Anyone Can Get Bent, So Get Insured

In May 2022, my son and I went diving on Cayman Brac. On his first dive, he got bent.

It was a benign dive, 84 feet max., only a short time below 50-60 feet, 42 minutes total time, no rapid ascent, and a five-minute safety stop, as we verified on his computer. The calm water was 82°F. He is a healthy 54, with 40 years of diving and never any problems. Shortly after reboarding, he noted tingling in his lower back and legs. He was wise enough to report it immediately.

The crew was fantastic; they got underway, began 100 percent 02, contacted shore base, and had an ambulance waiting at the nearest dock - maybe 15 minutes. Then to the local medical clinic, which put him in ER with 02 and IV. The only operational chamber is on Grand Cayman.

By evening, his symptoms had abated, so we returned to the rental house. However, early the next morning, his symptoms returned, so back to the hospital, where they began arrangements for Medevac to the main island and chamber. Sadly, the first two Medevac flights arrived and had to pick up more critical patients. So, it was evening before he could get to the hospital with the chamber and dive medical doctors.

By the time he arrived, they were "closed for the evening," so they scheduled the treatments for the next day and sent him out to find a place to stay. The next day the chamber treatments appeared to resolve his problems, but he could not fly for 72 hours, so he was stuck in his hotel. After returning home, he experienced more mild numbness in his legs and tingling in his toes, but nothing to restrict him, thankfully. Several weeks later, he underwent two more chamber treatments, although it's unlikely to eliminate the lingering symptoms.

My Takeaways:

1. He was reluctant to go to the chamber immediately, as the symptoms were mild and appeared to be easing. Furthermore, he did not have DAN or other insurance.

2. As Undercurrent articles and other reports show, DCS is not common, especially when diving conservatively. And yet, as is often pointed out, one should never ignore symptoms, as we see is often the story in cases reported in Undercurrent, DAN, and other dive publications. In this case, he did not ignore the symptoms even though DCS seemed improbable from the dive profile.

3. Get dive insurance, not only so you won't avoid seeking proper medical aid but also so you won't get billed. My son's bills were $3563 for the Brac hospital, $1436 for the 98-mile Medevac flight, $4050 for the Grand Cayman chamber, plus additional hotel bills and a missed dive vacation.

4. Do not think "it won't happen to me," even though you are careful and have dived a great deal without problems.

- Ollie McClung (Birmingham, AL)

Editor's Note: We're grateful your son is all right, and though symptoms remain, they don't restrict him.

People without insurance often fear the cost of treatment, and therefore, postpone it too long. In fact, a 2017 Kaiser Family Foundation study showed that uninsured people are 3-6 times more likely to fail to get necessary health care than people with health insurance. For divers, both the Divers Alert Network and Dive Assure offer dive-specific policies. No diver should be uninsured.