Complications of saturation diving.

The experience of 458 man-dives with 731 excursions between 50 m and 300 m carried out by Royal Navy saturation divers is summarized. During saturation decompression there were 6 treated bends and 33 reported niggles. Two bends occurred in dives deeper than 249 m and the remaining 4 bends occurred in dives where decompression began in much less than the saturation stop time after completion of downward excursions. There was one case of vestibular system decompression sickness after an excursion to 300 m. It is concluded that the decompression table is effective in use shallower than 150 m but that the risk increases with greater depth. There is, however, only limited experience in the deeper range. There is no evidence that chamber compression with air to 10 m adversely affects decompression from deeper than 50 m. An account of the medical and physiological conditions affecting divers in these dives is given.