Flying And The Bends; September 1997; Scientific American Magazine; by Zorpette; 2 Page(s)

Richard D. Vann is addressing the guinea pigs, including me. "For this study to be successful," he says, "somebody¿s got to get some decompression sickness. We don¿t know if it¿s going to be today, or if it will be any of you, but someone is going to get it."

Well, actually, in the four years the study has been going on at the Hyperbaric Center at Duke University Medical Center, 22 people have been "bent" during some 580 trials. But if you are going to get bent, this is the place to do it; the Duke center is one of the best for both clinical treatment of, and research into, the illnesses caused by decompression, which can cause nitrogen to bubble out of solution in the blood. And besides, only mild bends are expected.