DAN

Before I knew it I was flying to North Carolina to visit the Divers Alert Network (DAN) headquarters.  When I arrived, I met with Eric Douglas and Donna Uguccioni from DAN.  Donna is in charge of the scholars and interns that come to visit.  Jamie Brisbin (2008 Our World Underwater Scholar) was also there to receive DAN training and take part in a “Flying after Diving” study (FAD).  These studies are done in the hyperbaric chamber at Duke University to measure the effects on divers who fly soon after diving.  For each study, 4 people went into the chamber to exercise for a set time at depth; we were in the chamber for 40 minutes at 60 ft.  We then spent time on deck between the “dive” and the “flight”.  When I participated, the time between the flight and dive was down to 5 hours.  We then went back into the chamber for a 4-hour flight.  During the flight the doctors would take Doppler and TE readings which enabled them to monitor our hearts for bubbles.  Each trial of the study decreases the time between “diving” and “flying” after a certain amount of people have gone through that time period and no one has gotten bent.  The goal is to bring the surface time all the way down to 5 minutes between flight and dive.  The training that I received while I was at DAN included AED, O2, Advanced O2, and First Aid for Hazardous Marine Life Injuries.  The time spent at DAN was a lot of fun and I met a lot of really cool people as well as learned an incredible amount.