MIAMI – It’s estimated that up to 4 million people in the United States participate in recreational diving and the coast of Southeast Florida, from Palm Beach to the Keys, is the busiest diving area of the world.
A world-renowned program in Miami is helping scuba divers recover from decompression illness, a dangerous dive-related injury.
Daniel Garate is no novice to scuba diving.
He’d been taking the plunge for nearly a decade.
Then, while out on a fishing trip with friends in the spring of 2021, he surfaced too quickly.
“We were taking pictures of the fish -- all of this started burning and I couldn’t hold the fish so I knew something was wrong,” Garate said.
Once back at the marina, he was rushed to Mercy Hospital to be treated for decompression illness, the result of a buildup of nitrogen in the body during assent.
“If that nitrogen is not released it can go anywhere from the skin, to the joints, to the brain, to the spinal cord,” said Dr. Ivan Montoya, Director of the Mercy Hospital Hyperbaric and Wound Care Center.
That’s where hyperbaric oxygen therapy comes in.
It can decrease the nitrogen bubbles in the body that cause the damage.
Montoya, who has headed the center since its inception in the late 1980s, said Garate’s case was one of the more serious cases he’s seen.
“He was paralyzed. He still has some residual symptoms but he was able to recover a lot because we do have cases where they come in, and most of the time the reason they don’t improve is because they come in too late,” Montoya said.
He said the timing for seeing benefits from hyperbaric oxygen therapy depends on the severity of the decompression injury.
“But we treat no matter what. And you definitely see improvement with delayed treatment,” Montoya said.
Garate underwent intensive hyperbaric and physical therapy for two months and slowly recovered his mobility.
“The therapy was really life changing,” he said.
While he hasn’t lost his love of the water, Garate said his scuba diving days are over.
“I’m happy to be able to walk, to be able to exercise, just go about my day like I was before the accident,” he said.
Along with decompression illness, divers can also suffer damage to the inner ear, sinuses and lungs.