Whether you are new to scuba diving or an experienced scuba instructor, you’ve probably heard “DAN” mentioned more than a few times.

Most of us know that DAN plays an important role in dive safety, probably from purchasing some form of dive insurance from them throughout the years. One of the best-known perks of DAN is the 24-hour availability to speak with dive medical specialists (For DAN’s emergency hotline: +1 (919) 684-9111).

But DAN is much more than answering phones and dive insurance! It wasn’t until I walked through the doors of the headquarters that I began to understand the true scope of its services. DAN is a global leader in dive safety education, research, products, and services like providing emergency medical assistance — and not just limited to diving!

Figure 1. Patty Seery, Director of Training at DAN and PADI Course Director, Jim Gunderson, Assistant Director of Training at DAN and NAUI Course Director Trainer.

This summer, I am the 2019 OWUSS/DAN Dive Safety Education Intern working with Patty Seery and Jim Gunderson. Like Patty and Jim, the many people I have met here at DAN are incredibly passionate about dive safety and accident prevention through education. From the medical professionals to the masters of IT, everyone plays an important role in making DAN accessible to divers across the world. I started my time here meeting with the head of each department: research, communications (including writers of Alert Diver), marketing, insurance, membership, IT, warehouse, and risk mitigation. DAN requires all the essential elements like any company, including marketing devices, a mail room, and lots of Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Since a large goal of DAN is safety education, my work this summer involves revisions to DAN’s first aid courses for international utilization. Because DAN is a globally recognized organization, it is important that all materials continue to match guidelines for first aid in different countries and are understandable, accessible, and inclusive to partners across the world.

Aside from my position, DAN offers summer research internships. I had the opportunity to serve as a practice patient for their studies.

Figure 2. My heart! Frauke Tillmans, Ph.D., using an echocardiogram. Research interns are practicing using these procedures as part of their studies to look at bubbling in divers.

Although we work hard in the office, we like to have fun outside, too. On the weekends, the best place to find me is underwater.

Figure 3. DAN crew diving at Blanch quarry. From left to right: Hannah DeWitt, Tess Helfrich, Caitlyn Ruskell, Jim Gunderson, Andrea Filozof, Frauke Tillmans, Alex Romfoe, Chloe Strauss, George Anderson, Abbey Dias (me), Shelli Wright. Interns testing out waterproof EKG leads during the dive for research.

I am looking forward to helping make our dive community increasingly safer and more accessible to people across the world!

Figure 4. Me, feeling like a saltwater fish in freshwater, learning to be euryhaline at Fantasy Lake (NC). Photo by Tess Helfrich.

Last week was one memorable week here at DAN! I nicknamed it “field-trip” week since most of the week was spent going to different places and experiencing new things. The three places we visited were SAS, Luxfer Gas Cylinders and the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology (also known as the Duke hyperbaric chambers).

SAS is a data-analysis company to which customers can submit data for SAS to identify trends they need to monitor. Different types of companies, both local and international, utilize their services, including the city of Durham, Lufthansa Airline and even the transportation departments in North Carolina. The campus where the company is housed is humongous, as big as a college campus! They also have a broad range of services for employees, from gyms to health clinics they can visit.

The next field trip was to Luxfer Gas Cylinders in Graham, North Carolina. Here, we did two things: took a class and a toured the cylinder-manufacturing facility. The class was the Professional Scuba Inspectors (PSI) visual cylinder inspection. Our amazing teacher was Mark Gresham, president of PSI. The group went over so much important content, but there were plenty of interesting stories and hands-on examples that helped break up the course and enhance our understanding of what he was teaching us. During the tour, we went from beginning to end to see how the cylinders were manufactured, packaged and shipped. They start off as small aluminum blocks, and with some squishing and painting, they turn into cylinders. I am now certified as a visual cylinder inspector, which, in the words of Mark, “puts another feather in my hat.”

The last field trip we went on was probably my favorite and the most anticipated: the Duke Chambers. I had heard about how massive and impressive the chambers are, and seeing them in person was surreal. There are seven chambers in total, and they are all attached to each other in some way. We were able to go into most of the chambers, but one chamber had patients going through treatment, so we observed from outside. I had always thought chambers were just used for divers, so it was interesting to see non-divers with non-diving-related problems being treated in the chambers. The staff also shared the story about how and why the chamber was built. Its original purpose was for open-heart surgery, but by the time the chamber was finished, the heart-lung machine had been developed, making the chamber’s original purpose obsolete. As of today, there are 14 indications for hyperbaric treatment, so it was not built for nothing after all.

This week was full of new experiences, and I cannot wait to see where the rest of my time here takes me!