Diving in the News, Oct 27, 2012 October 27, 2012
Posted by Chris Sullivan in Emergencies, Fitness and Nutrition, Miscellany, Training.Tags: Adventure, CPR, Dive Training, Diving, Diving Accident, Diving fatality, Outdoors, SCUBA, Scuba Diving, Scuba Training, Sport, Training
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A La Jolla, California diver died in hospital after losing consciousness on a boat dive. It seems that everything that could have been done was done to save him. The cause appeared to be a medical problem, and the diver appeared to be over 40. From the news at least it seems that the most common cause of death among divers is medical problems with older divers. Fitness would clearly be a good thing, but so might better training and skills. Diving should be relaxing, not physically stressful. I’ve reported on fatalities in La Jolla before. A solo diver died there in September, and a man died on his first solo dive at 155′ a few years back.
Hard to imagine February 28, 2011
Posted by Chris Sullivan in Training.Tags: CPR, Dive Training, Diving, Diving Accident, Diving fatality, Fiji, SCUBA, Scuba Diving, Scuba Instructor, Scuba Training, Training
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This story of a the death of a 28 year-old woman is troubling. As with most stories like this, there aren’t enough facts to really form an opinion. The woman was with an instructor in Fiji, but the instructor surfaced without her. She was later recovered and her boyfriend tried to revive her. It doesn’t mention what she was doing with the instructor or how many other divers were with them. Based on the article, one might wonder:
- How could an instructor lose track of a student in the clear waters of Fiji?
- Why wasn’t the EFR trained instructor involved in the resuscitation?
PADI is investigating and well they should, at least based on this story.
After writing this I noticed another story this time describing the instructor as a “dive master”, and that he surfaced to change cylinders. If she was with a buddy, and was sufficiently experienced, that just might have been reasonable if conditions were good. But the article goes on to describe strong currents. This one also reports that the boyfriend gave CPR rather than the “dive master”, which is odd.
Goes to show that precision reporting on dive accidents doesn’t occur in the mainstream press.
Specialties Galore June 2, 2009
Posted by Chris Sullivan in Training.Tags: Adventure, CPR, Dive Training, Diving, Drift Diving, Dry Suit, Nitrox, Outdoors, PADI, SCUBA, Scuba Diving, Scuba Equipment, Scuba Instructor, Scuba Training, Shipwreck, Sport, Training, Wreck Diving
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After all the time, money and hard work to advance from recreational diver to instructor, I was surprised at the relative ease of obtaining specialty instructor certification. Now I understand how the owner of our dive shop has so many certificates framed on the dive shop walls.
There are two ways. A Course Director can award specialties by putting you through some training, exercises and so on as long as you have 10 logged dives for the specialty, or you can wait until you have certified 25 divers at any level (maximum 5 from non-diving courses) and have logged 20 dives in the specialty and apply directly to PADI.
To get a jump on things quickly, I’m certifying as an instructor for 7 specialties with my course director, and will wait for my 25 certs (which will be so much easier as I can do specialty instruction) for the rest. These will be:
- Emergency Oxygen Provider
- Enriched Air Diver
- Wreck Diver
- Deep Diver
- Drift Diver
- Dry Suit Diver
- Digital Underwater Photographer
Looks like it will be an interesting summer.
PADI Rescue Diver Class at Kirkfield Quarry April 4, 2009
Posted by Chris Sullivan in Training.Tags: CPR, Dive Training, Diving, Diving Accident, Outdoors, PADI, Rescue Diver, SCUBA, Scuba Diving, Scuba Instructor, Scuba Training, Sport, Training
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On May 24, 2008, which was the Memorial day weekend in the US but a week after Canada’s Victoria Day holiday (except in Quebec, where is has a different name due to their repudiation of the English Crown), we went back to Kirkfield Quarry to conduct a rescue class. My main role of the day was victim, and for more than 3 hours I panicked, fell unconscious, and stopped breathing for the benefit of our prospective rescuers.
The water had warmed to a balmy 13 degrees Celsius (55F), but it was a much nicer day than the barbeque the week before. Still, I opted for the dry suit, as a 3mm wetsuit was my only alternative at the time. Even with my recently acquired 6.5mm wet suit I would still opt for the dry suit even though we Canadian divers like to think of ourselves as tougher than most.
My first scenario was to panic on the surface and was handled well by the student. Second was to panic underwater, and I was also successfully rescued. We spent the next hour doing various surface exercises like tossing a line and a life buoy. The life buoy is not all that easy and I didn’t get to practice that in open water in my own rescue class. Being waist deep in the water at the time, the weight and size of the buoy made it difficult to fling with good distance and direction.
One of the divers lost his prescription mask, so I spent the next hour searching for it. It was found by another group of divers lodged on an upright tree trunk. I had been looking on the bottom, and by the time I got around to looking on the various trees it had been found.
The final scenario was unconscious diver. I was found very quickly because I naturally couldn’t stop the bubbles. I was found, shoved around, brought to the surface too quickly, and roughly pulled out of the water. A disgusting smelling Oxygen mask was shoved on my face which made me gag, but for the most part the class did well.
It was a fun day because we had 2 instructors and plenty of divemasters to go around. I wrote down four separate dives in my log book ranging from 3 minutes at 26 feet to 18 minutes at 30, with a total of 46 minutes underwater in the 3 plus hours for the class.
EFR Instructor Course Day 2 January 26, 2009
Posted by Chris Sullivan in Emergencies, Training.Tags: Adventure, AED, CPR, Dive Training, Diving, DSAT, EFR, Emergency First Response, Outdoors, PADI, SCUBA, Scuba Diving, Scuba Instructor, Scuba Training, Sport, Training
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On Sunday, we finished our EFRI course with the exam and two skill presentations and demonstrations. On the test I got 58/61, passing grade was 75%. Of the three I got wrong, one was because I answered the question the way I thought it was leading rather than what I thought was correct. Another was a bit of trick question but I understand the reasoning, and the third was because I read the question incorrectly. So not too bad although I strive for perfection.
The skill presentations were lots of fun, and in the cold temperature of the dive shop (around 15C) moving around a bit is a welcome relief from sitting in the classroom. The class acted up a bit, including an extreme method of immobilizing the victim’s head in the case of a spinal injury as you can see below.
A little close for comfort
My first demonstration was AED use, which I’d never done before, so it was good practice for me. The Red Cross course I took 3 years ago didn’t cover it, and the St. John’s Ambulance course last year didn’t include any practice although it briefly went over it’s use. Neither of those courses involved the application of Oxygen so this is an additional feature of EFR.
Each demonstration then involves watching a student repeat the demonstration. Matt was my student, and did everything correctly except he plugged in the pads and stuck them on the victim’s (a mannequin) chest before turning on the AED to follow the instructions.
The second demonstration was primary assessment for children, which varies from the adult procedure in that if the rescuer is alone and there is no knowledge of a preexisting heart condition in the victim, breathing and circulation is checked and attended to prior to alerting EMS, presumably because the likelihood of cardiac arrest is much lower in children. Other differences are that special pads and cables are often available for Automatic External Defibrillators, and that more care needs to be taken when tilting an infant’s head back to open the airway.
Steve demonstrating an incorrect procedure
By 2pm we had our completed forms to mail in to EFR, along with the registration fee. Now we are qualified we can list ourselves on the EFR web site as qualified instructors. I’ll likely teach some of my coworkers and at the shop if asked. The shop now has several new EFR instructors, all of whom will be trying to become Open Water Scuba Instructors at the beginning of the summer dive season. One of the best things about being an instructor is that I don’t have to recertify every two years to maintain my pro diving qualification.
Emergency First Response Instructor Course January 25, 2009
Posted by Chris Sullivan in Emergencies, Training.Tags: Adventure, Artificial Respiration, Blackberry, CPR, Dive Training, Diving, Diving Accident, Diving fatality, DSAT, EFR, Emergency First Response, Heart Attack, Outdoors, PADI, PADI Assistant Instructor, Primary Care, SCUBA, Scuba Diving, Scuba Instructor, Scuba Training, Sport, Training
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One of the prerequisites for becoming a PADI Open Water Instructor is to become an Emergency First Response Instructor. Emergency First Response Corporation is run by Drew Richardson, who also runs PADI, and this prerequisite was introduced in 2009. There are 3 variants of the course: Adult Primary Care; Adult Primary and Secondary Care; and Child Primary and Secondary Care. Both adult and child care can be taught in the same course.
Like PADI courses, the EFR instructional materials are well laid out and cover the essentials without much extraneous information. It is based on prescriptive learning, with the opportunity to do reading, watching videos or both prior to the classroom portion so that the student can focus on skills practice and scenario training in class.
While the course materials tell us that renewal into teaching status requires that you certify at least one student between renewals, the instructor told us that was no longer necessary. This might be an outcome of the new mandatory prerequisite for Open Water Scuba Instructors, as many instructors may not have the inclination or opportunity to teach EFR, or may be acting as guides and not even teach Scuba.
Today’s class had a fair bit of presentation, on setting up the classroom, materials required and course marketing, but I also had to demonstrate one of the Primary Care Skills (that’s the emergency stuff, as opposed to splinting and dressing wounds). Mine turned out to be CPR, i.e. artificial respiration and chest compressions – so while my classmates Steve, Matt, Marty and Jim all had mini-lectures, I had to do a full demonstration on a mannequin. It was good to go through it for my own practice, and I found out that mannequin technology has improved.
This one featured a special bag that runs from the mouth to the lungs, good for a single class, so that the mannequin itself only requires superficial cleaning after class. It also made a satisfying click sound when the chest is depressed sufficiently, and has a series of light emitting diodes that glow a satisfying green when the rate of compressions is sufficient (i.e. 100 per minute). For $180 it seems like a good deal.
I took a nice picture of the class in action on my Blackberry but couldn’t transfer to my laptop. The file seemed to move OK but the computer doesn’t recognize the file format.
Speaking of CPR, some good news. I wrote some time ago about an incident after the dive club holiday party where one of the assistant instructors (and I found out later a divemaster as well) gave CPR to a heart attack victim. It turns out the man lived after all. Dave and Pete gave the guy CPR, then the paramedics arrived with a defibrillator and told them it wasn’t working. They took him to the hospital and apparently the man’s heart had to be restarted 3 times, but he finally made it. I’m glad to report this as I’ve read about a lot of incidents where CPR has been given where the victim died anyway.
Tomorrow, we practice skills practice – diagnosing where students make mistakes and correcting them in an appropriately positive manner. Then the final exam and we can send in our applications for instructor certification.
Deepstop, Assistant Instructor January 8, 2009
Posted by Chris Sullivan in Training.Tags: Adventure, CPR, Dive Training, Divemaster, Diving, DSAT, Nitrox, Outdoors, PADI, PADI Assistant Instructor, SCUBA, Scuba Diving, Scuba Instructor, Scuba Training, Sport, Technical Diving, Training
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PADI sent me an email yesterday to confirm my new AI status. I asked them to do it as we have 8 students in the pool on the weekend. We’re going to have 3 new Assistant Instructors (1/2 my class) there, along with Rich who is a Divemaster in training and one of our newest technical divers.
The EFR Instructor course is scheduled for later in January. As of 2009, this course is a pre-requisite to becoming an Open Water Scuba Instructor. That will then depend on whether my instructor for AI gets accepted for his Course Director training this Winter. If so, then he’ll run us through the OSWI training in time for our Instructor Examination in June. So if all goes well I’ll be training students in the Summer. I’ve already put my dibs in for the Deep and Nitrox Specialities so I can build up the prerequisites to become a technical instructor.
Fatality at Scuba Club Christmas Party December 31, 2008
Posted by Chris Sullivan in Emergencies.Tags: CPR, Defibrillator, Diving, Fatality, SCUBA, Scuba Diving
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My wife and I left our dive club party to the more enthusiastic drinkers at about 10:30. I’d had nothing to drink and my wife had 1 beer. We both feel better with little or nothing to drink – something to do with age, I think.
There is a Karaoke bar downstairs from the restaurant where a lot of the club members ended up. It wasn’t exactly hopping, but there were continuous performances going on. One man, not from the divng club, was singing and dancing, then sat down and started gasping. Dave, an assistant instructor and technical diver I’ve dived with fairly often, ended up giving him CPR, and a woman who was on an oxygen unit donated it to help revive him.
He was taken away in an ambulance – and even though the paramedics had said he was reviving, they found out later that he’d died. It was a sad story but at least he had the best chance possible with a group of first aid-trained divers around. The only thing that would have helped more would have been an on-site defibrillator.
I got this story Sunday from the guys who were on my AI course. I haven’t spoken to Dave yet, but will be interested in his version of the story. It’s another example person who died despite the prompt application of CPR. I hope some day to report a case of CPR saving a life – I’m sure it does sometimes.
Chest Compressions Recommended on Gasping Victims November 25, 2008
Posted by Chris Sullivan in Emergencies.Tags: Cardiac Arrest, Chest Compressions, CPR, Heart and Stroke Foundation, Heart Attack, Resuscitation, University of Arizona
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I’m posting this because it’s a little different to the way I was taught CPR. We were told that if the patient is breathing, then the heart must be beating, and chest compressions shouldn’t be done. This article discusses patients who are gasping for air but otherwise unconscious. The Heart and Stroke Foundation recommends chest compressions with rescue breaths in these instances. According to another article in Science Daily, this is based on research from the University of Arizona, and a prior article citing several sources notes that there have been better outcomes with chest compressions only for cardiac arrest, while rescue breaths are still helpful for respiratory arrest incidents like near drowning, drug overdose, or choking.
CPR Saves Diver’s Life November 24, 2008
Posted by Chris Sullivan in Emergencies.Tags: CPR, Diving, Rescue Diver, SCUBA, Scuba Diving, Scuba Emergencies, Scuba Rescue
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I’ve read a number of books on Scuba Diving Incidents – many divers are fascinated by them, if the search terms used to hit this blog are any indication. One thing I noticed is that every time CPR was considered necessary, the diver did not survive. So I was slightly surprised but also happy to read of an incident in Vancouver where an instructor was in cardiac arrest after surfacing quickly from 100 feet, received CPR, and lived. Having been trained to give CPR, I wouldm’t hesitate give it a try, but reading this gives me more hope of a positive outcome than I’d had before.
It would be great if this article helps motivate people to take the training if they haven’t already.
Chronicle of an older diver 