For underwater breathing  a diver has a cylinder of compressed air on his back. He usually swims at a depth up to 30 meters. At 20 m the air he inhales has a pressure which is higher than the air pressure in the tires of a car. Besides the oxygen needed for breathing this air contains a huge quantity of nitrogen. This nitrogen gas of the compressed air dissolves in the blood liquid of the diver . When he/she returns to the surface too quickly nitrogen in the blood will behave like the gas in an Cola can when it is opened: Gas bubbles are formed inside the diver´s blood vessels. He is seriously ill and in need of a hyperbaric chamber.

Since more than one decade Sharm El Sheikh has a Hyperbaric Medical Center Sharm El-Sheikh.


The heart of this "Chamber of Life" is "a five-meter cylinder surrounded by monitors, valves, gauges and pipes, it resembles a small submarine. Equipped with such a high-tech facility, Egypt now enjoys the title of Midle East representative of the Divers Alert Network (DAN), an emergency network of hyperbaric chambers and diving physicians." (Sinai To-Day 1998)
The chamber contains two beds (one for the diver to be treated, another one for a second diver or for the physician). During treatment the patient is once mor supplied with compressed air to make the bubbles in his blood dissolve again. After some hours the pressure is reduced to normal air pressure very slowly.