Trip to London Hyperbaric Chamber

Nine Mid Herts members opted to take a trip to experience a dry dive at the London Hyperbaric Chamber on Saturday 24th February 2024. We made our way to the chamber, located at Whipps Cross Hospital, East London with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.

The trip started with coffee and a general chat followed by an animated and entertaining pre-briefing by Wayne, one of the centre's experienced Supervisors. The most important instructions were perhaps "Clear your ears as often as possible" on our "descent", and "Remember to breathe normally" on the "ascent".

We then had to change into special 100% cotton surgical scrubs, looking somewhat like a bunch of extras from Casualty, before removing watches, phones and anything else which might cause an issue at pressure.

We then took our places on the very comfy seats inside the chamber, followed by a 30 minute simulated dive in the hyperbaric chamber to a "depth" of 40m. At the 40m depth mark, our voices had all risen an octave or two so it made for some entertaining banter. We had a brief opportunity to complete a short set of mental tests and a selection of practical challenges involving balloons and a shape-sorter toy to give us each a personal understanding of the effects of nitrogen narcosis on ourselves.

After just 15minutues at 40m, it was time to ascend, which caused a fog to develop as the pressure decreased, and we had a deco-stop with oxygen masks on to help us get rid of the Nitrogen in our bodies. Then another ascent and we were back at normal pressure. Our dive computers spent the trip in a bucket of water to test their accuracy. They did show a variance between them from 39.5 to 40.4m

We changed back into our clothes and had an extensive de-brief/lecture from the entertaining Wayne, including tucking into our packed lunches, before we were deemed safe to depart. It was agreed by all that it was a fun and informative experience, to be recommended.