Alert Diver Category: DAN Was There for Me

What started as stomach cramps eventually revealed to be a much more serious problem: decompression sickness. But the road to recovery was hard and filled with multiple hospitals and an unusual diagnosis. Read more.

I was diving with my wife, Kristy Hiltz, in remote Kimbe Bay, Papua New Guinea. We had taken all the necessary precautions and dived according to our computers. On what turned out to be our last dive, we sat on a rock ledge at 70 feet for 15 to 20 minutes and then made a slow ascent, completing a full safety stop. As I climbed onto the boat I knew something was wrong, but I thought I needed to drink water and wait for it to pass.

Thanks to previous readings and trainings, when a difficult situation presented itself, a diver was able to remain calm and advocate for the care he needed. Read more about his story.

An underwater filmmaker encountered problems when his right ear felt plugged. He powered through the work only for the ear to become worse. When he finally saw a doctor, he was told he may never regain hearing in his right ear. Read more.

It was 2004, the dawn of digital photography, and I was conflicted about whether to shoot film or digital. I had brought housings for both cameras with me to Thailand. Carrying two housings on a dive was ponderous, but I could manage it if I didn’t take two sets of strobes. My solution was to rig both housings with wet connectors called EO pigtails, which went into the regular sync socket, allowing me to connect and disconnect my strobes underwater.

While diving in Cuba, a diver’s itchy rash didn’t seem immediately dire, but the condition quickly deteriorated. Seeking treatment was a complicated process, but the diagnosis was eventually skin bends.

Pain and a rash made one diver think she was having an allergic reaction to a marine sting. But when decompression sickness was suspected, she sought help. Read her story.

Don’t ignore seemingly random symptoms as they could be the result of a serious problem. One DAN member shares her story of how an uneventful dive changed her life.

On my way back to the campsite, my headlamp reflected off a pair of glowing green animal eyes, and in that split-second of distraction I lost my footing on the algae, which sent me tumbling head over heels more than 10 feet down the cliff face. I landed on my left foot with the full force of my body.

Raja Ampat refers to four main islands which are part of the larger collective area known as Bird’s Head Seascape — located in Indonesia. It is one of the world’s most biodiverse and rich tropical marine ecosystems..