There's a presentation of DCS from 350 divers who recovered a plane wreck at Duke on Thursday evening from 6:30pm onward.


The Medical Aspects of the Recovery of TWA Flight 800


Dr. Joseph C. White

Medical Director

Long Island Hyperbarics

Joseph T Mather Memorial Hospital, Port Jefferson, NY



Thursday, October 11th, 6:30pm Rauch Conference Room Duke South (one floor above the hyperbaric chamber)



On July 17, 1996, about 20:31 EDT, Trans World Airlines (TWA) Flight 800, a Boeing 747-131, crashed in the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York. All 230 people on board were killed, and the airplane was destroyed.

Search and recovery operations by Scuba divers and remotely operated vehicles were conducted by federal, state, and local agencies, as well as their contractors. The operation was one of the largest search and rescue operations ever conducted. A total of 350 divers conducted more than 4000 surface and decompression dives on the 117 foot deep wreckage field. 10 surface supplied divers, 8 scuba divers and one tender required treatment for decompression illness. The remains of all 230 victims and over 95% of the airplane wreckage were eventually recovered. The wreckage is now permanently stored in a facility in a NTSB facility in Ashburn, Virginia which was custom built for the purpose and the reconstructed aircraft is used to train accident investigators. Dr. White is the medical director of the hyperbaric chamber at the Joseph P Mather Memorial Hospital in Port Jefferson, NY. In his presentation he will describe some of the unusual medical aspects of this massive recovery effort.


Also, they're looking for men 35+ to do an astronaut study. Seriously. I've done one of their studies before, but this one is different: you prebreathe O2, then they take you to like 30k feet to simulate being in a space suit. This can also cause DCS, but to repressure you, you just return to sea level.

I'm going to both the presentation and am going talk to the guys about the NASA study ( I always wanted to be a space man!).

Link to the NASA study: http://dan.org/research/projects/nasa/index.asp

Sounds like a very interesting presentation. Tell them to come down to Tampa next :D

If there's an unlimited supply of Tang and a simulated 10 to 1 countdown in the chamber, I'm in.

I wish i could attend that; it sounds fascinating. Maybe a transcript will be posted.

If there's an unlimited supply of Tang and a simulated 10 to 1 countdown in the chamber, I'm in.

Heh, cool- I'll ask them about that tomorrow. I think they're hungry for new subjects in our age group (they're done with women and young men) and if I say another will sign up if he gets tang, and a countdown, I'm sure they'll accommodate you.

I'm going to the presentation early tomorrow because they told me they'll be doing one of the EVA tests that afternoon and I want to observe (and I'll see if they have any tang lying around).

I wish i could attend that; it sounds fascinating. Maybe a transcript will be posted.

Much of DAN's stuff is available on their website http://dan.org but much of it you have to be a member to get.

However, I don't know about this one since it is from a different organization. If there's a printed version, I'll pick it up.

Much of DAN's stuff is available on their website http://dan.org but much of it you have to be a member to get.

However, I don't know about this one since it is from a different organization. If there's a printed version, I'll pick it up.

That would very cool.:smthumbup:

Wow, glad I didn't eat.

More than half the presentation was about the identification of bodies. Bodies from a plane that exploded 13,000 feet in the air, then fell into water are... hard to identify as bodies at all. Lots of pictures, xrays, etc.

On the DCS side, was pretty interesting that only two scuba divers got bent; most of the surface-supplied guys are the ones who got hit. They suspect part of it was because they were using heated suits at depth.