DAN Divers Day, Safer Diving Through Education
October 12th, 2002 in Colorado Springs.
http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/news/article.asp?newsid=214
Dont ask me why DAN held their first divers day in the SCUBA capitol of the world NOT, Colorado Springs. Probably to work out the bugs (there were a few minor ones) before theyre in front of a big audience (there were about 30 people in attendance).
My buddy Karl and I attended and I was amazed that I only saw one other person I recognized, an instructor from Divers Reef. I was a bit disappointed that none of the local shops owners or managers attended.
Summary: I had a blast! It started out with a presentation by the local hospitals hyperbaric staff on whos in the chamber when a divers not in there (lots of lovely shots of gas gangrene, the timing of this presentation, right after breakfast, could be improved
). I didnt know that our Memorial Hospital had come online for being able to do Table 6 treatments in not one but three monoplace chambers!
Dick Clarke, who I REALLY enjoyed listening to talked about commercial diving and had an aside on some NeOx (or was it ArgOx?) chamber dives he and Dr. Bill Hamilton did (bends incident rate: 100%!) Clarke talked about excursions from saturation depths, both ascents and descents that got some gears turning which prompted a question from me much later in the day.
Then the guy I really wanted to hear took the mike: Dr. RW Bill Hamilton. Excellent talk on technical diving. He used the words Do It Right an awful lot, but to be fair, not in reference to DIR. Most everything he had to say about technical diving and decompression and gasses did match one-for-one with DIR but there were some departures, like his preference for full-face masks like Chowdhury (sp?). He made a point A lot of commercial divers (FFMs) can tell you about their seizure, but not divers who use a regulator. And the counter point But FFMs make you use a lot more gas.
After Hamilton it was announced that the Special Forces presentation had run into a hitch something about the entire unit being shipped off to Afghanistan within the last week so an analysis of diving accidents was presented. Nothing earthshaking: Young, stupid males die a lot and old, fat males die a lot while diving. Through a couple questions aimed at the Memorial Hospital staff it looks like we get five to ten DCS cases coming over Raton Pass (~8500 feet) after diving at Blue Hole every year.
Broke for lunch and then continued
Hazardous marine life had lots of gross pictures (right after eating again, hello?) and how to treat various injuries. A rather wooden presenter.
Col. Mark Krautheim, MD did a presentation on Petersons hyperbaric/hypobaric chamber. Lots of discussion about DCS under reduced pressure. I asked if the chamber was available to treat civilians and the answer was No, but we did treat a SCUBA DCS case in a retired Sargent last week. Which tells me the good ol boy network is alive and well in the military.*
Dick Clarke then took the mike again for a wonderful presentation on Hydrolab, which he was a part of. Again mentioning excursion depths I finally broke down and asked, Are deeper excursion depths an extrapolation of the cross correction that we use for altitude? I was surprised that the answer was No. Im going to have to look into this one when I have some free time. Much of this presentation was anecdotal, but was really wonderful to listen to. I dont know when would have been a better time to be a diver: now, when decompression is much better understood so the risk is reduced or back in the cowboy days!
Finally Dr. Peter Bennett, the head of DAN took the stage and talked about mostly decompression from our so-called no decompression dives. Excellent talk, though unfortunately he comes across as more a politician than a doctor. The really, really big news, which he took a very long and detailed time working up to (and I enjoyed the theory) was: DAN has discovered deep stops. I was quite taken aback that immediately after unveiling deep stops, he immediately launched into a tirade in an attempt to deflect the I told you so statements that are already coming from the technical community. It probably would have been smoother for him to just breeze on and not bring up the technical community to begin with.
Other than the tirade it was a good talk with a nice history of decompression theory given and what works and doesnt work. One excellent observation he left us with is how divers ascend after the safety stop. He said something along the lines of I know what you all do, Ive WATCHED you! After your five minutes is up you go dives over! and shoot up to the ladder at about 200ft/minute! Dont do that! Ascend slowly! Just like JJ and Irvine have been saying for years: That last 10ft is the worst.
The whole panel took some Q&A and the meeting broke up. I sought out Hamilton just to shake his hand.
When this thing comes to your neck of he woods, do it. It was a fun time!
Roak
* [added on edit] Rick Murchison informs me that treatment of retired millitary personel at millitary facilities is a matter of law, but it still comes across as a bit odd they'd treat at a non-medical facility (Fort Carson has the militarty hospital in town) when they're chambers at Memorial Hospital with a staff trained to deal with SCUBA injuries.
The reason I asked the question was not to unearth any subterfuge, but because Memorial Hospital's chambers are 3 ATA chambers, and the AF chamber is a 6 ATA chamber.
October 12th, 2002 in Colorado Springs.
http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/news/article.asp?newsid=214
Dont ask me why DAN held their first divers day in the SCUBA capitol of the world NOT, Colorado Springs. Probably to work out the bugs (there were a few minor ones) before theyre in front of a big audience (there were about 30 people in attendance).
My buddy Karl and I attended and I was amazed that I only saw one other person I recognized, an instructor from Divers Reef. I was a bit disappointed that none of the local shops owners or managers attended.
Summary: I had a blast! It started out with a presentation by the local hospitals hyperbaric staff on whos in the chamber when a divers not in there (lots of lovely shots of gas gangrene, the timing of this presentation, right after breakfast, could be improved
). I didnt know that our Memorial Hospital had come online for being able to do Table 6 treatments in not one but three monoplace chambers!Dick Clarke, who I REALLY enjoyed listening to talked about commercial diving and had an aside on some NeOx (or was it ArgOx?) chamber dives he and Dr. Bill Hamilton did (bends incident rate: 100%!) Clarke talked about excursions from saturation depths, both ascents and descents that got some gears turning which prompted a question from me much later in the day.
Then the guy I really wanted to hear took the mike: Dr. RW Bill Hamilton. Excellent talk on technical diving. He used the words Do It Right an awful lot, but to be fair, not in reference to DIR. Most everything he had to say about technical diving and decompression and gasses did match one-for-one with DIR but there were some departures, like his preference for full-face masks like Chowdhury (sp?). He made a point A lot of commercial divers (FFMs) can tell you about their seizure, but not divers who use a regulator. And the counter point But FFMs make you use a lot more gas.
After Hamilton it was announced that the Special Forces presentation had run into a hitch something about the entire unit being shipped off to Afghanistan within the last week so an analysis of diving accidents was presented. Nothing earthshaking: Young, stupid males die a lot and old, fat males die a lot while diving. Through a couple questions aimed at the Memorial Hospital staff it looks like we get five to ten DCS cases coming over Raton Pass (~8500 feet) after diving at Blue Hole every year.
Broke for lunch and then continued
Hazardous marine life had lots of gross pictures (right after eating again, hello?) and how to treat various injuries. A rather wooden presenter.
Col. Mark Krautheim, MD did a presentation on Petersons hyperbaric/hypobaric chamber. Lots of discussion about DCS under reduced pressure. I asked if the chamber was available to treat civilians and the answer was No, but we did treat a SCUBA DCS case in a retired Sargent last week. Which tells me the good ol boy network is alive and well in the military.*
Dick Clarke then took the mike again for a wonderful presentation on Hydrolab, which he was a part of. Again mentioning excursion depths I finally broke down and asked, Are deeper excursion depths an extrapolation of the cross correction that we use for altitude? I was surprised that the answer was No. Im going to have to look into this one when I have some free time. Much of this presentation was anecdotal, but was really wonderful to listen to. I dont know when would have been a better time to be a diver: now, when decompression is much better understood so the risk is reduced or back in the cowboy days!
Finally Dr. Peter Bennett, the head of DAN took the stage and talked about mostly decompression from our so-called no decompression dives. Excellent talk, though unfortunately he comes across as more a politician than a doctor. The really, really big news, which he took a very long and detailed time working up to (and I enjoyed the theory) was: DAN has discovered deep stops. I was quite taken aback that immediately after unveiling deep stops, he immediately launched into a tirade in an attempt to deflect the I told you so statements that are already coming from the technical community. It probably would have been smoother for him to just breeze on and not bring up the technical community to begin with.
Other than the tirade it was a good talk with a nice history of decompression theory given and what works and doesnt work. One excellent observation he left us with is how divers ascend after the safety stop. He said something along the lines of I know what you all do, Ive WATCHED you! After your five minutes is up you go dives over! and shoot up to the ladder at about 200ft/minute! Dont do that! Ascend slowly! Just like JJ and Irvine have been saying for years: That last 10ft is the worst.
The whole panel took some Q&A and the meeting broke up. I sought out Hamilton just to shake his hand.
When this thing comes to your neck of he woods, do it. It was a fun time!
Roak
* [added on edit] Rick Murchison informs me that treatment of retired millitary personel at millitary facilities is a matter of law, but it still comes across as a bit odd they'd treat at a non-medical facility (Fort Carson has the militarty hospital in town) when they're chambers at Memorial Hospital with a staff trained to deal with SCUBA injuries.
The reason I asked the question was not to unearth any subterfuge, but because Memorial Hospital's chambers are 3 ATA chambers, and the AF chamber is a 6 ATA chamber.
