Alert Diver Category: Skills in Action

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

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.

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.

“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.

Diver Jim surfaced before the rest of his group and unintentionally drifted in the water — separating him from the boat. Read more about how to play an active role in your rescue.

The Blue Lagoon in Texas is a great place for divers to train. In the water, two divers sprang into action to help a diver with shortness of breath. Read more about how their emergency skills paid off.

A dive photo instructor witnessed a diver perform a rapid, uncontrolled ascent to the surface. Thankfully, the dive instructor’s rescue training came in handy. Read more about the incident.

Divers spend much of their time underwater with a select group of buddies — the ones we trust to get us through the dive and surface with fresh experiences and stories to tell. Newly certified divers have had limited interactions underwater, having dived only with classmates, instructors, and assistant instructors during their classes.

A diver was having difficulty breathing and had extreme fatigue, numbness and a host of other symptoms. He may have had an arterial gas embolism (AGE). Read more about how a rescuer used his skills to help the diver.

After falling off of a boat, a quick-thinking witness was able to provide assistance to an unconscious diver.