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S
aba is a small island, with fewer than
2,000 residents in its 5 square miles
of steep forested mountains. Lovingly
referred to by its inhabitants as the
“Unspoiled Queen of the Caribbean,” the
diminutive Dutch municipality attracts
tens of thousands of tourists to its scenic vistas and
pristine waters each year. Most visitors to Saba return
home with stories about the volcanoes they climbed,
the reefs they explored and the locals they met. Most
will not have had any reason to use the island’s medical
facilities. But the unfortunate few who do become sick
or injured on Saba will find themselves in good hands.
Such was the case during last winter’s Saba Day —
an annual islandwide celebration of local culture —
when a local dive operation activated emergency
medical services (EMS) to investigate a possible case
of decompression sickness (DCS) on one of its boats.
The diver had recently surfaced after a moderately
aggressive dive when symptoms began. By the time
the dive boat arrived at the pier, medical personnel
were waiting to assess the patient’s symptoms
and administer oxygen. The patient demonstrated
signs and symptoms that suggested a mild case of
neurological DCS.
While there’s no such thing as a good day to get the
bends, this was as close to that as possible: Three DAN®
representatives were in Saba, and for the first day in
years a fully staffed and operational hyperbaric chamber
was only meters away. If the incident had occurred any
earlier, the diver would have needed to be evacuated to a
neighboring island, but this was the day the staff at Saba’s
Fort Bay chamber had completed their formal training
through DAN’s Recompression Chamber Assistance
Program (RCAP) and was prepared to receive patients.
The process of reopening the chamber began when
Kai Wulf, parks manager for the Saba Conservation
Foundation and longtime DAN supporter, applied for
a DAN RCAP grant. RCAP is an International DAN
(IDAN) initiative designed to provide assistance to
recompression chambers in need and, through the
international DAN organizations, has served more than
120 underfunded chambers around the world since its
inception. Typically these chambers are on small islands
in remote locations and are sustained by whatever
money they make treating patients or by charging
nominal fees through local dive operations. DAN
provides RCAP grant beneficiaries with the training,
equipment and emergency support they need to deliver
quality care to injured divers.
Saba’s chamber is a perfect example of the type of
operation poised to benefit from RCAP. Donated by
the Netherlands to Saba in 1991, the decommissioned
naval chamber is humble but well maintained and
ELEVATING THE STANDARD OF CARE
By Nicole Berland
In late 2015, as part of
DAN’s Recompression
Chamber Assistance Program
(RCAP), DAN sent staff
to Saba to help improve
medical care for divers.
MATÍAS NOCHETTO