Who is Hans Örnhagen?
It must be said from the beginning about Hans Örnhagen, I am not a great sport diver with thousands of dives, despite a CMAS certificate that is now 40 years old. On the other hand, I have devoted my entire adult life to diving medicine, diving medical research and education on the subject.
It started in Lund in 1967 when I was offered an amanuens position in physiology after writing a student thesis on what was already hot at the time – liquid breathing. I had the opportunity to use liquid breathing as a tool to study the effects of very high pressures, and after my dissertation in 1977 it was relevant to follow up some of Zetterström's experiments with hydrogen gas from the 1940s in Sweden. The reason was that COMEX in France began to take an interest in possible anti-HPNS properties of hydrogen. The preparatory experiments were completed in Lund in 1980 and I was offered the opportunity to come to the navy's newly opened research facility MDC in Berga through a position as a laboratory at the Defense Research Institute.
At MDC, our research group not only conducted hydroxe experiments. Among other things, we tested nitrox, pressure equalization capabilities, submarine rescue procedures and built a simulator to test rebreathers in a realistic way in laboratories. With the move to Stockholm, I started working with the SSDF and from 1981 I have been a federal doctor. When my research supervisor Claes Lundgren moved to the USA in 1977, I had to "inherit" his teaching commitment regarding diving doctors at the navy and since then I have contributed my knowledge to this education every year.
From 1999 I also ran a two-week course in diving medicine for doctors according to the EDTC curriculum in the Maldives where I also did my last dives. To summarize what I think is important for a doctor who deals with diving medicine to know, I have written a few books, the latest of which, Diving Medicine and Hyperbaric Physiology, was published by Studentlitteratur förlag, Lund, 2011.
As a retiree, I spend more and more time on diving history and the Dive Tank House on Djurgården, but I still do consulting work in diving medicine and I still think it's fun to teach.
Some links:
His previous group trips:
- Diving Medicine Maldives – March 2019
- Diving Medicine Maldives – March 2020
- Diving Medicine Maldives - November 2021
- Diving Medicine Maldives – March 2022
- Diving Medicine Maldives – March 2023
His upcoming group trips:
- Diving Medicine Seychelles – March 20205
