Does anyone NOT have DAN insurance???

[Sounder]

If not, why?

Check this Darwinian sh*t out:

While diving in Maui last week, Erica and I were on a boat with 4 other divers. One set of buddies (2 guys from LA, both with AOW certs) mentioned they were flying out late that evening... right after we completed our second dive at 9:30am!!! They weren't shallow dives either - I don't recall his dive profile, but it was off the tables... really off.

I asked him to repeat what he said about when he was flying... yup, that evening around 7pm... I heard right. Dumbfounded, I asked him what he was thinking and asked if he was rescheduling his flight. The divemaster, captain, Erica and I all started looking at each other and the divemaster discussed the concept of diving & flying... and getting bent.

Shaken a bit, the diver asked what he should do... I told him he should a) not drink any alcohol and hydrate well; b) reschedule his flight; and c) call DAN with his profile for further advice.

His response: a) "Are you serious? I was planning on having a few this afternoon;" b) "Rescheduling my flight will cost an extra $100 and I'll have to call my job;" c) "What's DAN?"

The boat captain explained that the $100 for the flight will be the best $100 he's ever spent, and that he should review his OW book again and perhaps take a refresher class. I gave him the DAN number and explained what it was and why he should know about them. He called DAN, and whaddaya know - they confirmed what all of us had told him (and they asked him if he remembered learning that in OW)!!!

When we left the dock, he was planning to reschedule his flight, avoid all alcohol like the plague, was ordering DAN insurance, and was going to take another OW class when he got back to LA... he was shaken when he heard that this could have been it for him.


Has anyone else had an incident like this?

[Joshua Smith]

That's funny. Sad, but funny. Good job on helping the poor bastard out. When I went through EMT class in NM, the paramedic who instructed us told us they averaged 1 case of DCS a year, flying in from Mexico or wherever.

[Grateful Diver]

If not, why?

Check this Darwinian sh*t out:

While diving in Maui last week, Erica and I were on a boat with 4 other divers. One set of buddies (2 guys from LA, both with AOW certs) mentioned they were flying out late that evening... right after we completed our second dive at 9:30am!!! They weren't shallow dives either - I don't recall his dive profile, but it was off the tables... really off.

I asked him to repeat what he said about when he was flying... yup, that evening around 7pm... I heard right. Dumbfounded, I asked him what he was thinking and asked if he was rescheduling his flight. The divemaster, captain, Erica and I all started looking at each other and the divemaster discussed the concept of diving & flying... and getting bent.

Shaken a bit, the diver asked what he should do... I told him he should a) not drink any alcohol and hydrate well; b) reschedule his flight; and c) call DAN with his profile for further advice.

His response: a) "Are you serious? I was planning on having a few this afternoon;" b) "Rescheduling my flight will cost an extra $100 and I'll have to call my job;" c) "What's DAN?"

The boat captain explained that the $100 for the flight will be the best $100 he's ever spent, and that he should review his OW book again and perhaps take a refresher class. I gave him the DAN number and explained what it was and why he should know about them. He called DAN, and whaddaya know - they confirmed what all of us had told him (and they asked him if he remembered learning that in OW)!!!

When we left the dock, he was planning to reschedule his flight, avoid all alcohol like the plague, was ordering DAN insurance, and was going to take another OW class when he got back to LA... he was shaken when he heard that this could have been it for him.


Has anyone else had an incident like this?

The dude must've slept through that part of his OW class ... you probably saved him about $10,000 or so ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Sounder]

Really!? I never treated a DCS case, course, I was a medic in a rural farm and golfing area of southern AZ, so I suppose there wasn't a whole lot of diving there anyway.

That's an amazing number - I wouldn't have thought it to have been that high! Can you imagine if they lost cabin pressure?!

As an EMT, are you planning to take EFR and O2 or just test through it? I think I'm just going to take the test and sit in on the scuba-evac related portion of the class (the rest is standard first aid stuff) that isn't taught in medic school.

What people don't realize is that activities like going up in the mountains, skiing, etc are all activities equal to flying too... you can dive Molokini Crater and go to Haleakala Volcano in the same 24 (both in Maui). People don't understand the physics and physiology of it, instead they just think "airplanes" not realizing that it's altitude that is the concern.

[Pinkpadigal]

One of my customer's came in after his cruise, telling us of this unbelievable story when he was diving in Grand Cayman.

He was paired up with a guy who was bragging about all these dives he did. He was excited to go deep. My customer (Scott) listened to the briefing on the boat. and the dive needed to be under 100ft.

They started their decent and this guy kept going. Scott looked at his gauges and they read, 140 feet. He stopped. He watched the guy jet downward. He started ascenting, very slowly and watched his computer. He got back to the surface and started to yell at everyone that he lost his buddy. Scott then looked up and his buddy (idiot diver) was on the boat. By the time Scott back on, the guy was arguing with the divemaster because they would not let him do another dive. He hit 190 and came straight back up; no stopping!

All of a sudden the guy started complaining of being sore. The crew kicked into high gear, put him on O2. An ambulance was waiting back on shore and they took this idiot directly to the chamber.

As it turns out, the guy wasn't experienced; in fact he asked an instructor friend of his to get him his AOW card so he could go diving deeper on vacation. The guy had less than 10 dives and according to his wife, did not even do his own KR or tests for open water. She helped him (she isn't a diver). I am sure that instructor will be getting a call.

Apparently, the only smart thing this idiot diver did was get DAN insurance. It scared Scot a lot and he told me he is read to take a rescue class.

[John Rawlings]

The world has a high percentage of morons.....

[thelawgoddess]

What people don't realize is that activities like going up in the mountains, skiing, etc are all activities equal to flying too...

you're right. even though this was taught in my class last week, i was trying to figure out how we could go to leavenworth and still dive this weekend. i was thinking we could get up early and do a couple of dives and head over to leavenworth afterwards. it didn't even hit me until a day later that going to leavenworth involved driving over a mountain pass. i felt really stupid. but i told myself it was good that i realized it soon enough - before it became a problem. since then i have been thinking about how much scuba diving is going to affect my life ... because i really like climbing and skiing (and now occasionally mountain biking), as well as just going over to leavenworth and back, and i also fly a lot for my work and sometimes with my boyfriend.

and towards the other part of this thread, i personally have a real concern about diving with people i don't know. it is something i deal with in climbing as well, but i can see it being even more of an issue for me with diving. i have learned to trust my gut on these things and if i don't believe someone or just don't feel right about it, i will not put myself in an uncomfortable or unsafe situation.

and i already bought DAN insurance.

[John Rawlings]

i personally have a real concern about diving with people i don't know. it is something i deal with in climbing as well, but i can see it being even more of an issue for me with diving. i have learned to trust my gut on these things and if i don't believe someone or just don't feel right about it, i will not put myself in an uncomfortable or unsafe situation.

That's a good philosophy to have, and NOT just with people you don't know. I have a deal with my best technical dive buddy, Jerome. Either of us can back out and abort a dive at any time, for any reason, without apologies and without taking any guff over it. We have NEVER broken that pact between us.

Sometimes your "gut" tells you things that you can only sense but not understand completely. When that happens it's time to believe your gut.....even if you are with people you know and trust, if something doesn't feel right, it isn't!

I've missed out on a few dives over the years because of this philosophy, but I have no regrets.....and I'm still around!

- John

[Sounder]

Totally agree John, and Erica and I have that same deal. I'll honor it was anyone as I expect them to do for me. You gut is not wrong, and even if it was... you're not harmed by not going.

The DAN insurance thing blows me away - that people won't spend $75/year (plus my $44/year family membership). The services they provide you and your family are amazing, the accident insurance is amazing, and having them to call with questions anytime is priceless.

[Zen Diver v1]

The world has a high percentage of morons.....

Which generally ensures job security for me...

-Valerie
(ER nurse)

[dsteding]

What people don't realize is that activities like going up in the mountains, skiing, etc are all activities equal to flying too...

you're right. even though this was taught in my class last week, i was trying to figure out how we could go to leavenworth and still dive this weekend. i was thinking we could get up early and do a couple of dives and head over to leavenworth afterwards. it didn't even hit me until a day later that going to leavenworth involved driving over a mountain pass.

and i already bought DAN insurance.

LG-

Read up on DAN's publications on their diving after flying study. I'm tossing this concept out for conversation, but I think there is a real difference between diving and then hopping in a plane and diving and then driving over a pass.

Let me explain my thought process:

(1) A plane will ascend from, say, sea level to a cabin pressure of 8,000-10,000 feet in 5 minutes or so. Really fast decompression there, and bubble formation in your blood is partly controlled by the rate of decompression . . . which is why we ascend slowly from depth, take a safety stop, and why some advocate deep stops (DAN also has a good discussion on this on their website).

(2) Driving over a pass, by contrast, is about a 30 minute gradual ascent to about 4,000 feet (if you are going to Leavenworth). I think I recall the half life of gas in the spinal column being about 12.6 minutes, so in theory, this is like a slow ascent from depth, and you've allowed almost three half lives for gas in your spinal column (other compartments are slower) to adjust to the decreased pressure (which itself is low, I haven't done the math, but it is probably like going from 5 FSW to the surface). Given that, I'm wondering if such a practice may be safe after a good surface interval (dive in the morning, drive in the afternoon).

Someone should call DAN on this, I'll do so if I remember during the week, but it is at least food for thought.

[EDIT]:

Here are then NOAA tables on the subject:


http://www.ndc.noaa.gov/pdfs/AscentToAltitudeTable.pdf

And the corresponding NDL tables from NOAA (so you can get your pressure group for the above):

http://www.ndc.noaa.gov/pdfs/NoDecoAirTable.pdf

Of course, another interesting thing to consider is what you are doing after diving-LG you mention that you like to climb, in my rather uneducated opinion, that clearly wouldn't be a good idea after diving (the whole physical exercise thing), but then again, this is why DAN is such a great resource.

[lamont]

we recently discussed a case where a diver did two dives, then waited 6 hours and drove over a 3,000 ft pass and came down with a type 2 hit. the general consensus of those who understand deco was that the damage occured on the dives and that the person probably would have shown symptoms later anyway. 3,000 ft is 0.90 ata and you need an inert gas loading that exceeds that (and really exceeds it by the m-value of the compartment) to see bubbling that will cause DCS. for 6-hours the diver was at 0.79 ata of ppInert and the blood and other fast tissues had a lot of half-times to come back to normal (and they are the compartments with the higher m-values that can tolerate more oversaturation anyway). there's really no way that injury occured due to driving over the pass, and a bunch of the MDs on the board agreed.

there are NOAA ascent-to-altitude tables that i found one time on the web which actually break it down in 1000 feet increments as to what SI you need after a dive before you ascend to x-thousand feet (plane cabin being 8000 feet).

for a different perspective, GI3 believes that flying-after-diving is largely bunk, that you just need to deco properly and offgass venous side on the plane, and that everyone who takes hits on planes either did bad deco or has a PFO... got to at least give him credit for sheer testicle size...