Staged decompression is the procedure of makings stops to decompress so that your body can eliminate absorbed gases from your body when scuba diving. If a diver does not decompress it can lead to decompression sickness or “the bends.” If the diver has dived too deep and it is serious enough, this sickness can lead to a very painful death.

Before diving, it is important to consult a decompression table which will give the correct number of stops required for decompression before coming to the surface. It will not only tell you the number of stops, but also how long to stop each time.

The process behind decompression sickness is where the nitrogen in the diver’s blood is under pressure and this pressure causes it to dissolve in the blood. But as the pressure lessens (as the divers ascend) it creates bubbles in the blood. This is a very painful process. Developing “the bends” becomes more of a risk the deeper the diver goes and the more time he spends at that depth. There are also other variables that can cause a higher risk, such as age, physical activity done at that depth and how tired the diver is at the end of the dive. These all exacerbate the decompression sickness.

Making the stops and checking with the decompression tables before a dive can effectively prevent the chance of decompression sickness and even death. This simple process can and should be done by every diver before they decide to make a descent.