We are revising our monoplace safety protocols, I was wondering if anyone could give some advice?  If a chamber is on fire and staff have pulled the fire alarm and are emergency venting the patient, standing by with fire extinguisher for when chamber is decompressed...

Meanwhile, the other patients in the other chambers NOT on fire are surely very distressed and wanting out ASAP...what is your protocol for bringing out those other patients (I understand that you can't open their chambers anyway until the chamber/patient on fire has been fully extinguished), but what rate do you bring them out at?  It basically takes the same amount of time to bring the patient out at a rate of 5 psi as it does to just turn the O2 control to off and let them ascend that way.  If you ascend them at a rate of 5 psi, you can just let them hover at 1 psi until you can get them out (if you have 2 patients to get out and only one extra staff member); if you turn the O2 to "off" and let them ascend that way wouldn't you have to turn on their air mask in case you couldn't get them out immediately (they would be w/o O2 and asphyxiate at surface, unless their air mask was on).

Would anyone be willing to let us look at their facility policy on chamber fire or have any opinion on this, does anyone see any safety issue ascending the patients (not on fire) using either way?

Steve Fabus called today and may yet jump in with his comments.  It is important to note that what I meant by "stop the supply to the chamber" meant...switch to emergency vent and decompress the chamber ( as in the attached policy).  Many monoplace assemblies require a minimum supply pressure to work.  If you shut off the zone valve to the chamber then the chamber will not have enough supply pressure to operate the emergency vent.   Tnanks Steve for the catch...