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Ed Yeates ReportingA massive square hyperbaric chamber, the first of its kind in this country, was carefully lifted to its new home in Salt Lake today.
The new Intermountain Medical Center is now taking shape rapidly in Murray. Today, on the other side of this complex of buildings, something really "big" happened.
Built in Australia, this high pressure steel room is the core for a 1.2 million dollar hyperbaric chamber. The 26 ton super square box is a new look for hyperbaric chambers. In fact, as of now, it's the largest of its kind in the United States.
Though its final resting place will support all the weight, crews had to carefully straddle two steel support beams embedded in the concrete floor. Specially designed air dollies produced a unique high pressure cushion underneath that allowed workers to literally hand pull and push the massive structure along the floor.
When The Intermountain Medical Center opens one year from today, this chamber, looking very close to one currently operating in Australia, will provide a new feel for patients.
Lindell Weaver, M.D., Director, Hyperbaric Medicine: "When a patient goes in something that looks more like a room, I think they tolerate this treatment better as opposed to going in something cylindrical where they know it's a chamber."
Hyperbaric chambers in various shapes and sizes already provide treatment at other Utah hospitals. Four hundred residents are treated every year for carbon monoxide poisoning. Hyperbaric oxygen also preserves tissue and speeds up the healing of wounds, often reducing the need for amputations.
This new chamber is also "hypo" baric, meaning it can be used for high altitude training and research as well, something NASA could be interested in.
Lindell Weaver, M.D.: "One of the things we set up for this chamber to do is explosive decompression, so we can take a person to 26 or 27-thousand feet and rapidly decompress them to simulate an aircraft losing pressure for example."
This hypobaric feature might also provide a place for Olympic athletes to do high altitude training. In fact, Weaver says, athletes might even be able to stay the night in the chamber.
