A commercial diver with severe decompression sickness is in a serious but stable condition in a Durban hospital after he was airlifted from the South African border with Mozambique on Thursday.
It is understood that the 44-year-old man had been on a training dive at a depth of 60 metres in the waters off Ponta de Ouro in southern Mozambique on Wednesday. The diver had been forced to surface rapidly‚ leaving him stricken with decompression sickness.
He was then rushed by ambulance from the dive site across the border to a state hospital in Manguzi.
IPSS Medical Rescue spokesman Paul Herbst said that they‚ along with the Black Eagle Aviation medical helicopter‚ had been called in to airlift the gravely ill diver.
“We were able to fly to the district hospital and stabilise the man before airlifting him to the Netcare St Augustine’s hospital for treatment in the hyperbaric chamber‚” he added.
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