Being a Navy Diver for the past 5 years has put me in some of the most “potentially” dangerous situations. I say potentially because we have always took precautions in planning our dives. We carefully execute each dive as if our lives and the lives of other depend on it, because it does.
When talking about risks the big elephant in the room is Diving Related Illnesses such as pulmonary overinflation syndromes such as Arterial gas embolism, pneumothorax (tension, and simple), mediastinal/subcutaneous emphysema, and pressure related illnesses such as nitrogen narcosis. The easiest thing to do is follow your table and hit your decompression stops. This will take out 99% of the risks associated with diving related illnesses. The other part is the know the signs and symptoms of diving related illnesses and what to look for if anyone was to have an emergency ascent or omit decompression.
One of the greatest risks in my field is Entanglement. Getting stuck somewhere and not being about to get back to the surface, however, recreational divers have a higher risk of suffering an Equipment Malfunction due to user error or improper maintenance. This is to include bad gas mixtures or bad gas compression. The 96% of people who died scuba diving died with weight belts on and 86% died alone meaning they either were diving solo or got seperated. This means that we can significantly increase the likelihood of survival by changing just 2 things. First is to know your gear. Understand how it works and memorize emergency procedures I promise you that if you know where your reserve octopus is at all times it will be easier to find in an emergency. Maintain your own gear, and keep it clean and operational. If you haven’t been diving in awhile find a good shallow easy place to get acquainted with your gear before you take a deeper dive.
Don’t get lost. Second is really easy always always dive with a buddy. A dive buddy will always be there to assist you in anything that might come up and you are able to assist them. Getting lost is a huge risk. Either you are unable to get help if you need it or if you do surface you might not be anywhere close to the boat.
I know these all need a more in depth description and soon I will be able devote a little more time to describing each illness and what to look for. I will also be coming out with a “How To” navy diving neurological examination so that you can also Identify illnesses. Thank you for the read and as always if you have any questions please comment, if you would like to see more content please hit the subscribe button!
Thank you,
-Jesse
The Dive Logs 