Acute oxygen toxicity in a saturation diver working in the North Sea

A commercial diver taking part in a saturation dive (O2-He) was exposed intermittently to 1.4 b of oxygen for a total of 55 h. He developed the syndrome associated with oxygen pulmonary toxicity. Detailed pulmonary function spirometry tests before and after the incident showed that a significant decrease in the forced vital capacity and forced expired volume in 1 s occurred and full recovery was at this time not present 12 weeks after the incident, although by this time he demonstrated a high state of cardiopulmonary fitness. These findings indicate that the lung damage caused by acute oxygen toxicity take more than 12 weeks to disappear, but the condition does seem to be reversible.