Aberdeens National Hyperbaric Centre is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a multi-million pound plan to build the worlds largest and deepest test chamber.
The project, which could cost up to £10 million, would allow the centre to test subsea equipment to a depth of 5000 metres or more than 3 miles below the surface.
It is the latest ambitious initiative from the NHC which is currently establishing itself as a global centre of subsea excellence and holding an open evening tonight (Nov 29) to celebrate its 20 years of success.
The centre began as a Scottish Development Agency project and was acquired in 2005 by an independent company led by entrepreneur David Smith.
Since then its turnover has soared and the workforce has trebled, with the centre working on projects as diverse as a climate-change study observing dogfish to pressure testing ultra-deep offshore equipment and treating medical and diving emergency patients.
And since it was opened in 1987, by Margaret Thatchers energy secretary Cecil Parkinson, clients have ranged from the Korean Navy to Nato, oil companies, divers and even a newborn baby.
Little Alix Gallacher, of Tain, developed gangrene in the womb and had to have her arm amputated at just four days old to save her life. She then had daily sessions in a chamber at the NHC, receiving hyperbaric oxygen therapy for almost a week, to keep the remaining tissue healthy.
It was a desperately traumatic time for mum Margaret, 29, and dad Mark, 37. But today Alix is a thriving five-year-old schoolgirl.
Her dad recalled: She was born one month early and it was strange seeing her in the chamber. But the National Hyperbaric Centre bent over backwards for us, they even hooked up a video for us so Alix can see it later in life if she wants to.
Each year a number of sport and professional divers are also treated at the centre, in Aberdeens Ashgrove Road West, for decompression sickness known as the bends.
Some, like Mel Pearce, have arrived paralysed and could have ended up in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives, had it not been for the oxygen and helium therapy administered in the hyperbaric chamber.
Mr Pearce, now 64, was on a pleasure dive at Orkneys Scapa Flow in 1990, when he had to make a rapid emergency ascent. As his body began shutting down he was flown to the NHC and spent eight days in the chamber before he was able to walk out again unaided.
He said: The quality and professionalism of the team at the Hyperbaric Centre was absolutely superb, they were fantastic. There was a strong chance that I would not live when I went in but they saved me from living the rest of my life in a wheelchair.
The chamber is one of the most advanced of its kind and provides a unique service to Grampian University Hospitals NHS Trust, offering decompression chamber cover 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with a team of diving doctors and hyperbaric intensive care-trained nurses permanently on standby.
Over the past 20 years the NHC has conducted and advised on more than 2000 treatment dives. Other medical conditions that can be treated by oxygen therapy include carbon monoxide and other gas poisonings, problematic wounds, gangrene and diabetic ulcers.
But it is the specialist offshore and military markets across the world that are providing the booming business for the National Hyperbaric Centre with almost half its revenue coming from abroad. It has recently run training courses in Houston and Egypt, tested underwater equipment for far east and eastern European clients and hosted delegates from as far afield as Australia and South Africa.
The centre is also increasingly providing a consultancy service, offering expert advice and reviews of subsea activities, situations and conditions. The pool of diving consultants attached to the NHC is growing as its reputation providing advice for subsea problems flourishes.
There may have been a perception, at one time, that the Centre was just a bunch of dusty, rarely-used diving chambers. But the NHC is about much, much more than that and we are shrugging off that image now, emerging as a sharp, dynamic commercial entity, he explained.
The Centres latest project involves plans to build the worlds deepest hyperbaric chamber to test subsea control equipment. This will keep Aberdeen at the forefront of subsea technology by providing a unique facility which will attract business from around the world and offer a good reason for oil companies to maintain Aberdeen as their international design and test base.
20 Years of Success
- 1987 - National Hyperbaric Centre opened in Aberdeen
- 1988 - £1million Igloo demonstration dive to 450m (appx 1480ft) twice the depth of routine North Sea operations
- 1990 - divers with the bends saved from paralysis through treatment in decompression chamber
- 1993 - £1million Aurora dive: one-month long and deepest simulated dive conducted by the centre at this time 470m (1542ft)
- 1995 - Korean Navy trained in deep diving and submarine rescue
- 2000 - Health and Safety Executive-commissioned research into decompression illness among workers involving in tunneling industry
- 2002 - Youngest patient, newborn baby girl, underwent hyperbaric oxygen therapy after arm amputated to save her life.
- 2005 - NHC becomes independent
- 2006 - Nato's new rescue submarine tested
- 2007 Worlds first deep sea sleepover with trainee divers. New wet welding-at-depth capability added.
