In our joint efforts to preserve the USZ pressure chamber laboratory as a monument to the outstanding importance of Swiss research and technology in decompression research, we were able to achieve an important milestone:
The Swiss Museum of Transport in Lucerne would like to extensively expand its permanent exhibition on diving. The structure of the former pressure chamber laboratory of the USZ is to become the largest new exhibit.
On April 1 (and this is emphatically not an April Fool's joke), the project will be presented to the public. Participation will be open to all museum visitors, as it will take place in the event area of the Aviation Hall.
This will be preceded by a presentation on «Diving Accident Analyses - lessons to learn» by DAN Europe Suisse, which is also open to all interested visitors.
The entire event will be held in German language!
All those who register via DAN Europe will benefit from discounted tickets, which can be purchased from 12 noon at the ticket office of the Swiss Museum of Transport:
Adults: CHF 24 instead of CHF 35
Students (16 - 26 years with ID): CHF 19 instead of CHF 25
Children (6 - 16 years): CHF 12 instead of CHF 15
Children under 6 years are free of charge.
Program:
13:15 - 14:00 DAN Europe Suisse "Diving accident analyses - lessons to learn".
14:00 - 15:00 Project presentation Diving Department Swiss Museum of Transport, followed by thematic guided tour by the Head of Collections of the Swiss Museum of Transport, Mr. Daniel Geissmann.
We look forward to meeting you in person in Lucerne on April 1.
19.07.2019
From now on (almost) all contents of the homepage are available in English.
We would like to thank Beat Müller (Swiss Cave Diving) for the translation.
09.05.2019
All presentations are now available on the website of dipl. Phys. Albrecht Salm, who himself gave two lectures at the Bühlmann Memorial Symposium on 29 and 30 March at the University Hospital Zurich. Link: https://www.divetable.info/BS_ZH/index_e.htm.
02.04.2019
On Friday 29 March and on Saturday 30 March, the A.A. Bühlmann Memorial Symposium took place, which was very successfully organized in a cooperation of the Swiss Society for Underwater and Hyperbaric Medicine (SUHMS) with our own association.
The reason and the trigger behind was the 25th anniversary of the death of Prof. Bühlmann.
More than 100 interested divers and diving physicians from Switzerland and Europe received first-hand insights into the history of diving medical research by the team headed by Prof. A. A. Bühlmann from his son Dr. jur. Thomas Bühlmann and many contemporary witnesses and former employees like Beat Müller, dipl. Masch. Ing. ETH, who calculated the mountain dive tables and algorithms for high altitude exposures after diving and E. Völlm, dipl. Masch. Ing ETH, who developed the Aladin dive computer. In an interview, Livio De Toffol, first a subject in a 500m dive chamber dive in the summer of 1977 and later a technician at the hyperbaric chamber at DKL-USZ, talked about how to feel like a guinea pig at a depth of 500m.
Dr. Jürg Wendling, founder of DAN Europe Suisse, spoke about the milestones of decompression research in Zurich and the use of the Bühlmann algorithm in professional diving and compressed air work.
The fact, that A.A. Bühlmann was not only a diving physician, but primarily a pulmonary and circulatory physiologist and that his research and findings in these areas are still valid to-date, was very vividly and comprehensively presented by his successor at the USZ, Prof. E. Russi.
The current state of diving medical research was conveyed by Dr. med. Dr. Marc-Alain Panchard, who presented the numerous diving medical publications of the last years "made in Switzerland", Francis Héritier, who explained the importance of the function of the lung lungs for certain diving incidents, dipl. Phys. Albrecht Salm, who, from the point of view of the physicist, explained the different models of decompression for everyone and explained what a decompression model can and can not do and Dr. Frank Hartig, who presented new theories and explanations for the origin of the nitrogen narcosis.
The founder of DAN Europe, Dr. Alessandro Marroni presented the results from the data of more than 50'000 dives in the DAN database and reported on current research projects of DAN Europe
The "immediate past president" of the European Diving and Hyperbaric Medical Society (EUBS), Prof. Jacek Kot, with a survey on "extreme recreational diving", pointed out the dangers and risks that divers face in order to reach greater depths and execute more spectacular dives.
As soon as the lectures have been prepared accordingly, you will find a link to the presentations on this website.
You can already see a series of photos in our gallery.
21.03.2017
Press release is now also available in French
08.01.2017
Today we had the opportunity to present our project at the regional annual diving instructors conference DRS of CMAS.CH. More than 200 diving instructors learned why the DKL is threatened and why it needs to be saved. This was the first step towards a larger public in Switzerland. The instructors will make the club DKL-USZ known as multipliers for sure. Thanks to the organizers for the invitation and the attendants for their commitment.
30.12.2016
Following the founding of the association on 5 September 2016, we were able to present ourselves to an international audience at the European Underwater and Baromedical Society (EUBS) diving medical conference, which took place in Geneva from 13 to 16 September 2016. The consternation about the planned scrapping of the hyperbaric chamber laboratory was great and we could win many members.
In the meantime a lot of work took place, contacts were made and information was collected.
There is still a lot more to do. And we need help for that. Here are some tasks that you can get involved with.
Some documents, including film and video recordings of the record dive to 501m, have been saved and archived in the State Archives of Zurich. There are still contemporary witnesses of decompression research in Switzerland, especially the mixed gas pioneer Mr. Hannes Keller, with whom it all began and the designer of the hyperbaric chamber laboratory, Mr. Benno Schenk.
Now we need interested and dedicated divers or non-divers, physicians or historians or journalists to work on and document the history of diving medical research in Switzerland. For this purpose, e.g. a master thesis would perfectly fit. If you are interested, we will gladly give you information and support. Please use our contact form.
Please introduce us to your friends, acquaintances, dive mates and everywhere else. The more people in Switzerland, in Europe and in the world express themselves and help to save the hyperbaric chamber laboratory, the more likely this goal can be achieved. Maybe you could translate the content of the homepage into your second or native language and make it available to us, so that we reach as many interested people as possible.
You can receive additional information by using our contact form.