#dive show

Headed to Beneath the Sea tomorrow at the Meadowlands Expo Center. NYUPS will be sharing a table next to the Big Apple Divers table, so come by and say hello. Looking forward to seeing the show and everything on display once we get there.

Erik Petkovic on Lake Erie Wrecks at the DC Dive Show #diveshow #diving #scuba #lakeerie #greatlakes #wrecks

1: Guide to Lake Erie Technical Wreck Diving

This weekend at the DC Dive Show in Washington, Erik Petkovic will present two seminars on the well-preserved shipwrecks in Lake Erie. The first, ‘Guide to Lake Erie Technical Wreck Diving’, is a seminar on his acclaimed new book Lake Erie Technical Wreck Diving Guide.  Erik will take the audience below the surface to explore the deepest wrecks in…

Nick Lyon on British Diving at the Go Diving Show

The British Isles sit just six degrees south of the Arctic Circle in a patch of the Atlantic Ocean scoured by strong tides and battered by relentless winds. It’s an unlikely location for scuba diving to flourish, but flourish it has. How did this happen? Nick Lyon has a few ideas and at the Go Diving show, he will be advancing his ground-breaking theories on the evolution of Homo aquaticus britan…

The show starts with a brief run through the history of diving, with replica suits (...70′s floral. ew.) from the 20′s through the 21st century, then goes on to the Olympic required dives, a high dive, a higher dive, a guy on fire, tandem dives, flips, barrel rolls (...kinda sorta not really idk technicals) and a highest dive- ~50′ above the tank. Plus free expression, which was basically all the divers jumping into the tank however they wanted, though still stylistically impressive. 

The only part of the show I really did not care for, was during the middle, the girl and one of the guys do a single-dive competition, and this jerk from the audience pretty much starts calling out his opinions for the dives. Which, okay, once is annoying but funny, twice is. Multiple times? Dude. Stop. Talking. Yes, it became obvious it was part of the show. Yes, the jerk was one of the divers and was really poking fun at his teammates. But really? “I give it a 10! Yanno, a perfect 10 for a perfect 10...” I was really, really hoping the male diver in his suit would just shove the joker in. I didn’t get that. He did get soaked though so I just have to settle there. 

The UK’s annual Birmingham dive show brings together diving’s greatest and best under one roof. For some, the show is a chance to snap up a special offer. For others it is an opportunity to catch up on all the latest news and developments in diving.

Yet traipsing round from stage to stage, room to room, can be tiresome. So why not put your feet up at Scuba Travel TALKS!

In an exciting innovation, UK- based tour operator Scuba Travel will be bringing together some of diving’s most interesting, amusing and pioneering folk on one stage… Scuba Travel TALKS.

We have had another interesting and successful weekend at the Dive Show, at the Birmingham NEC. Our stand was promoting our diving medicine expertise, education and training remit, research work and some of the many ways that people can support the DDRC, as we are a registered charity.

It was very pleasing to be visited by a number of familiar friends, colleagues, ex-patients and dive clubs, many of whom have benefitted from our treatment, fitness to dive advice or training in the past.

There was considerable interest in our training, including the Diver Medic Technician (DMT), Hyperbaric Chamber Operator and Dive Accident Responder Course (DARC). We even had interest from a TV celebrity! The next DARC course will be held at DDRC in Plymouth on 26/27th January 2013 and places are still available at only £99 each by calling 01752 209999 or email [email protected] .

All entrants to the Dive Show were given a leaflet reporting the findings of our ‘Drugs and Diving’ research, which followed on from the ‘Alcohol and Diving’ leaflet which we first published at the London Dive Show in March 2012. Our quiz to win two free places on our next Dive Accident Responder Course was based on these two pieces of research and further copies of these leaflets are available to anyone interested. Contact us on [email protected] for paper or PDF versions.

Also still available are our updated DDRC Underwater Dive Accident Manuals, which provide a handy, comprehensive guide and easy to follow flow chart, in a light, waterproof material – ideal for your dive bag, boat or first aid kit. Contact us for details of the latest special offer prices.

The highlight of the weekend however was probably a random moment when we found ourselves called upon to help re-inflate a large turtle for our exhibition neighbours, the Marine Life Conservation Society. What a helpful bunch we are!  

Marguerite St Leger Dowse, an experienced researcher for DDRC and co-editor of 'Women and Pressure' here describes some of the preliminary results of some of the latest research DDRC has been doing. An information leaflet about alcohol and diving will be in Diver magazine at LIDS this weekend. The full results of the study will be available in due course, so keep an eye out on DDRC's research homepage…

These days we are all very aware that we shouldn’t drink alcohol and drive a car – for example, 20% of deaths on the road have alcohol as a factor. However in a recent survey, conducted by DDRC, more than 18% of the divers who participated in the project said that they had gone diving when they considered themselves unfit to drive a car, and 23% said that they had witnessed a diving accident they felt might be alcohol related. There was also evidence that divers did not always have a responsible attitude to alcohol when on a diving trip away, of binge drinking in younger divers, and of older divers consuming more than the recommended weekly limit on a regular basis.

In addition to the research project, DDRC DCI treatment records from the last five years show that there has been a steady increase, year on year, in the percentage of divers treated for DCI who have consumed alcohol 24 hours before a dive. There was an overall five year average of approximately 4 units of alcohol consumed 24hrs or less before a dive. This means some divers were consuming an excess of alcohol, probably more than would be considered safe in conjunction with the diving environment.   Over the five years of treatment records there were some reports of 10 to 20 units recorded within 24 hours or less of a dive by divers with DCI. The 2011 records show that 75% of the divers treated at DDRC had consumed alcohol 24 hours or less before a dive, with one diver admitting to 20 units.

During training recommendations with regard to alcohol and diving are generally quite vague, with the advice “not to drink an excess of alcohol around the time of a dive”.  Any lecture material tends to centre on the DCI risk in relation to dehydration, but omits to stress the important effects of alcohol and alcohol hangover on cognitive function such as concentration, reasoning, memory and reaction time, and how this may impair a diver’s ability to deal with a problem whilst diving, thus increasing the risk of a diving incident.

So to promote safe diving practices, DDRC are aiming to try and highlight the effects of alcohol in the diving environment in more detail in order that divers can make more informed decisions when mixing diving with alcohol consumption! It is important to remember that hangover can affect the ability to dive safely too – the danger being that often the person affected does not always realise that their cognitive functions are still impaired by the effects of alcohol.