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Oxygen First Aid for Aquatic Emergencies

Every year more than 4,000 Americans die from drowning and many more suffer from near-drowning events.

According to the 1998 National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA) Annual Sports Participation Survey, 58.2 million Americans participated more than once in swimming during the year. The same study identified nearly 30 million people who participated in power boating, sailing, kayaking, rafting or canoeing.

When swimmers and boaters have near-drowning accidents, water in their lungs keeps their lungs from working properly and they don't get an adequate amount of oxygen. This may cause secondary drowning; victims appear to survive an incident only to die at home a few hours later. Administering 100 percent oxygen first aid immediately after an accident improves the victim's survival chances.

For nearly a decade, DAN has preached the benefits of providing oxygen to injured scuba divers. During that time more than 80,000 people worldwide have been trained in this first aid skill. In March of 1999, DAN Services, Inc., a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary of Divers Alert Network, launched the Oxygen First Aid for Aquatic Emergencies (Aquatics) program. Its goal is to extend the life-saving skills of oxygen first aid to people who live and play in and around water. Providing high concentrations of oxygen to near-drowning victims in the first few minutes after rescue can prevent serious or even fatal complications

Advanced Oxygen First Aid for Scuba Diving Injuries

This module, Advanced Oxygen First Aid for Scuba Diving Injuries, is an advanced-level program that provides additional training for those individuals who have successfully completed the DAN Oxygen First Aid for Scuba Diving Injuries course within the past year (12 months). It is designed to train DAN Oxygen Providers to use the MTV-100 or a Bag Valve Mask (BVM) while providing care for a non-breathing injured diver and activating the local emergency medical services (EMS) and / or arranging for evacuation to the nearest available medical facility.

Rescue breathing with supplemental oxygen delivers upwards of 50 percent inspired oxygen when performed correctly. However, using an MTV-100 or Bag Valve Mask with oxygen can deliver nearly 100 percent inspired oxygen to a non-breathing injured diver.

When supplemental oxygen is not available, a Bag Valve Mask can deliver 21 percent oxygen as compared to 16 percent with rescue breathing without supplemental oxygen. The MTV-100 does not work without an oxygen supply.

This is not a stand-alone program. It is intended to train current DAN Oxygen Providers to administer oxygen using advanced-level skills.

First Aid for Haszardous Marine Life Injuries

A diver surfaces from a dive in an area abundant with coral, removes his fins and finds redness, swelling and blisters just beginning to show on his left ankle. He also experiences a stinging sensation on the same ankle.

A diver, following a dive to an area filled with marine life, notices a small bite pattern on his lower right leg and some stiffness; he also experiences difficulty swallowing, has a generalized weakness and a slight numbness in the area of the bite.

A diver experiences pain, nausea and some swelling associated with a purple-and-black puncture wound in his left knee.

The common thread from each of the three injuries is that they likely came from contact with some form of hazardous marine life. Given similar circumstances with you or a dive buddy, would you be able to appropriately treat each injury?

Although serious hazardous marine life injuries are rare, most divers experience minor discomfort from unintentional encounters with fire coral, jellyfish and other marine creatures at some point in their dive careers. Knowing how to minimize these injuries helps you reduce diver discomfort and pain.

The First Aid for Hazardous Marine Life Injuries program is designed to provide knowledge regarding specific types of marine creature injuries and the general first aid treatment for those injuries.

Automated External Defibrillators for Scuba Diving

This course represents entry-level training designed to educate the general diving (and qualified non-diving) public to better recognize the warning signs of Sudden Cardiac Arrest and administer first aid using Basic Life Support techniques and Automated External Defibrillators while activating the local emergency medical services, (EMS) and / or arranging for evacuation to the nearest appropriate medical facility.

The mean age of divers who die each year in dive fatalities tracked by DAN is gradually increasing. It is now approximately 42 years of age. Divers are getting older, and older people are getting involved in diving.

Of the 78 dive fatalities in the DAN 2001 Report on Decompression Illness, Diving Fatalities and Project Dive Exploration, based on 1999 fatalities, 7.7 percent of them were caused directly by heart disease. At the same time, heart disease was the direct cause of death for 26 percent of the fatalities involving divers over the age of 35. 
 
     On top of that, 25 percent of divers involved in diving fatalities were also reported to be taking heart medications.

Heart disease is a common problem. To ignore that it affects divers as much as it affects the general population does divers a disservice. When you consider that diving is often done from remote locations - on beaches or off of dive boats - that are far removed from emergency medical help, it is important to prepare for every emergency.

Automated External Defibrillators for Aquatic Emergencies

In the United States, sudden cardiac arrest claims more than 225,000 to 250,000 lives a year, according to the American Heart Association.

Ninety three percent of the people involved in a submersion incident die from cardiac arrest.

Most common cause of sudden cardiac arrest is ventricular fibrillation. There are several causes of ventricular fibrillation including:

Cardiovascular disease 
     Drowning 
     Hypothermia 
     Electrical shock

The only definitive treatment for ventricular fibrillation is defibrillation. This course teaches lay-providers to use an automated external defibrillator to defibrillate a fibrillating heart and restore a normal rhythm.

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