Why did it take so long to take surviving miner into hyperbaric chamber?

[dogindia]

It seems that this should have been done immediately. Was it not a problem of carbon monoxide poisoning. Looks like miner are treated like the poor of New Orleans. Why was a chamber not ready in West Virginia? Why do they not have a rolling air controlled rescue vehicle to go down into mines quickly?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/05/opinion/05thu1.html

[MadisonProgressive]

1. Are you a doctor?

[Botany]

2. His symptoms might not have shown he needed it ....

.... when they got him to the local hospital. I am sure the Drs. there were watching him
24 / 7 ..... besides he is young and his body might not have manifested symptoms
until later.

i hope he pull through.

[madrchsod]

3. coal is worth more than a miners life

it always has been since men went into the earth to mine her riches

[Coastie for Truth]

5. I grew up in the same coal seam

just over the border in PA - that's the way it's always been.

It's just the multiple deaths that make national tv. We never hear about the single deaths and amputations - or the black lung and emphysema (my Dad was a UMWA lawyer in the Western PA coal fields).

[benburch]

4. Why no good rescue equipment?

Money, hunny.

As for the hyperbaric chamber; Those are rare bits of expensive hospital equipment that hardly ever pay for their own upkeep. Mostly they are used for burn patients.

[oneighty]

7. I was a Hyperbaric Technician

It was very common to treat Carbon Monoxide poisoning in the chamber. Treatment was generally quite successful. I never treated a burn patient but I suppose it is possible.

180

[benburch]

8. Hyperbaric oxygen limits the progression of burn injuries.

And also assists lungs that are themselves burned from inhalation of hot gas. I was unaware that CO poisoning was a more common use, though. I know about this because I had a friend long ago who was a firefighter and was badly burned and who was taken to a hyperbaric chamber facility. (He did not make it.)

[oneighty]

9. HBO

Promotes healing of non-healing wounds, sugar sores, gas gangrene and yes smoke inhalation. Your fire fighter was most likely admitted for smoke inhalation. As I say I have no experience in burn treatment in a hyperbaric chamber. I suspect HBO burn treatment would be a waste of time as is much of HBO to be right honest.

180

[unkachuck]

6. maybe because....

....he's the only one who can say what really happened....