Now, if I can believe Tom Clancy and his 'John Clark,' hyperbaric N2, with variable pressure and enough added O2 to sustain life, is much less humane. Certainly 'the bends' is real and can cause painful chronic damage. I just don't know whether it can be induced as brutally as Clancy wrote it for a deserving perp. I forget in which of his books, this occurred, but the scene was memorable.
I don't either but my scuba instructor was an old UDT diver who had been cutting a path under a boat to pass a cable through to raise it when it rolled over on him trapping him at 140’ in a hard had rig for several hours. This was in the 60s when the treatment was not so sophisticated. He told us the story as a precautionary tale against ever getting bent and I could tell that it was a horrific memory.