A DIVER suffering from decompression symptoms had to be driven 150kms to be treated, it has emerged.
Roberto Logica, an Italian living in Letterkenny, was diving with a friend when they got into difficulties on Lough Salt on Thursday evening.
“The other diver was hit by severe nitrogen narcosis which is an effect of breathing air at high depths,” he said of the incident.
“That’s why for high depth dives we usually breath mixes of gases with addition of helium and reduction of nitrogen rather than air. Following the narcosis he panicked and surfaced too quickly.
“He had decompression sickness symptoms meaning that he had to go asap into a hyperbaric chamber or he would have risked permanent paralysis.”
He said his friend was taken to Letterkenny General Hospital – but they had no way of treating him.
“They didn’t have the facilities so a friend and I had to drive him to Craigavon in Co Armagh where he was put in a decompression chamber for six hours. Thankfully he came out fine and out of danger.”
