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ONE OF THE MOST interesting aspects of the Wrigley marine lab is its scientific diving program. Researchers here routinely go underwater to observe organisms in their natural habitat and to collect samples.
According to dive safety officer Kevin Flanagan, USC divers collectively made almost 2,000 working dives spending more than 1,700 hours underwater in 1998. During that time, says Flanagan, “the most severe accident we had was when someone broke a mask and cut a hand. We had no accidents relating to pressure.”
Luck? Maybe some, but Flanagan works hard at safety. The salty, sandal-clad scuba expert – who oversaw almost 600 training dives last year – conducts scientific diving courses designed for researchers at Wrigley. Though he focuses on teaching specialized underwater scientific-sampling techniques, Flanagan never overlooks basic diving skills.
“In diving,” he says, “you can do the same thing 10 times in a row safely, and the 11th time of doing it the same way, you have a problem. You can do everything correctly – according to the decompression tables – and still have an accident. Diving is not as safe as sitting on a couch. What you have to do is work to minimize the risk.”
Isthmus Cove looks like a vision of paradise, and many scuba divers have literally been brought back from the dead here by the staff of USC’s Hypberbaric Chamber. When necessary, a mainland doctor can reach the chamber by helicopter in 20 minutes. |
SHOULD A DIVE go wrong, though, there’s no better place to be than Big Fisher-man’s Cove. That’s because the Wrigley Institute is home to the USC Hyperbaric Chamber, which serves the entire Channel Islands coastal area – one of the world’s most popular diving destinations.
The chamber’s purpose is to treat divers who suffer from decompression sickness, or the bends – a condition that occurs when a diver ascends from the depths too rapidly, causing nitrogen bubbles to form in tissues and block blood vessels. Victims of decompression sickness are given oxygen and “recompressed” in the hyperbaric chamber, then slowly brought back to normal atmospheric pressure.
A red phone at the end of the Wrigley dock rings the emergency line in the chamber to activate the emergency system. Baywatch paramedics keep a boat in Two Harbors ready to respond to diving (and other) accidents. When a diver suffering from decompression sickness enters the hyperbaric chamber, the paramedics use telemedicine technology – television and audio links – to communicate with emergency physicians on the mainland, based at Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center.
“It’s really easy to get spoiled out here because the response time is so quick,” says Flanagan. “We have to guard against complacency.”
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