Gales Ferry — Paul Weathersby, PhD, Captain, Medical Service Corps, U.S. Navy, 73, dead Oct. 18, 2021, was an unusual combination of Naval officer, scientist, and engineer and was responsible for predicting the chances of a diver getting decompression sickness (the bends).
Dr. Weathersby was born in Worcester, Mass. He went on to receive a bachelor’s degree from Notre Dame, a master’s degree from MIT, and a PhD from the University of Washington. All were in chemical engineering. He spent over 20 years in the U.S. Navy, predominantly at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Md. and the Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory in Groton. He served as Chief Scientist at the Groton Lab then as Commanding Officer from 1992 to 1994. After retiring, he continued to do research as a civilian contractor until his death.
Previous to his efforts, avoiding the bends meant following rigid boundaries between “safe” and “unsafe” rates of decompression decreed by some person based on their personal experience. Paul Weathersby led a team of U.S. Navy scientists who carefully gathered thousands of precise pressure exposures in U.S., British, and Canadian Navy laboratories. Then they developed mathematical formulas predicting the chances of bends ranging smoothly from 0 to 100% and tailored the mathematical details to closely match the bulk of the pressure data tabulation, using fitting procedures developed by his team.
The decompression findings and his other research results were published in about one hundred scientific journal articles or government reports. In 2014, he received the Albert R. Behnke Award, the premier honor of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society.
He also made important contributions to blood compatible biomaterials, atmosphere control on nuclear submarines and to the preservation of hearing ability for soldiers and sailors exposed to loud noises. When not pursuing his research, Weathersby enjoyed family.
In early 2016, Weathersby moved to New London and lived as Ms. Pauline Smith. She was active with the League of Women Voters of Southeastern CT as a board member and debate timekeeper and moderator. She acted as timekeeper and scorekeeper for the Shoreline Roller Derby team. She was also a strong supporter of various LGBT events.
He is survived by wife Patricia of Gales Ferry; sons, Sean and fiancée Jayne Bonn, of New Port Richey, Fla., and Daniel and wife Vera, of Waltham Mass; sisters, Mary Beth of Rye, N.H., Eileen McCarthy of Portsmouth, N.H., and Barbara Jean Daigle of Bangor, Maine; and brother Robert of Rye, N.H.; as well as grandchildren, Patrick, Sofia, and Luzia.
Dr. Weathersby will be laid to rest at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 23, in Gales Ferry Cemetery, Gales Ferry. In lieu of sending flowers, Pauline would want you to donate to the League of Women’s Voters www.lwv.org
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