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The decompression of the atmosphere made the specific gravity of their bodies extraordinarily light, and they ran like hares and leaped like chamois. Leaving the devious windings of the footpath, they went as a crow would fly across the country. Hedges, trees, and streams were cleared at a bound, and under these conditions Ben Zoof felt that he could have overstepped Montmartre at a single stride.
Sandy cradled Tom's head in her lap, and Phyl held his hand sympathetically, while Doc Simpson injected a hypodermic to ease the pain. Chow steered the launch back to shore, and Tom was rushed to the base infirmary in an ambulance. Here he was placed in a decompression chamber for several hours and later transferred to a hospital bed. Bud Barclay came to visit him.
Benito then pulled the communication cord, and the men on the raft commenced to haul him in, but they worked slowly, taking a minute to draw him up two or three feet so as not to produce in his internal organs the dreadful effects of decompression. As soon as the young man had set foot on the raft the metallic sphere of the diving-dress was raised, and he took a long breath and sat down to rest.
The operation was sometimes performed upon animals. Shepherds trephined sheep for the staggers. We may say that the modern decompression operation, so much in vogue, is the oldest known surgical procedure. OUT of the ocean of oblivion, man emerges in history in a highly civilized state on the banks of the Nile, some sixty centuries ago.
The medic had given Bud a sedative and he was already fast asleep. Tom remained awake. "Aside from the pain, not in too bad shape," Doc Simpson replied. It turned out that Tom's case was not so serious, but Bud had to stay in bed. With Tom, it was only a matter of decompression and he soon was up and about.
This new route, very steep and hence very arduous, quickly took us close to the surface of the sea. But this return to the upper strata wasn't so sudden that decompression took place too quickly, which could have led to serious organic disorders and given us those internal injuries so fatal to divers.
Double tanks would have meant the boys would be able to stay down nearly twice as long, but would also have meant the nuisance of waiting through the decompression period of about thirteen minutes ten feet below the surface on the ascent. For this reason, the boys planned to dive with single tanks, leaving the spares on the surface.
They put on fresh tanks and got their instructions from Chief Sanders. "Longer decompression this time. Stick with me on the way up and move when I move. We don't want you to get the bends." The boys nodded their understanding, then took to the water. The frogmen below were still hosing sand.
Within moments, Bud had been tightly secured to the sling, which was reeled back up into the plane. Tom followed in a few minutes. Doc Simpson took charge of the patients immediately. After a quick examination, he had the boys placed in a small decompression chamber in the Sky Queen's sick bay. "How are they?" Hank asked anxiously as he peered through the window of the chamber.
There was an advantage to this particular capacity at the depth where they expected to dive; a diver could work only fifteen minutes at 120 feet without requiring decompression, and seventy cubic feet of air would last just long enough.
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