Eight injured in an accident at the Navy diving center in Cartagena
Four of those affected are hospitalized in the ICU after an event in the hyperbaric complex
Quick Look
Eight members of the Navy diving center in Cartagena were injured in an accident at the hyperbaric complex, with four of them admitted to the ICU with a reserved prognosis.
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Why It Matters
The Navy diving center in Cartagena has 56 years of history and a staff of 90 people.
Eight members of the Navy diving center in Cartagena have been injured to varying degrees in an accident that occurred this Wednesday in the hyperbaric complex of that institution. As this newspaper has learned, four of them are hospitalized in the ICU.
Seven of them remain in the Santa Lucía Hospital in Cartagena: four, under observation, and three in the ICU, with a reserved prognosis. The other patient is admitted to the ICU at the Virgen de la Arrixaca Hospital with a reserved prognosis.
The hyperbaric chambers are used for divers to complete the decompression processes, although the members of the Navy were not inside the chambers but in the hyperbaric complex, performing an ambient exercise in cold waters.
The center is located at the La Algameca Naval Station, with a ship captain in command, and depends on the Admiralty for Maritime Action. It has two fixed hyperbaric chambers, as many portable ones, boats, autonomous diving equipment and surface supplies, underwater tools, side-scan sonar and remotely operated vehicles, as well as an infirmary for hyperbaric pathologies.
The cameras were used in 2021 to treat a civil guard and in 2008 to two military divers injured during dives.
Among the recent missions of the center, with 56 years of history and a staff of 90 people, especially divers, the refloating in 2019 of the Turia minehunter stands out, which ran aground in the Mar Menor while searching for the remains of a plane from the San Javier General Air Academy that crashed in August in which Commander Francisco Marín died, and the recovery of his body and the fragments of that aircraft.
The following month, rescue divers from that center also participated in the same waters in the extraction of the bodies of Commander Daniel Melero and Ensign Rosa María and the remains of the crashed training plane in which they trained.
The center participates in the national maneuvers Cartago (submarine rescue and rescue), Marsec (maritime security) and Esp Divex (underwater intervention) and makes three annual deployments in its area of responsibility for protection and recognition of submerged archaeological heritage, training in underwater repairs and diving in extreme conditions.
Open Questions
- What were the exact causes of the accident in the hyperbaric complex?
- What is the current medical evolution of the injured?
