Jay (00:02)
Welcome to the dive table. I'm Jay Gardner.
Sarah (00:06)
And I'm Sarah Miller. And today we're going to talk a little bit about rescues and emergencies. Why is this a topic that you're excited to talk about, Jay?
Jay (00:17)
Well, unfortunately, emergencies happen. I don't know about you. I've been involved in a couple of those on the treatment side of it, not on the victim side of it. And they do happen. And we are in an environment that if things go wrong, can punish you. And even if things go right, sometimes can punish you. And so being prepared at some level,
I think it's really important. And I always go back to just this idea of why I, you know, I, when I first started diving, my goal was to get to rescue diver. and I think stress and rescue, there's, there's different names for it in different agencies, but, at the time in the agency, I was a part of it was rescue diver.
Sarah (01:04)
The gist of it is helping others, right? Yeah.
Jay (01:08)
Helping other people, yeah. And for me, I go back to, I set that goal because I had the opportunity to dive with the dive master in my first, you know, 50 dives quite regularly. And I knew, and I felt like he could look me in the eye and say, I got you, if something goes wrong. But I felt like I couldn't say the same back. And so getting to that level is the ability for me as a teammate or as a buddy to be able to look at somebody and say, you know, if things go wrong,
Sarah (01:37)
I got you. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. All right. So let's get into it.
Jay (01:37)
I've got you at some level, right? I got you at some level. And I want to be able to say that.
Sarah (01:50)
So this topic came up because, well, I think I suggested it maybe because I just finished teaching a rescue course this past weekend. I was in Monterey and I was really excited about it because it's one of my favorite courses to teach. So I was a band nerd, right? But that's very, very, so this was back in high school and college, but that's very related to theater.
Right? Like I've played in the pit for shows and things like that. And I love the drama of rescue. Like, I just love it. I love panicking and setting the scene and putting together all of the problems that could come. So anyway, there's...
Jay (02:20)
Yeah.
You're an agent of chaos is what you're saying.
Sarah (02:44)
I am. I love it. Like not in my day to day. I like live living a really peaceful life, but when it comes to the rescue, I think the more chaos, the better, right? So that has been on my mind, obviously. And so we were discussing just ways that we get prepared for like diving and how to respond to an emergency. So that's why we're talking today. And I think it would be great.
to discuss sort of like the path of getting to the point of taking the rescue course first of all, and then what you actually need to do to be effective in a
So Jay, what do you think of like, when do you recommend that people proceed with getting the rescue or stress and, you know, whatever you want to call it, the rescue certification?
Jay (03:42)
That's a really good question. I mean, I think that to be successful in that course and by success, I mean, not getting certified. I mean, actually taking the skills and retaining some of them for you, retaining the knowledge that you gain and all that. I think you need to feel comfortable in your own kit, in your own diving first. And it's not a number of dives necessarily. It's more of a comfort level that you have that, you know, if you're not yet,
Sarah (03:55)
and you
Jay (04:12)
fully comfortable and executing a dive on your own or with your gear or with your buoyancy or with your finning techniques, that class is probably going to, you'll miss a lot of it. Maybe that's the best way to put it. So, my recommendation is once you feel comfortable, you feel like I'm in a place where I can control myself and control my gear and control a dive, then I think it's good to...
Sarah (04:25)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Jay (04:40)
to add that in because then you can retain a lot of what gets taught. And it's not necessarily like it's really difficult, hard skills, but they will tax. It will only make it harder, I guess, if your own skill set is not yet dialed in, it will make it much harder to retain anything. That would be my two cents.
Sarah (05:03)
Absolutely. I think another point is just having experience like time in the water and seeing different problems, right? It doesn't have to be a full blown, like you need to witness an accident or whatever, but like deal with the normal things. Somebody falling in the surf, somebody losing a fin, accidentally, you know, dropping a weight belt or whatever, you know, these like very standard sort of things that we don't think of as accidents.
right, but they're the precursors to something that could go much worse, right? It's what I always harp on my students is I want you to be such a good rescue diver that you don't actually have to rescue anyone because you're there and solving the problems before they escalate to that in the first place.
Obviously, we want them to have the skills to be able to respond because sometimes you could do everything right and somebody has a heart attack, there's nothing you can do about that, right? So like get those skills to be able to do that. But the point is to stop, right? To recognize when people are stressed, to solve the problems, make decisions and judgment calls that will keep people from getting to that place of panic.
Jay (06:24)
Yeah. Yeah, we we kind of have a saying that it's, you know, one major or three miners that thumb the dive. So a minor, like you said, could be, you know, the weight belt or a compass malfunction that's happened or, you know, whatever it might be there, there are minor things, a leak in your dry suit. Or one major, you know, something like, you know, there's a cramp, a major or minor depends.
Sarah (06:32)
Mmm, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Jay (06:53)
on the person and whether it's resolved or not, right? Or getting lost or those sorts of things. So I think you're right that there's a way that you can catch it before it spins out of control. There's never really something that happens in the water that should be a surprise that becomes a major. Usually they're escalating towards something. I remember a particular dive that this became true. I just got back from drift diving in Mexico.
Sarah (06:55)
Right.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (07:21)
which is tons of fun, by the way. I mean, drift diving is just a lovely way to dive because you just get in and down you go and go where you want basically. And when you're all done shooting SMB and someone's there to pick you up, I mean, it's beautiful diving, but you're dealing with a lot of current, you know, whether it be light or it be strong current, you're in current. And I remember I had just gotten back and we were doing a lake dive back in Texas and
Sarah (07:25)
yeah.
Jay (07:48)
You know, it was one of those dives where things just kind of went wonky to the point where I had a digital compass at the time and it didn't matter which direction I looked, it was north. So clearly that was malfunctioning. We lost kind of visibility in mid -water. It was that soupy brown water, so you couldn't see the bottom. You had no idea really where you were except for depth. And I remember for myself, those were two, right? One, two.
Sarah (08:04)
Mm. Mm.
Jay (08:15)
And then the third one was all of a sudden, I don't know why, but all of a sudden I felt like I was back in a current. I was drift diving again and my body just thought, you're in the drift again. So I started to kick, you know, across the current like you're supposed to. And it took me a little while, I don't know, 30 seconds, a minute, however long it was to realize, dude, you're in a lake. There's no such thing as a current. What are you doing? By that time I turned around and I could barely see the lights of my team and was dizzy, all that.
Sarah (08:22)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Jay (08:45)
and got vertigo. And so I went back to the team, thumb the dive, we came up and another guy had gotten vertigo somehow in that dive. And we're like, forget this, we're 20 minutes in the dive, we're thumbing the dive, let's go back to the surface and we'll try again the next one. And that's what we did. And although we probably could have continued, although things might have been okay, you see that escalation to where if we just push through that,
Sarah (08:46)
Yeah.
Mm.
Jay (09:14)
what could happen next. And that's a good place to stop. So that's the kind of one major or three minors thumb and die.
Sarah (09:23)
Yeah, I've heard that I think that that's probably a UTD and a GUE thing, because I've heard that in different circles in diving. And I think it's a good one. But going back to like going after the certification, I think just having a few more dives under your belt, however many that is, I've shared before that I did the zero to hero thing. Don't recommend it.
I did my rescue course and although according to how I felt in the water, like what you were talking about, like, do you feel comfortable? Can you solve your own problems? Whatever. I met that, right? But I had no experience with like seeing anything go wrong. I was diving in Koh Tao, which is a warm bathtub, you know? Like I had no context for things that could go wrong, right? So I didn't get as much out of my rescue. And I think that's...
That's really important. I was talking to my student about it and she had joined me on my Baja dive expedition and we had discussed the rescue during that trip. She was like, do you think I'm ready for it and everything? And I was like, listen, I've seen you dive like you're solid and you're diving regularly. So, and you're diving, you're shore diving from Monterey. So yes, I think it's about that time to make that step.
And like, she killed it. Like, she did such a good job. I mean, I don't know if you've been diving in Monterey, but it's not easy. We had one day where it was like downpour, like horrible, horrible rain, bad visibility. She was dragging. I had an instructor assist us and he's 200 pounds of just like muscle and had her, you know, dragging him, carrying him up the beach and everything like.
It's a tough course. And so you have to, when you're thinking about signing up for it, do you have the experience and are you taking care of yourself? Right? We've harped on nutrition and health and everything. Like you need to be in decent shape to be able to do, especially if you're doing it from the shore and dealing with shore exits.
Jay (11:40)
Yeah. Yeah. And to that point, I would, I would echo as well. I think that when it comes to basic life support or, basic first aid, those things, the clock on that is every two years for your CPR and those things. And you have to take a refresher every two years. And I also don't think it's a bad idea to put some sort of clock and take a, take this course multiple times. you know, take it every couple of years, three years, whatever it might be.
Sarah (11:55)
Mm -hmm.
Jay (12:09)
to keep those skills engaged. It's not just about earning the certification. It's actually about keeping those skills engaged and fresh. And that's a really good point that you bring up that keeping yourself physically fit is really important as well as keeping yourself mentally fit, which may mean taking a refresher or auditing the course. You know, can I come along and be a part and be the victim or whatever it would be to keep those skills fresh?
Sarah (12:27)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah. And that's what I was going to say because speaking from the camp of like, maybe we can't afford to do rescue training all the time. You can put together a dive group where once a month or once every other month you guys get together and you practice some of those rescue skills. Or like you said, keep in touch with your instructor if you're like locally diving, right? And...
ask them, like, please contact me if you're doing a rescue because I want to assist. And that way you get that practice with it. So, yeah.
Jay (13:12)
So what do you think, so staying on the course a little bit, you just taught this, so this is an interesting one. What do you think if you had to choose, we're just gonna be in that world, the universe that you have to, what is the critical, the one takeaway that you hope the student gets from either a skill perspective or a knowledge perspective about stress and rescue?
Sarah (13:18)
Mm -hmm.
Mm. Yeah.
Jay (13:39)
Ooh, put you on the spot.
Sarah (13:44)
I think the main point, and this is actually taught in the EFR, so you don't even need to be a diver to kind of encounter this, but it's that, gosh, adequate care provided is better than perfect care withheld, right? So it's having the confidence to do something.
Jay (14:06)
Mmm.
Sarah (14:13)
right, instead of getting it into your brain. Like that's why the style that I teach for rescue is very much like, let's practice and make sure that we understand things, but also give ourselves grace that like in a real accident, you're not gonna be perfect. Who's gonna be perfect? I'm not, even though I've done this a million times, there's gonna be something because it is a stressful environment and you're gonna do the best that you can.
And it comes back to those good Samaritan laws of acting in good faith, right? So you're not being negligent and within your training, right? So I think that's the biggest thing. Like, yes, there are tons of skills that I wanna make sure they are comfortable with and that they execute correctly. But the main thing is that like not being afraid.
Jay (14:54)
Mm -hmm.
Hmm. That's a, I love that you picked that one. I had a different one, but now I want to change it to yours. Cause well, I want to build on what you said though, first, because I think that's so important. And I think you're absolutely right. Because for me personally, that was a holdup. I remember as a kid, I wanted to be a astronaut medic, right? Like all kids, but, but I really wanted to be a medic and was pursuing that. And with my own wounds, I was fine. You know, like stick your finger in it.
Sarah (15:14)
Let's hear it. No, no, let's hear it. Okay, okay.
Yeah. Mm -hmm.
Jay (15:39)
throw some dirt on it, no big deal. But as soon as it came to somebody else, I was so afraid of making it worse that what I did, that I'm going to hurt them. And I remember very clearly in my mind, my aunt had had had surgery, minor surgery, but she was in the hospital recovering and I went to visit her. And I remember being so afraid to even put a blanket over her or something, you know, thinking I'm going to hurt her. I don't know what to do. And that was a big barrier for me to get over in.
Sarah (15:46)
Yeah.
and
Jay (16:08)
all of my first day training and I went through Dan, I'm a Dan instructor now, all of that, but I had to get through all of that fear of doing the wrong thing and the realization that that person that you're going to treat is in the worst state they possibly can be in when you have to intervene. And so you taking action is only going to improve the state that they're in, even if you make mistakes, even if you don't know 100%, you know, that you did the right thing.
Sarah (16:32)
Right.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (16:38)
that that that intervention is going to have value. And so I love that you picked that one was not in my brain to pick that but I think that's critically important.
Sarah (16:46)
What was yours? What was yours? I want to hear.
Jay (16:50)
Mine was, was really around awareness. And I think under the water, yes. my gosh. Just, just being able to see when, when somebody is not right, whether that be under the water or on the boat afterwards or before the dive, even just to see that something's not going right. Usually if someone's, you know, stressed out and moving, moving around erratically a little bit.
Sarah (16:55)
Yeah. Situational awareness, huh? Yeah. Absolutely.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Jay (17:19)
It could just be they're stressed out and you getting in front of them and putting your mask in front of their mask and, and giving some eye contact and saying, Hey, everything's okay. And helping them solve whatever they're trying to solve, or just giving some reassurance can prevent a lot of the escalation that we talked about earlier, but seeing observing, having awareness for your buddy or your teammates, I think is something that for me, the stress and rescue course.
Sarah (17:36)
Yeah.
Jay (17:47)
is so incredibly important. Even if you don't know what to do, they're having a cramp and you're not quite sure how to resolve that for them. The fact that you recognize that someone else is having the cramp, for the person having a cramp, it's super reassuring. It's going to help calm them down. It's going to hopefully prevent the escalation to a point where it does become an emergency. So that's what I kind of harp on in my courses is really input divers in a position to have to have.
Sarah (17:49)
Mm -hmm.
Jay (18:17)
situational awareness that might not be so obtuse or might not be so out there, but the littler things, did you notice this? No, I missed it. Yeah. And that's what now it's going to lead to this. you didn't notice that now it's going to lead to this and keep escalating until that point of situational awareness is driven home. Because I think that's one of the big keys.
Sarah (18:27)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Yeah. Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Absolutely. No, I love that. That's same, same Z's, right? There's a lot of takeaways from this training. Like it's part of the reason why I really push people who are regularly diving to get to that level because there's such a dramatic shift in people's perception of the sport and their understanding of what's going on around them. I think it's wildly.
Jay (18:45)
Hahaha.
Sarah (19:11)
valuable, right? So, let's maybe go into like equipment and things that you think are, well that we all know are necessary, right? But maybe we could talk about stuff that you'll find when you go with dive operators and then maybe stuff that the two of us carry because we dive individually, right? And...
and we dive out of our cars. We talked about this a bit in the previous episode, but we can kind of stick to rescue stuff.
Jay (19:48)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, the obvious answer here on a dive boat or at a dive site, or if you're diving with your, your buddies or your, your teammates, is an O2 bottle and it doesn't have to be, a, you know, real medical grade O2 bottle that, you know, has the different mass and the, the stuff and the thing, although that's great. I think that's, that's the optimal version.
You can also grab a 40 cubic foot of O2 with a regulator on it. But having access to oxygen because oxygen is the treatment for both decompression sickness and decompression illness and something like that happens. The first step in the intervention is really oxygen, create a pressure differential of the PPO2, right? So I always have that with me in the truck and I might be a weirdo and people...
Sarah (20:22)
Mm -hmm.
Jay (20:46)
Sometimes look at me weird, but it's one of those things when I get to the dive site and I say, Hey, so, you know, whoever I'm diving with, the O2 is behind the passenger seat in my truck and my keys are here. So if something goes wrong for me.
Sarah (20:57)
Yeah, I don't think, yeah. I don't think that that's, I mean, you said like people might think you're a weirdo. I think that that needs to be like common practice for all of us. Like I know for myself, for a long time, I did not have oxygen in my van. And that was very risky. I don't recommend that to people because I was out diving by myself. I mean, granted, if something happened, I...
where like I was unconscious or whatever, like I was gonna be dead. And that same thing, like for all of us, cause I know that there are other people that solo dive, like there's that risk, right? Cause we don't have somebody that can drag us out of whatever. Granted, we should have other things in place so that eventually people do realize that something went wrong, right? But I think O2, like you're right on. I just recently got my O2 and...
I got one of those cases from Dan, so it has all of the different masks and everything. And yeah, I think that needs to shift, that a lot of us, everybody, if they can, should have O2 on site, because it does make a difference in the rescue.
Jay (22:16)
Yeah, and if you, you know, sometimes that can be difficult to get filled and can be a pain here and there.
Sarah (22:22)
Have you had trouble with it though?
Jay (22:25)
I did in Texas, surprisingly.
Sarah (22:27)
Okay, because here in California, man, it's a breeze. Like, I couldn't believe how easy it was. What was the issue in Texas?
Jay (22:30)
Yeah.
Yeah, it was a little tough. Well, it's a matter of usage and they, yeah, you can show your O2 provider card. I even showed, I took my instructor card to say, no, I'm an instructor in this, in, you know, O2. And they finally went, okay, I think it depends on where you go, but I ended up at a fire station.
Sarah (22:43)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Jay (23:01)
And that was the best place to make it happen. So there are commercial, obviously, you know, people have are on medical oxygen, just non diving, right for different reasons. If you go into one of those places, I found it to be hard because they wanted a prescription. That was the big deal.
Sarah (23:01)
Okay.
Yeah. Well, yeah, because it's medical grade, right? There's a difference between medical and aviation. So like that's where I've heard of the distinction. Could you not have gone to just a dive shop that had O2 for nitrox?
Jay (23:22)
Mm -hmm.
again, in a situation I was in, there, there wasn't a lot of that available within the dive shop. So there's one place that really did, more than just air.
Sarah (23:44)
That makes sense. Yeah. It's Texas, you guys. And especially where you were. It's not like you were on the coast. So like, it makes sense. What I found, because I was concerned. I was reading about all of that and was like, gosh, am I going to need a freaking prescription for this? And like, granted, actually Dan put out in their like most recent newsletter, whatever, it's like the exception, right? That.
Jay (23:53)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah (24:12)
scuba diving is one of those exceptions. And you can show that I think they link a PDF that lists all of the regulations that why it's an exception. And you can take that to places and like, hopefully get it filled without a prescription. But what what I've understood is that when you go to like dive shops and everything, they're they're using aviation grade oxygen, right? So that's that's a little bit different. It's still totally breathable, totally safe.
But maybe instead of, you know, 99 .9999 % oxygen, it's like .98 or something. Like it's not quite the same grade. I'm not sure. Don't quote me on that. But there is, you know, a variation, right? There's a difference between the two. And I literally went to the dive shop and they just hooked up the tanks and filled them. I paid. Ready to go.
like super easy.
Jay (25:12)
Yeah. And I think that's an important piece to say, you do need to go through the training. It's not just show up at the dive shop and say, give me O2. You know, you need to go through the training to understand oxygen is, well, actually, yeah, it's, it's, let's, let's call it a more dangerous gas than air. We'll put it that way. And it's handling and you need to understand that. But it's.
Sarah (25:23)
Right.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (25:40)
It's the number one treatment. And I think it's important to, even if you're not necessarily ready to go grab your own bottle of O2 and your own treatment, to ask the question or to pay attention to the dive briefing when you're with your instructor or if you're on the dive boat, almost every dive boat is going to say our O2 and our AED, the defibrillator, are located aft in this compartment or located above this. Mark that in your head.
Right. Keep that in your mind. Although you may not be the highest level train, which is kind of how the cascade goes in terms of medical treatment is, you know, the person that has the highest level of training becomes the, once they assume control, they are in control. And so you can imagine it goes from, you know, Joe Schmo to instructor to medic to nurse to doctor, right. and in those ways, even though you might not be.
the one to be providing that treatment, you may be asked to go grab it or to, you know, that's the first thing that, that you're going to do as an instructor to say, Hey, Sarah, go grab the O2. Hey, John, you know, notify the captain, Hey, so -and -so grab a blanket or a pill, whatever it might be. Just because you are not trained doesn't mean that you won't be involved in that intervention.
at the direction of the person that is the primary care person in that moment. So it's just good to keep a note of those things and to be ready to help. And again, to get over that fear, like you talked about earlier, Sarah, about doing something is better than doing nothing. And so doing something.
Sarah (27:13)
Absolutely.
Yeah. Yeah. What else? So other things that I think of when I think of emergencies, like what tools do I have available? So when we're boat diving, also boats are going to have first aid kits, right? If we're shore diving, hopefully we do too. Yeah. Like all of the normal stuff that you would need for cuts, you know, dislocations. What else?
Jay (27:52)
sling, cut some marine bites.
Sarah (27:53)
Yeah, splints, bites, yes, my gosh. So kind of the basics in a first aid kit is really helpful. And then like things that float, right? So like our dive floats and flags, like these are all safety pieces, right?
Jay (28:20)
Yeah, maybe to add to that. Okay, Daniel, we are frozen. So I think Sarah will be back in a minute. I'm going to keep going. One of the things that I just added when I got back from this trip to from Florida to my first aid kit was new skin. You know, it's one of those little hacks that I got some cuts. I got in a fight with a big dive knife trying to cut some bungee on the surface.
Sarah (28:34)
Mm -hmm.
yeah.
Jay (28:49)
I got a little cut. I mean, a little Nick, it was bleeding, whatever. And access to waterproof bandages, you know, they just fall off when you're in the water, isn't there. And if you're diving multiple days, wounds being in the water, just don't heal. They take forever. So new skin or super glue even, to, to seal that sucker up and to give it some time to heal is really nice. Like I literally have a cut on my hand right now that is still, you know, it's two weeks old for a little itty bitty little cut that bled a little bit.
Sarah (28:49)
no. no.
Mm. Yeah.
the worst. my gosh.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (29:18)
it's still, it's going to turn into a nasty scar because I was under the water for two hours a day. So new skin, those sorts of things, access to fresh water, having a big gallon of fresh water as part of your first aid kit to rinse wounds and to deal with some of those things I think is good. And then some of the other things that I put in my little first aid kit as well, Dramamine. I know that sounds silly, but you know, if you take it,
Sarah (29:21)
Yeah. Right.
I know.
Mm -hmm. Yeah. No, it's not.
Jay (29:48)
Take it too late, it's not gonna help, but you know, if you can, you can jump in and do it great. And I also keep a couple packets of that hydration, quick hydration stuff in my first aid kit. So liquid IV or drip drop or those, I have two of those in there that sometimes, you know, the diving incident is dehydration and you need a way to hydrate quickly. You could put your salt in a lime and in your...
Sarah (29:49)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
I had several people reach out and ask about that. It was a new thing for people, I guess, the salt and lime water trick. I also, in my first aid kit, I have cold packs and hot packs. The hot ones are the ones that you can reuse. You crack them and they get nice and warm and they'll stay warm for, I don't know, 15 or 20 minutes.
Jay (30:15)
You're a first aid kit.
Sarah (30:43)
And then you can boil them and use them again. They're quite neat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're very cool. I don't know the brand. I don't know the brand, but maybe I can look that up and we can have a link in the show description. Yeah.
Jay (30:46)
Ooh, I didn't know that. Is that a special kind or is it all of them?
Yeah, we should post a link of all the stuff that we, over the years, have collected into our first aid kit.
Sarah (31:05)
Yeah, yeah, I think those really helped me back when I was still diving a wetsuit in cold California water. That was like lifesaver. Other than first aid things, something that like we played with this past weekend was a pocket mask. So that's helpful for giving rescue breaths in the water. And then other like rescue type equipment.
Jay (31:14)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Sarah (31:35)
or just like safety in general would be like SMB, right? A cutting tool, we already talked about a knife. Having those things will support us when we have certain types of accidents. Think about that drift dive, right? I was laughing earlier, because I'm like so excited. I'm going to Komodo very, very soon. I'm taking a group to dive there the beginning of June. So it's like just under a month away. And yeah, and the currents there can...
Jay (32:01)
Ooh.
Do you still have spots by the way? Okay. So if you're looking to go dive, sign up with Sarah. Where can they go?
Sarah (32:04)
get wild. I do have spots. Yes, I do. Yeah. Yeah. Last minute spots. They can go to my website, azulunlimited .com. Yeah, I still have a couple of spots. It's a great group that I have put together. But I was thinking about some of the funny dives that I've had in Komodo.
where you go and you have that same thing that you were talking about, right? You go down, you drift along with the current, and then you pop up, and sometimes you pop up and there's no one there, right? And you're like, crap, right? So having a big SMB is really helpful, especially if there's like big waves, you'll be more visible if it's large, right? And also I'm looking into getting some kind of device that...
Jay (32:35)
Nobody there.
Sarah (32:52)
can send a signal. So I've looked at some of the ones that are very typical to diving. I've actually been looking at the Garmin inReach, which is a lot more expensive and it has a monthly subscription, which I don't love because I don't like paying monthly subscriptions for things. But I like that that is something that I could take to backcountry hikes and use it.
Jay (33:03)
Mm -hmm.
Sarah (33:21)
in multiple, you know, when I'm stand up paddle boarding, like I don't have to be out on the water with boats. You know what I mean? So those are the types of things that I think about when it comes to safety. And then obviously, my gosh, we haven't even talked about this yet, but insurance, like insurance, my God.
Jay (33:27)
Yeah.
Yes.
Sarah (33:41)
have insurance. I have Dan insurance. I think you mentioned that you're a Dan instructor, so I'm assuming you also have Dan, but that's hugely important because hyperbaric chamber treatments are not cheap.
Jay (33:49)
I do.
Yes. Yes. Yeah. And that it's interesting. There's a lot of, what's the word buzz right now around dive insurance and, you know, for certain reasons, but look, the bottom line is, is you need to protect yourself. And that's one way, whether you choose Dan or you choose other, I think there's a few other options as well. it's important because yeah, you don't want to get stuck having a really bad day.
Sarah (34:02)
Yes.
Mm.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (34:24)
on diving, and then that turned into having a really bad few years of paying it off and dealing financially with that. So the insurance protects you from that. But the encouragement, like all insurances, really understand what you're signing and what it can do for you and what it can't.
Sarah (34:29)
Yeah.
Understand it, yes.
and be aware when you're making those decisions to go diving. Like, okay, I'm making this decision to dive here in these conditions in this place or whatever, and I know that I am not covered, right? Like understanding that and deciding if that's a decision that you wanna, if that's what you wanna go for.
Jay (35:03)
Yep, yep. And that's tough sometimes. And I mean, what I will say about Dan is that they are accessible. So if you're reading through your policy and you have questions, you can call and ask. And if you don't get a satisfactory answer, call and ask somebody else, so on and so forth. And I mean, you want to get down to really understanding the limitations of your coverage versus, you know, and make informed decisions about the risk you're willing to take versus what you're not, so on and so forth.
Sarah (35:16)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Any other like safety equipment that you recommend people have? like a mirror maybe, a whistle, right? Like all the surface marker pieces.
Jay (35:41)
Yeah, some sound.
Yeah, there's a, there's a nice little hack too, for if you're diving with an SMB, in, in windy conditions that I like is, you know, fishing lures have spinners and you can actually rig your SMB up so that it will spin, which is quite nice because when the wind's blowing really hard, it can knock your SMB down. And it's a really easy little rigging to put a little spinner on it so that the wind just spins it rather than knocks it down. If you're in, you know, larger waves or if you're dealing with.
Sarah (35:56)
Mm.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (36:15)
a lot of wind and you're worried about the boat actually seeing you. So that's a nice little hack, easy one to do.
Sarah (36:19)
Okay. I'll have to see what you have set up. I haven't seen that before. That sounds cool.
Jay (36:25)
Yeah, I'll take a picture. It's really easy. Right on the SMB, you put a spinner.
Sarah (36:28)
Say it. Take a picture, post it in the Facebook group. There we go.
Jay (36:32)
Put it on Facebook. Good point. Yeah. The only other piece I would say we haven't covered and it may be equipment or it may not be in your book, but in my book it is, is having a plan, understanding where the local hospital is, where's the closest hyperbaric chamber. Yep. Where is, you know, what are the numbers to call? You know, don't just assume it's 911, you know, those sorts of things.
Sarah (36:47)
Absolutely.
Emergency action plan. Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
if you're in the United States.
Jay (37:02)
If you're in the US, sorry, if you're in the US, exactly. You know, having at least, and it doesn't need to be, it's nice if you can write it all down because in that moment you grab it and you don't have to think, but at least to have a discussion with a local about, Hey, where is the local chamber and what is the number to call? I mean, we were diving a month ago or so together and, and I asked, I just said, Hey, you know, where, where is the local one?
Sarah (37:03)
Yeah.
Yeah, we went diving with Mitch, right? We told that story. Yeah, where's Mitch? We told that story and he was showing us around Laguna and that's exactly what you did. And I thought that was really, really smart of you.
Jay (37:28)
Yeah, where's Mitch?
Yeah, it's just have a little bit of that knowledge. Whether you build a formal emergency action plan, EAP as it's known, or you just have it in your mind. The other thing little hacks too is to have your insurers number in your phone, right? So Dan, you know, is in my phone as a speed dial if needed. For me, my local diving, I have the local hyperbaric chamber number in my phone.
Sarah (37:56)
Mm -hmm.
Jay (38:10)
And that way I don't have to, it just lessens the load in that stressful moment of what you need to think about. And so although those are not pieces of equipment, they are things that you can have to, I think, increase the safety and to have a better emergency response for sure.
Sarah (38:27)
Yeah, I like it. There's also like pieces of equipment, kind of pieces, I'm gonna talk about a piece of equipment that you can make that's almost like a, it's actually exactly like a dog tag, right? That can have all of your information and it's just like on your BCD. So you could have, you know, if you're allergic to certain medications or you know, whatever, like the necessary medical information, you can have that on,
your equipment so that if people were like taking you out because you're unconscious underwater, the help team will know how to move forward with treatment.
Jay (39:10)
Yeah, yeah, you can put that in a pocket or if you're wearing a dry suit, you can have it around your neck or, or something like that as well. I think that's a good idea. And, and on that, on that note, this is a, maybe a public service announcement that I've been on a kick for lately, but when it comes to emergencies for yourself, there's also some preventative things that you can think about. So for example, one of, one of the big ones is a PFO. And that is, really something that.
Sarah (39:36)
Mm.
Jay (39:40)
can cause a lot of problem under the water that you just don't have any signs or symptoms for. And so.
Sarah (39:46)
Do you want to say what that is? Do you want to tell them what that is?
Jay (39:49)
Yeah, a PFO essentially is a hole between the left and right Archa, the upper chambers of the heart. It's, I'm going to screw up the pronunciation, but Patent Forman Ovale, I think, PTO. And it's, I'm sorry, PFO, PTO is pay time off. PFO and.
Sarah (39:56)
Mm -hmm.
I would do worse.
PFO, yeah.
Yeah.
Jay (40:17)
It really happens at birth. It's something that didn't close up when you were, you know, in your mom's belly. And you can live your whole life with it and never know it exists and never have a problem until you're a diver. And then it can cause problems. So the treatment for that is painless. I've been through, or not treatment, but the test for that is painless. And the treatment actually is a very minor surgery from what I understand. I haven't done it.
Sarah (40:32)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jay (40:45)
because I didn't have a PFO. But there's a little bit of explaining this to your doctor and getting the right way to do it, to get it approved by your insurance company. But I went and got that screening because I wanted to know. So it's a bubble test where essentially they're injecting, what do they call it? Agitated saline. I think they just shake up some salt water.
Sarah (41:00)
what was involved.
Jay (41:14)
and make some bubbles and then they inject it. So, you know, they have to put an IV in, but then they inject that and then they essentially watch, yeah, watch your heart and contract the bubbles through the chambers of your heart to confirm whether or not. So it's kind of a, you know, lay there for an hour and yeah, it feels cold and you have to take an IV, but it's pretty much painless and thoughtless to do.
Sarah (41:19)
Yeah.
and track.
Mmm.
Very cool.
Jay (41:42)
I really recommend if you're a diver on a regular basis, try to get that test approved from your insurance and your doctor. The other thing is that you can get a test approved by your doctor.
Sarah (41:47)
Yeah. I think that's really smart before you move on because they're finding, or at least last I looked into this, is they're finding that a lot more accidents that were kind of lumped into one category actually could have been because of PFO. So they're thinking that it's much more common than we originally assumed.
Jay (42:13)
Yeah. Yeah. And for me personally, I just wanted to know. And if I had it, then I want to be that fixed because for me, I want to dive as long as I possibly can, as many dives as I possibly can. And this was something that was hidden beneath the surface. I just didn't know. And it took some time to work through why with my doctor, which is my other point to this is if you can find a doctor that understands diving, it may not be a hyperbaric doc, but there are.
Sarah (42:17)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (42:43)
some doctors that specialize or understand scuba diving and the effects that that has on your body. Try to do that to talk about these diving things. Because I've heard too many stories of doctors that don't really understand diving and then you give them a sheet that says, hey, you need to sign this off to make sure that I can go take this course. And they don't know, they just ask you, well, do you have this? I don't know. Okay, fine. And they sign it off.
Sarah (42:49)
Mm -hmm.
Thank you.
Ha ha ha!
Jay (43:10)
That's not good medical care in my view. So people that are informed, it's tough to find. I've still struggled to find exactly that doctor, but if you can, that's worth the time.
Sarah (43:12)
No.
I would say that it's probably very, very challenging. Like I'm on the California standard health insurance, right? And I would venture to guess that even if I wanted to, I couldn't find a doctor that had knowledge in that field. So, you know, do the best that you can. I think I might've mentioned this in one of our podcasts, but we always joked,
Back when I was on Kotal doing my dive master, there was a doctor around the corner from the dive shop and he would sign anything. And so we just called him Dr. Death because you could, yeah, you could literally just like, yeah, sure. Like I have all these medical conditions, but I want to go diving. So just sign this and he'd be like, okay, no big deal. So yeah, I think it's really cool that you.
Jay (44:02)
Yeah, that's right.
Hehehehe
Sarah (44:16)
If you have found somebody like that or if you can find somebody, but it may not be at least in this country where you are, where you live, it may not be possible because it's still such a niche sport.
Jay (44:29)
So one resource you can look at which people may not be aware of but just check it out is the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, UHMS. And these are doctors that are thinking about diving in hyperbaric medicine or undersea medicine. And they're a good place to start. There's a lot of them that are listed. Maybe there's one near you and you can connect at least and say, hey, how can this, you know, what do I need to know?
Sarah (44:38)
Mmm, yeah.
Jay (44:59)
so on and so forth. It's really a nonprofit organization and it's a source of scientific information for diving in hyperbaric medicine worldwide. So that's a place to start and would highly recommend checking that out. And in fact, I have had the honor, they do a yearly conference and part of that conference is here in San Diego. And I've had the honor of teaching a buoyancy lab to all these docs and
Sarah (45:10)
Yeah, great resource. Yeah.
Adorable!
Jay (45:28)
It was really cool to get to know some of them and you know, and some of them are good divers, some of them not so good divers and they're still learning the diving. And so it's super fascinating to talk to them. Why did they get into hyperbaric medicine? Some of them aren't even divers, which is fascinating to get in that side. So a really, really good resource for you to look at.
Sarah (45:34)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, because, yeah, because hyperbaric chambers are used for a multitude of treatments, right? It's not just scuba diving. If that were the case, the business model would have crashed a long time ago, right? Yeah. So that makes sense that not all of them are divers or familiar with it, but that's really cool. That's awesome. You got to experience that. So I don't know. I feel like there was some decent...
Jay (45:58)
A long time ago, yeah.
Sarah (46:15)
nuggets in here. Do you have final words? Anything else you want to share with people about rescues? Stay up to date. Get together and practice.
Jay (46:24)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think maybe the final part, final point for me is, you know, some of this stuff, I mean, an O2 kit is expensive. Filling your first aid kit can be expensive. you know, getting a test for a PFO, you know, depending on your insurance can be expensive. I mean, some of these things are, are, are, can be looked at as sunk costs in the sense that you're never going to touch it. So I don't need it anyways, or I've never had.
Sarah (46:35)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (46:55)
to touch that before. So why would I need it now? And I totally understand that that line of thinking. And the hope is you never need it. That's really the hope. And it does sit there and collect dust. And, you know, obviously you need to keep it up to date and so on and so forth, but you don't need it. But the consequence of not having it when you do need it is high. And I'll tell my quick story of this. And that is, you know, I came up from a dive with a
Sarah (47:09)
Yeah, check it, test it.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (47:24)
team and a mine. And in this particular dive site, we all had picnic benches where we got ready. And then we went down to the water and we came up to our picnic bench and someone who I didn't know, wasn't diving with us, was sitting on our picnic bench with this kid on not looking so good. And both me and my buddy who also happened to be an instructor recognized say something might be off here. And so we started to talk to him and clearly there was something wrong.
you know, got his kid off and eventually he ended up on, on the ground and we snapped into it's time to help. And so I ran and grabbed the O2 kit. We administered O2 immediately. He was having tremors and in and out of consciousness, all these sorts of things. And at that moment, it doesn't really matter why it matters the signs and symptoms you're seeing and to treat those. And we activated the network.
Hey, you call nine one one. Hey, you go stand by the gate and make sure that, you know, the EMTs know where to go. So, so forth. And this escalated over the course of we treated them for, I think it was 27 minutes took for the EMTs to get there. They went, took a wrong turn. And eventually he was, he was medevac or flown out on a helicopter from that dive site, to a hyperbaric chamber. And I have to say,
Sarah (48:27)
Mm -hmm.
Wow. Cheers. Ugh.
Wow.
Jay (48:48)
It wasn't one of those things that I was thinking about coming up from that dive. you know, I'm ready to treat somebody, but I was so thankful that those skills, kicked in. And, you know, the story kind of concludes later that, you know, I think he took four or five rides in the, in the chamber. you know, doesn't matter the reason I'm not going to go into that today, but he was so thankful to me and to my buddy for being there and recognizing it and.
Sarah (49:05)
Mm.
Yeah.
Jay (49:17)
You never know, who knows if it could have been worse had we not been there or the same outcome would have happened, who knows? But he ended up surviving. And in my mind, I think, hey, that's all worth it. So again, all of this is worth it. You hope you never need these skills. You hope you never need the kit. You hope that nothing's ever gonna go wrong. And that could very well be the case for the next 40 years of your diving. But the consequence of not having the training, the consequence of not having O2 or first aid available,
Sarah (49:24)
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (49:47)
those consequences are high, whether for yourself or for somebody else that you don't even know. And I think that that's maybe the big point to drive home is that it's better to be prepared and to be ready and hope it never happens than for it to happen and have no preparedness and no idea what to do.
Sarah (50:07)
Yeah. And another point, just to finish this out, based on your story and something that we haven't quite mentioned is the understanding that us as rescue divers or emergency first responders, the point, like we're not gonna necessarily save somebody, right? But we keep them alive to a point that the real help can come, right? Like,
that's what the training is for. It's to support that person in the accident until somebody who's properly trained, medically trained to like really intervene, right? And to get them to the places that are actually going to help them. Like, I think there might be a misconception of people thinking that they're going to be like resuscitating.
people magically after they've had a heart attack and it's like, no, it's probably not going to go that way, even if you have an AED, you know? So I think that's another thing, like an expectation piece for moving forward with that training and acting in accidents.
Jay (51:17)
Yeah. And to build on that, maybe as we put a bow on this one too is, you know, I think there's also a temptation to go the other way with that. once you have that training and to maybe behave more like a white night, and try to save everybody. And I remember I went through that at one point, someone's, you know, had some bubbles coming from their tank and, I'm thinking, that's not a safe way to dive. And I can just fix that real quick and grab the, grab the tank and, you know, fix the.
the rig that's on it, what freaked that diver out? I guess I'm touching his equipment and that's not a good way. So you have to put this all in balance. Like you said that these skills are there to help sustain their basic first aid or first responder first aid until someone can take over that, like in my case was 27 minutes, but can be five minutes, can be an hour. It was a long time. And actually what's interesting is that led to a lot of discussion about.
Sarah (51:50)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
That's a long time. Yeah, yeah, that feels like a long time.
Jay (52:16)
Why did it take that long and how do we improve all around that dive site? But also just because you're trained does not mean that you put the doctor before your name now and need to go around saving everybody. I think it's about that awareness, seeing the signs, hearing about the symptoms, observing what's happening and being able to react in an appropriate way. And like we've said before, usually,
Sarah (52:17)
Right. Yeah.
Jay (52:45)
That is before something becomes an emergency. That awareness helps us. So really good episode.
Sarah (52:51)
Cool. Nice. Well, I don't know. I would love to hear stories from people if they've experienced accidents or almost, you know. If they have some good stories that we could learn from in the Facebook community, that would be really cool. I'll try to get in there and share some of mine from Komodo. And...
Yeah, find us there. You can also look us up on our website. You can email us. We're just happy to have these conversations and keep people safe out there.
Jay (53:30)
Absolutely. And if, and if you are thinking about training and any of these things, or you're thinking about, should I do it? Should I not? Am I ready? reach out to Sarah and I, we'll, we'll have an honest conversation and, and it's not, we're not trying to sell you our training, but we'll have an honest conversation about, you know, when, when it is appropriate or, or when should you refresh those skills and things? So, you know, when, when you are safer, all of us become safer on that dive boat or on that.
Sarah (53:41)
Yep. Absolutely.
Mm -hmm.
Jay (53:59)
in that dive location or in your dive team. So I think it's something near and dear to our hearts and something that you don't need to be on the path to be an instructor or anything like that to be engaged in helping other people. So reach out and let us know. And I will, I owe a post on my first aid kit and what I take with me to a dive site. And I'm curious to see what other hacks people have so that I can improve my own first aid kit. So.
I'll post that up on the Facebook group when it comes out. We can have a collaborative group think on cool things to include in your first aid kit.
Sarah (54:32)
Yeah, I have a pretty good one because I just got a bunch of gear from Dan. So I'll share mine as well. It's got everything. I was really impressed with it actually. So cool. I think that's about it. Thanks for listening to us today. We appreciate you.
Jay (54:50)
and we'll see you on the next episode of The Dive Table.
Sarah (54:53)
Bye.
