Principles of Critical Care, 3e > Part XI. Special Problems in Critical Care > Chapter 112. Diving Medicine and Near Drowning Claude A. Piantadosi,  Steven D. Brown

Key Points

"Recreational activities involving water are enjoyed by millions of swimmers, boaters, and divers of all ages with various degrees of physical skill and judgment. However, the water environment is deceptively hazardous, and too often, swimmers or divers venture into peril with deadly results. In many situations, they ignore their physical limitations or impair their faculties with alcohol or other drugs. In other situations, such as with young children, the encounter with water is unsupervised or unexpected and frequently results in death by drowning. There are millions of recreational divers and many more recreational swimmers in the United States, which translates to thousands of diving accidents, drowning, and near drowning (ND) episodes each year. The exact number of such aquatic incidents and their effect on the health care system are difficult to estimate, but there may be more than 80,000 episodes per year in the United States. Victims often survive the incident only to die hours or days later in the hospital. Thus, the intensive care specialist should be knowledgeable about the clinical consequences and management of diving accidents and ND...."