FROM THE DEPTHS OF DESPAIR
DIVER’S INCREDIBLE STORY OF RECOVERY
A DUTCH diver rendered a quadriplegic during a freak deep- sea accident can now walk again after undergoing a radical treatment done only twice in Townsville in 10 years.
Steven Verbiest, 70, has been an active diver for 45 years but feared for his life after surfacing too quickly from a dive off a remote atoll in the Pacific Ocean last month.
Mr Verbiest and his wife Dineke spent 10 days anchored at the Nuguria Atoll, 130 nautical miles from Buka in northeastern Papua New Guinea, diving and exploring the area.
On April 17, on a dive that reached a depth of 32m, Mr Verbiest was forced to surface rapidly in strong currents and knew immediately he was in trouble.
“We were diving in quite a wide channel and we got caught in a strong outflowing current,” Mr Verbiest said. “When we unhooked from the reef ( at 9m) the current took us up and down quite violently before we both surfaced. “I felt tingling in my hands and feet and I knew immediately that something was wrong.” Finding shallower water, Mr Verbiest went back under to a depth of about 5m next to his anchor for about 20 minutes and resurfaced feeling better. That night a huge lightning storm woke the couple and Mr Verbiest went outside to secure their boat. “I went outside and everything was fine but suddenly my left leg just went out from under me,” he said. “I used the satellite phone to call one of our friends who is a GP back home in Holland for advice and I guess in the back of our minds we always knew the bends was a possibility. “Given how far away we were from anywhere and how long it would take to get help it was quite scary.” The couple pulled anchor and sailed 20 hours to reach the nearest airstrip in Papua New Guinea, before boarding a special pressurised aeromedical evacuation plane for Australia.
They arrived at the Townsville Hospital emergency department on April 19.
Doctors rushed Mr Verbiest to the hyperbaric medicine unit, which treats neurological or spinal injuries, to administer a rarely used and aggressive treatment known as a Comex 30.
For director of hyperbaric medicine Dr Chris Jelliffe, it was only the second time in his decade- long career at the unit at Townsville that the technique had been used.
“This is the most aggressive treatment available to people with decompression sickness when we are concerned about an extremely severe neurological injury,” he said.
“It is a prolonged treatment
I WENT FROM HAVING NO SENSATION OR MOVEMENT WHEN I WENT IN TO COMING OUT WITH MOVEMENT AND SENSATION. STEVEN VERBIEST
of more than seven hours where we administer a 50- 50 mix of oxygen and helium while replicating a diving depth of 30m.
“We use a high pressure of oxygen to remove nitrogen bubbles from the tissues but it is a risky treatment and not the sort of thing we do lightly.”
Mr Verbiest said when the treatment finished in the early hours of April 20 the impact was immediate.
“I went from having no sensation or movement when I went in to coming out with movement and sensation,” he said.
“I thought in my mind the leg was a goner and I was just trying to get it right in my mind that I’d done my last dive.”
Today, after about 20 treatments in the chamber, Mr Verbiest is back on his feet with almost complete mobility.
Dr Jelliffe said it had been a remarkable recovery.
“He was basically a quadriplegic and he’s now walking,” he said.
“We are as confident as we can be at this stage that he’ll be able to leave Townsville with no change to his quality of life.”
Mr Verbiest and his wife left Townsville on Friday with hopes of retuning to their catamaran Pikuditu to fulfil their dream dives on the Great Barrier Reef. The couple credits having access to a satellite phone and their medical staff overseas and in Townsville for saving Mr Verbiest’s life.
In the first quarter of 2018, 14 divers have required emergency medical treatment at the Townsville Hospital’s hyperbaric medicine unit.
These cases came from PNG, the southwest Pacific, North Queensland and south to Rockhampton.