86
|
WINTER 2014
I
n 2010, DAN employees Eric Douglas
and Matias Nochetto, M.D., traveled to
La Ceiba, Honduras, to conduct a safety
assessment of the hyperbaric chamber at
a local clinic. Their trip was a part of DAN’s
Recompression Chamber Assistance Program
(RCAP), a means for providing technical sup-
port, education and equipment for chambers
in remote locations. During that trip they wit-
nessed five cases of severe decompression illness
(DCI) in only three days.
As a result of their visit to La Ceiba, in the
Miskito Coast region of Honduras, Douglas
and Nochetto created the Harvesting Divers
Project, an initiative designed to reduce the
incidence of DCI and improve its outcomes
among divers who fish for lobster and other
B Y H E L E N A H O R A K , M . D .
A Miskito boy gives his father a cup
of water. Unless conditions improve
for lobster divers in the Miskito Coast,
the boy may have no better option
than to do the same kind of diving
that crippled his father.
Treating
DCS
IN
THE
MISKITO
COAST
EVAN KORNACKI
