MEMBERSHIP & INSURANCE
Rapid ascents, improper gas management, medical problems, poor physical fitness and entrapment are much more frequently associated with dive fatalities and serious injuries than decompression sickness is.
STEPHEN FRINK
Opposite: Of the cases DAN manages every year, 70 percent are unrelated to diving. The attention divers give to minimizing their risk of decompression sickness should also be given to safety in other aspects of travel and leisure activities.
MORE THAN JUST BUBBLES ARE WE TOO CONCERNED ABOUT DCS? B Y
N I C H O LA S
B I R D,
M. D . ,
MM M
DIVING GRANTS A FREEDOM TO EXPLORE and an opportunity to experience what most people see only on film. As terrestrial creatures, we are ill adapted to the marine world but nonetheless eager to survey the ocean’s wonders. For divers new to the sport as well as seasoned veterans, each dive is unique and requires diligent preparation prior to entering the water. Divers recognize that any excursion into or under the water carries with it some risk of injury. In numerous articles, seminars and presentations, DAN® proclaims the benefits of physical and mental preparation prior to diving, which include physical fitness, equipment maintenance and skills training. Well represented throughout DAN’s publications and research and integral to the dive industry’s introductory training programs is a focus on decompression sickness (DCS). The emphasis on DCS indicates the relative importance of this unique malady and the behaviors we can employ to prevent it. Often missing from discussions about DCS, however, is acknowledgement of its relative rarity and the comparative commonality of other injuries that can occur while diving or while on a diving trip. WHAT HARMS DIVERS? DAN has been gathering dive injury and fatality statistics for more than 30 years. In 2008 a team of researchers led by Dr. Petar Denoble, senior director of DAN Research, published a paper on the causes underlying dive fatalities. While the ultimate endpoint of incapacitating 40 |
2021 SPECIAL EDITION
