Shock trauma's hyperbaric chamber ready 24/7 to treat Key Bridge collapse responders

BALTIMORE -- Divers have been a main component of Key Bridge salvage operations since the collapse, and while nothing's happened yet, one Baltimore hospital has been at the ready to support them.

The Center for Hyperbaric and Dive Medicine operates out of R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy is a go-to for dive injuries. 

This center is Maryland's only 24/7 emergency hyperbaric chamber. People even go across state lines for it.

Last September, Christina Paxton took a two-hour ambulance ride to the center shortly after a trip to Honduras. She had done some diver certification tests on that trip.

"I had two 30-foot dives and a 60-foot dives 26 hours before my flight," Paxton told WJZ over Zoom.

She started feeling symptoms the morning after she got home.

"The whole room spun, just vertigo, I have never experienced in my life. Then I experienced some tingling, like pins and needles, in both hands and feet," Paxton said.

Paxton, who lives in Virginia and is a nurse, went for a checkup with a doctor at the hospital she works at.

"[He] kind of ran through the scenario and he was like, we need to get you up to Baltimore," Paxton said.

Paxton ended up having decompression sickness and had to go through two rounds of treatment in the chamber.

"They say the worse the symptoms are, the more dives you might need to correct it," she said.

The term "dive" is often used because the chamber is pressurized to replicate a certain depth. Patients are then treated with high doses of oxygen.

That oxygen is administered through a head tent the patient wears. Each round of treatment lasts several hours.

While hyperbaric oxygen therapy is often known for treating diving injuries, it also can treat carbon monoxide poisoning, gangrene, and even radiation tissue damage.

"It reduces the amount of inflammation that the body is undergoing, with all kinds of different conditions," said Dr. Kinjal Sethuraman, the Medical Director for the center and is an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "So, it's an extremely powerful anti-inflammatory."

Sethuraman said the center's hyperbaric chamber is the only one of its size in the state and region -- providing care for patients from Virginia, Pennsylvania, and even New Jersey.

But, since it's also open 24/7, it's also the only one at the ready for emergencies. This makes it a vital resource as crews continue to work on the Key Bridge salvage operations.

"We were called by the Access Center of the University of Maryland to make sure that we were available and open," Sethuraman said. "Our priority is to be available for any kind of dive injury that our coast guard, fire department, or police department partake in."

The center is available for anyone else who needs it, like Paxton.

Recalling her trip last year, Paxton said the staff "knew I would get there late and they were prepared to stay all night."

The chamber can fit more than 20 people at a time. 

Patients are always with a nurse or therapist during treatment.