and struck his brachial nerve, to cause the tempororary paralysis of the left arm.

I'll be talking to staff at the shop this morning to see what the final word is on the student.

IIRC hot showers, hot tubs, and what not are frowned upon immediately after a dive because of the increased risk of DCS. Temperature has an effect in on loading and off loading of nitrogen in adipose(fat) tissue.

There are quite a few chambers in operation nationwide.   The issue is the majority do not do emergency treatment.  The chambers are used for wound therapy etc.  The real problem is that responders do not know which ones handle emergencies, they simply have a list of chambers.  
DAN is aware and supposedly working on it.

Indeed the case.

UPDATE: Student is fine. As a precaution, they took him on a single 3 hour "dive", just to be safe.

I imagine the risk is considerably higher with the temperature extremes described here.

Sounds like they need a temperature blending valve on those showers pdq.  Glad the student is fine.  I spent a lot of time out there during my days at Tech.

Any final updates?

Dove the Blue Hole quite often back when I used to assist as a Divemaster.  Pretty scary that the nearest chamber was no longer accessible and the dive shops weren’t notified considering how popular that place is.

I really miss diving.

Did that chamber ever offer treatment for DCS?

It isn't the treatment facility's responsibility to advise a business of their status.
Dive shop should be aware...moral of the story, every diver NEEDS to know where to go where ever they dive.

DAN will not post a list of treatment chambers.....they have their reasons (they want you call them is the short answer).   I disagree though due to the lack of information available to the average guy.

The other question I have is...driving to Denver with DCS (or suspected case).  Mile high city right?
Even a heli will do their best to keep altitude as low as possible. Here in FL no more than 1000'

After 911, call
+1-919-684-9111

DAN knows where the chambers are.