DAN Emergency Oxygen for Scuba Diving Injuries

Why This Course Matters

When a diving injury happens, time matters. So does knowing what to do with the oxygen kit sitting on the boat.

The DAN Emergency Oxygen for Scuba Diving Injuries course teaches you how to recognize a possible diving injury and provide emergency oxygen while professional medical care is on the way.

Emergency oxygen is the preferred first aid for suspected scuba diving injuries. Providing a high concentration of oxygen can improve oxygen delivery to injured tissues and accelerate the elimination of inert gas from the body.

The goal is not to diagnose decompression sickness on the deck of a dive boat. The goal is to recognize that something may be wrong, activate emergency medical care, and start useful first aid without wasting time.

This is not theoretical training. This is practical, hands-on emergency response.

How the Course Works

The academic portion of the course is completed through DAN eLearning, where you will work through the physiology, equipment, safety considerations, and decision-making behind emergency oxygen first aid.

Then we get our hands on the equipment.

Because knowing that a demand valve exists and being able to assemble one correctly while somebody is having a very bad day are two completely different things.

During the instructor-led portion, we work through the equipment and scenarios until you can confidently:

Recognize the signs and symptoms of a possible diving injury
Assess scene safety and the injured person’s condition
Choose an appropriate oxygen delivery method
Identify, assemble, and operate emergency oxygen equipment
Provide oxygen to a breathing injured diver
Provide oxygen-supported ventilations when appropriate
Monitor the injured person while help is on the way
Build a practical emergency assistance plan

What You Will Learn

Knowledge topics include:

Atmospheric gases
Respiration and circulation
Decompression illness
Oxygen and diving injuries
Handling oxygen safely
Administering emergency oxygen

You will practice hands-on skills including:

Oxygen equipment identification, disassembly, and assembly
Scene safety assessment
Initial patient assessment
Using a demand inhalator valve
Using a nonrebreather mask
Using a bag-valve mask
Using a manually triggered ventilator
Developing an emergency assistance plan

Who Should Take This Course?

You do not need to be a dive professional to learn emergency oxygen first aid, and you do not even need to be a certified scuba diver.

This course makes sense for:

Recreational divers
Dive professionals and assistants
Dive trip leaders
Boat crew and surface support personnel
Parents and family members who spend time around divers
Anyone who may be present when a diving emergency occurs

There is an important prerequisite: You must hold current DAN Basic Life Support: CPR & First Aid, CPR: HCP, or another nationally recognized full CPR certification before completing the Emergency Oxygen course.

If you need CPR and first-aid training too, that is easy to solve. DAN Basic Life Support can be completed first, or we can arrange the training together.

Why Divers Should Know How to Use Oxygen

Most of us spend a lot of time learning how to prevent diving emergencies. We practice buoyancy, gas management, controlled ascents, buddy procedures, and emergency skills because prevention is always the better plan.

But eventually somebody has to be prepared for the day when prevention was not enough.

Maybe it is your buddy. Maybe it is somebody else on the boat. Maybe a diver surfaces confused, unusually weak, short of breath, in pain, or simply not acting like themselves.

You do not need to determine exactly what is happening before you start being useful.

Recognize the problem. Call for help. Get the oxygen going. Monitor the diver. Keep doing the things you were trained to do until professional medical care takes over.

That is what this course is about.