Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Dylan16807 661 days ago
I'm really surprised by that. Looking at some charts, depending on the dive you're probably spending 30 minutes or less going from 2atm to 1atm, but now you need several hours or even a day before it's safe to go to .75atm.
2 comments

There are wide safety margins in diving. Most dive trips involve multiple dives per day (starting with deepest dive first, with subsequent dives shallower). The times I’ve gone deeper or same depth on subsequent dives my computer usually puts me into deco fairly quickly. At some point subsequent dives aren’t feasible (typically no more than 4-5/day, less is prudent). I think it is with this in mind that the recommendation against flying is made, along with an abundance of caution due to limited experimental evidence (Navy dive tables were developed based on human subjects, so the effects are better understood). It looks like there are some civilian studies done, but more is needed on flying.

https://dan.org/health-medicine/health-resources/diseases-co...

We'd spend more time, but it's difficult to loiter 10m underwater. The residual gas from a dive takes about a day to release, and this impacts both follow-up dives and flights. Treatment options are different as well: an airlift (or just diving again and surfacing slower) vs diverting a whole flight.