Proactive & Prepared

When emergency response is made as accessible and efficient as possible, it’s much easier for divers to embrace the culture of dive safety. Divers are more apt to remind each other to be cautious and to watch out for each other with increased vigilance.

Quarry full of divers

Right Place, Right Time, Right Skills

A newly certified Diving Medical Technician started a new job at a resort and their skills immediately came in handy. Read more about how the skills learned were used.

Diver has a bloody mouth and an oxygen mask on face

Remote But Ready

A research team experienced a small issue that turned into a big emergency, but DAN provided much-needed support. Read more.

Diver swims over fan corals

Surviving Triple Dangers in the Maldives

A diver didn’t heed the divemaster’s warning and was lost at sea. Deploying his large surface marker buoy helped with his rescue. DAN recommends that divers always listen to the dive briefing and follow all directions and always carry an SMB and reel. If your breathing-gas supply is critically low, get to the surface at a safe ascent rate, and then monitor for signs of decompression illness. It is better to deal with DCI on the surface than to run out of breathing gas at depth.

Having the appropriate safety gear with you on every dive and knowing how to use it are integral parts of being prepared, as are remembering your training and following the dive briefing instructions.

The Perils of Staying Silent

Do not be afraid to raise concerns or suspicions about any aspect of a dive trip. Read one diver’s story of how silence resulted in being stranded at sea for over seven hours.

Four divers tread near red marker

Gas Out on the USS Monitor

The current wrapped the line around my ankle and tighten like a noose. My 30-cubic-foot safety cylinder should have provided plenty of oxygen to complete my decompression stops, but I hadn’t closed the valve after charging it, so the current rushing past the mouthpiece purged the tank. I was now trapped 20 feet beneath the surface with nothing to breathe and no one aware of my peril, hoping that my mistakes with the line and my breathing gas wouldn’t be my last.

old shipwreck underwater

End-of-Life Care

DAN’s Basic Life Support and First Aid course teaches how to keep people alive during an emergency. However, those skills are translatable in other scenarios, like palliative care.

Hospitalized woman closes her eyes to sleep

Not Only for Diving

WHILE DAN’S SUITE OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS focus primarily on diving, graduates of the courses can apply the skills and knowledge they learned to many circumstances outside the aquatic realm. My wife and I were driving home from a weekend getaway to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, heading northbound on Interstate 95. As expected, I-95 was moderately […]

Easy Save

“Easy saves” could be some last-minute words, a double check or anything that catches you before you dive into a possible bad situation. Read more about one easy save a diver had.

Male diver looks at computer while female scolds him

Unconscious Diver

FEBRUARY 6, 2022 HAD ALL THE MAKINGS OF A PROMISING DAY out on the water in the Gulf of Mexico off Destin, Florida. Though I work at a dive shop, this was a recreational lionfish harvesting trip with friends …