Salt water aspiration syndrome

A common diving illness in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in the 1960s was the salt water aspiration syndrome (SWAS)1. Its frequency may have been the result of the strenuous training imposed on novice divers, the absence of purge valves in second stage regulators or the extreme buddy breathing trials in which increasing numbers of trainees shared the one mouthpiece until nally one diver broke for the surface. In the RAN series, most patients with SWAS presented aer night diving, when the inuence of a cool environment may have aggravated the clinical situation.