You're the Flight Surgeon: Pulmonary Decompression Sickness
Abstract
You're the flight surgeon on call for about 1100 USAF pilots, boom operators, survival Instructors, and other special operational duty personnel as well as their family members at a KC-135 base in the northern tier of the U.S. You receive a call about a flyer who had an altitude chamber ride earlier in the day and was now being transported by ambulance to the hospital with chest pain and difficulty breathing. What do you do? Through a series of questions and answers, this article guides you through the diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up of this patient Diagnosis: Decompression sickness (DCS) with pulmonary symptoms (Type II DCS, older nomenclature). Treatment: Hyperbaric oxygen therapy under USAF TT6 or U.S. Navy TT6, which are both widely accepted as the ideal treatments for Type II DCS. The patient experienced a slight burning in his chest with slight cough upon return to ambient pressurization, so he was immediately taken down to 60 FSW and the U.S. Navy TT6 was repeated. Follow-up: The patient is put in a no-flying status for a week but will require no waiver because he has recovered uneventfully.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2008
- Accession Number
- ADA524241
Entities
People
- Blake D. Lollis
Organizations
- United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine