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Alert Diver Article From coast to coast, DAN® is making an impact on commercial aquarium sites, helping their divers.
Developed in 2006, the Diving First Aid for Professional Divers training program helped streamline certification for aquarium divers into a single comprehensive course. One of its latest success stories is the Aquarium of the Bay in San Francisco, located at Pier 39 on Fisherman's Wharf.
The students were enthusiastic about the two-day course, said DAN Instructor Todd Baldi. "In fact, the only breaks they requested were to jump into the aquarium tanks for the midday feeding of the fish."
A giant stride Prior to the development of the DAN Professional Divers course, aquarium dive operations, like Aquarium of the Bay, had to provide and monitor multiple courses and numerous requisite certifications per employee. This time-consuming - and often confusing - accounting method for diver qualifications has all but disappeared. With this streamlined course offering from DAN, aquarium officials now track a single credential. The course, designed to meet Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards, offers instruction in workplace first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and in dealing safely with blood-borne pathogens. The class features specific components from three DAN courses: Oxygen First Aid for Scuba Diving Injuries, First Aid for Hazardous Marine Life Injuries, and Automated External Defibrillators for Scuba Diving. "We developed the course at the request of the aquarium at Epcot Center at Walt Disney World," said Eric Douglas, director of DAN Training. "We saw the appeal for divers - and their supervisors - who needed a clear way to track certifications for their jobs." The Seas with Nemo and Friends, formerly known as the Living Seas, became the site of DAN's first course for professional divers in 2006. But it hasn't been the last. Strength in numbers Operations from the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Md., to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California now use this course. So do the divers at the Downtown Aquarium in Denver, Colo., and the North Carolina Aquarium-Outer Banks. "The course enabled us to more efficiently administer dive safety training to more than 100 divers in our program," said Steve Broadhurst, dive safety officer at the North Carolina Aquarium in Pine Knoll Shores, N.C. "All the participants were impressed with the content, organization and instruction."
Douglas said this course has become one of DAN's most-requested courses. Academic institutions have signed on for the course as well, including the Florida Institute of Oceanography, the University of Hawaii Diving Safety Program and the University of South Florida, which has the largest scientific diving program in the nation. Bill Dent, dive safety officer at the Florida Institute of Oceanography at the USF campus in St. Petersburg, first used the course to train 25 scientific divers and researchers. Dent said the course condensed all the necessary safety components into a single course, with the exception of the neurological assessment. Back at the Aquarium of the Bay, Baldi has plans to keep DAN programs in force. "The aquarium diving safety officer, Mike McGill, has been an avid scuba diver since 1986 and a longtime supporter of Divers Alert Network," Baldi said, adding that McGill recently purchased a DAN Dual Rescue Pak Extended Care for the aquarium to use on fish-collecting trips. "Mr. McGill has robust plans for the aquarium's diving program," Baldi said. "And DAN training programs have been a valuable resource for him to achieve the aquarium's goals." To offer or participate in the course, a facility must have some affiliation with an aquarium or be associated with a scientific or commercial diving program. For more information about the Diving First Aid for Professional Divers course, send an email to oxygen@diversalertnetwork.org or call 1-800-446-2671. Learn more about the aquarium at www.aquariumofthebay.com/ © Alert Diver November / December 2008 |
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