PERSPECTIVES
In the last issue of Alert Diver we shared the harrowing story of an attack on a fossil-hunting river diver by a 13-foot alligator. In this issue we’re bringing you more educational articles related to hazardous marine life encounters.
DAN Was There for Me features a DAN member who, during a night dive, was speared by a 5-foot-long spearfish that left a piece of its rostrum lodged in his leg. In Incident Insight, a diver recounts an eel bite during an underwater feeding tour that nearly severed his wrist. Advanced Diving presents tools, techniques, and best practices for divers engaging in lionfish culling, and Water Planet highlights efforts by researchers to harness components of fish venom to help save human lives.
Many divers relish opportunities to interact with potentially aggressive marine animals, and these interactions are almost uniformly uneventful. Careful attention to one’s own behavior and the behavior of the animals will generally prevent negative outcomes. No matter how hard we try, however, we cannot eliminate the risk of marine life injuries.
Safety is a direct result of preparedness and education. DAN works diligently to make resources available to you to help you maximize your personal risk mitigation efforts. Proper planning, knowledge of injury treatment principles, and sufficient insurance coverage will serve divers well on the rare but dangerous occasions when marine life injuries do occur.
Hazardous Marine Life Reference Book
DAN’s Health and Diving Reference Series is a collection of digital and printed publications developed based on years of research and insights gained from assisting thousands of members in emergencies.
The Hazardous Marine Life reference book examines the most common hazardous creatures that divers may encounter and covers prevention, mechanisms of injury, and first aid. Topics include envenomations, traumatic injuries and their complications, seafood poisonings, and more.
As your dive safety association, DAN is committed to providing divers everywhere with vital educational and reference tools like this one.
Diving First Aid Course
Whether it’s being on the scene of an accident or witnessing a medical emergency, most people will be involved in a crisis at some point in their lives. First aid training and incident management skills empower people to step up and take action when these situations arise.
Developed by dive medicine physicians and dive educators, DAN first aid courses are designed to provide you with the skills and confidence you need to respond in emergencies — those that occur in diving contexts as well as those that occur in other settings.
DAN’s Diving First Aid (DFA) course is the most comprehensive first aid course in the dive industry; its purpose is to give divers and dive professionals an indispensable set of risk-mitigation skills.
DFA incorporates the contents of DAN’s Basic Life Support and Emergency Oxygen courses and adds instruction for performing neurological assessments and first aid for hazardous marine life injuries. This course is intended for dive professionals, divers, and even nondivers, as it covers crucial first aid and risk-mitigation skills.
If you have not been formally trained, DAN highly recommends you find a qualified instructor. You can go to the DAN Instructor Directory at DAN.org or call DAN Safety Services (919-684-2948) during regular business hours to begin empowering yourself to respond in emergencies.
DAN COVERAGE
Your DAN membership provides important benefits; take the time to ensure you know what they entail. DAN membership includes automatic enrollment in DAN TravelAssist, which, among other benefits, includes emergency medical transportation coverage when you travel at least 50 miles (80 kilometers) from your home and suffer a medical emergency. If the situation is life-threatening, first call local EMS (911), and then call DAN. Remember that this benefit is available only if you contact DAN to arrange the necessary emergency transportation.
As a DAN member you also have access to DAN dive accident insurance, which provides medical expense coverage up to the benefit limit for any in-water accident that results from a covered dive, regardless of depth. For more information and specific answers to dive accident insurance coverage questions, call DAN Member Services at 919-684-2948.
Emergency action plans
History teaches us that accidents are always possible. When preparing for emergencies, we must be ready for a variety of scenarios. It’s impossible to anticipate everything, but a good plan can reduce the fear, anxiety, and losses associated with an emergency. Emergency action plans (EAPs) are essential for every diver. Not all dive emergency plans are created equal, but all have the same purpose: to list essential considerations and provide a framework for performing key functions in response to an incident.
Beyond the most readily identifiable risks are others that, though unlikely, warrant consideration and preparedness. Be sure to include encounters with hazardous marine life in your emergency action plans. There will always be risks with diving, but with greater knowledge and preparedness we can reduce uncertainty and better contain the consequences of the hazards we face.
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© Alert Diver – Q4 2024