A Rhode Island construction worker received life-saving treatmentafter being exposed to carbon monoxide last week, thanks to St.Francis Hospital's hyperbaric chamber.
Bain Edmundson, 49, of Barrington, R.I., an employee of RoscitiConstruction Group, was hospitalized last Tuesday after being foundunresponsive in his hotel room.
Edmundson and co-workers were staying at the Holiday Inn Expressalong Corridor G. A ventilation pipe, meant to send fumes producedby the hotel's pool gas heater to the roof, was disconnected andpumped carbon monoxide into some guest rooms.
Edmundson's roommate, William Moran, 44, of Warwick, R.I., waspronounced dead at the scene.
Edmundson was originally transported to Charleston Area MedicalCenter's General Hospital before being transferred to St. Francis.That hospital has the only critical-care hyperbaric chamber unit inWest Virginia. Other than it, the closest emergency hyperbaricchamber unit is in Pittsburgh.
"Every minute can make a difference when you're looking at losingbrain and heart tissue," said Dr. Lester Labus, Edmundson's doctorat St. Francis.
When patients are exposed to carbon monoxide, molecules of thecolorless, odorless gas bond to hemoglobin, the oxygen-carryingprotein in red blood cells. The carbon monoxide bonds so tightly thehemoglobin can't carry oxygen any longer, slowly suffocating theperson.
Labus said it's almost like a stroke or a heart attack exceptoxygen is cut off to the entire brain and heart, not just a portionof those organs.
Unfortunately, carbon monoxide is also difficult to remove fromthe body.
Labus said it takes about five hours for a patient to get rid ofhalf the carbon monoxide in their body by breathing normal room air.That time drops to about 45 minutes if patients breathe pure oxygen,but even that's too long to wait.
Carbon monoxide reaches its half life in about 23 minutes whenpatients are in a hyperbaric chamber breathing pure oxygen. Thepressure helps the oxygen to dissolve in their blood streams.
Edmundson came to St. Francis with 42 percent carbon monoxide inhis blood.
"His exposure was tremendous," Labus said.
Most people have zero carbon monoxide in their blood. Smokershave 4 to 9 percent, with the percentage increasing as they smokemore.
Patients start showing mild symptoms when their carbon monoxidelevels are between 10 and 20 percent, Labus said. Those can includenausea, fatigue and headaches.
At 20 percent and up, more serious symptoms begin. Patientsexperience seizures or die when carbon monoxide levels in theirblood reach 50 or 60 percent.
After one treatment, Edmundson's levels dropped from 42 to 0.7percent.
Patients with carbon monoxide poisoning usually receive up tofive treatments, depending on the level of exposure, Labus said.Some need only one 90-minute treatment. Edmundson needed three.
Hyperbaric chambers originally were used to treat diverssuffering from decompression sickness, or "the bends."
If divers resurface too fast, their bodies don't have time toadjust to the pressure change and nitrogen bubbles form in theirblood. Those tiny bubbles can cause big problems, includingexcruciating joint pain, paralysis, breathing problems and muscledeath.
The hyperbaric chamber allows divers to relive the dive andresurface correctly. The air pressure shrinks the nitrogen bubblesand they dissolve as patients slowly "submerge."
Eventually, doctors began to find other uses for the chamber.
Labus said the St. Francis chamber is used mostly to treat woundscaused by radiation treatments and diabetes. The pressurized oxygenhelps create new blood vessels and allows oxygen to travel to tissueit normally cannot reach.
Once patients are fully "submerged," the pressure on his or herbody is the same as if they were 66 feet under the sea.
"You're diving. Your body doesn't know the difference between airand water pressure," said Amanda Habbox, a registered respiratorytherapist in St. Francis' hyperbaric unit.
It takes half an hour for the chamber to pressurize, and the sameamount of time for it to decompress.
Patients remain "at depth" for 90 minutes. They pass the time bytalking to nurses through the intercom system or watchingtelevision. The TV is on the outside of the chamber but nurses canpatch the audio through the chamber's intercom system.
"Any movie you want, we go to the video store and get what youwant," Habbox said.
Forget about bringing reading material, though.
Compressed air is extremely volatile, especially when compressionlevels are as great as they are in hyperbaric chambers: Over a tonof air pressure is pushing on the door when the chamber is at depth.
Habbox said one hospital saw its chamber's door blow off, gothrough a wall and into a parking lot below. In 2009, a grandmotherand her grandson were killed at a Fort Lauderdale clinic when aspark caused the chamber to explode.
To prevent accidents, patients in the St. Francis chamber mustwear 100 percent cotton clothes, cannot wear make up, hair spray orjewelry and cannot bring outside objects into the chamber.
TOM HINDMAN/DAILY MAIL Amanda Habbox, a registered respiratorytherapist in St. Francis hyperbaric chamber unit, communicates withpatients through an intercom system. Patients also can watchtelevision through the glass. Audio from the TV is patched intospeakers inside the hyperbaric chamber.
TOM HINDMAN/DAILY MAIL St. Francis hyperbaric chamber can treattwo patients at a time. One sits near the front, the other sits inthe back. Each treatment takes more two hours.
Contact writer Zack Harold at 304-348-7939 or zack.harold@dailymail.com. Follow him at www.twitter.com/ZackHarold.
