He missed a crucial stop but a doc was there at the next

Thiruvananthapuram: As Ratheesh Kumar, the fire and rescue officer at Vizhinjam station makes a slow and steady recovery after decompression sickness nearly paralysed him, his colleagues are thankful to the doctor who saved him.
“Dr Ajith Kumar was the best person to save our man and thankfully he was available. Dr Ajith would liaise with specialists from the Navy throughout the therapy. He kept us updated on his progress. We are now sure of his full recovery,” says Rajesh MG, regional fire officer, Institute of Advanced Training in Water Rescue, Fort Kochi.
The incident involving Ratheesh happened on the 6th day of a scuba diving camp organised at a 15-metre-deep quarry pond at Pothencode.
Ratheesh was taken to the SP Fort Hospital in a semi-coma state with weakness in upper and lower right limb and an inability to speak after a minor miscalculation proved nearly fatal. He had missed the safety stop (a brief stop mandated before the final ascent of a dive to release the absorbed Nitrogen from the body) during the ascent after the dive.
During ascent, he had seen a flicker of light and thought he was near the surface and he shot up rapidly. When he surfaced, his colleagues knew something was amiss. His head was sliding over and he couldn’t lift his left eyelid.
At the hospital, Dr Ajith was quick to arrive at the diagnosis: Decompression sickness, a known danger in scuba diving when inert gases in the body form bubbles in the tissues due to sudden variation in pressure.
The treatment began in 10 minutes because time was precious. The bubbles formed could be dangerous and nobody knew it better than Dr Ajith who was trained at the IAF’s Institute of Aerospace Medicine at Bengaluru.
Dr Ajith and his team started subjecting Ratheesh to sessions of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy in a chamber where Oxygen is used to reduce the size of the bubbles and to eliminate them and the excess dissolved gases.
“On the first day of therapy, he moved his legs, the next day he stood on his feet and after 48 hours he started to speak slowly. The diagnosis was crucial. MRI was normal and there was no evidence of stroke. Given his diving background, it had to be DC,” says Dr Ajith.
Dr Ajith said Ratheesh will be ready for scuba diving in another three months.