cardio major factor, but not covered?

[HomelessDiver]

(I'm not looking for medical advice, just discussion)

Does it strike anyone as odd that DAN wont come within a mile of covering anything cardio related if a person has high BP, yet about half of their book on diving medicine lists things which tend to cause cardio and BP problems?

Perhaps I'm not wording this right.... they require agreement and a waiver before covering someone with hypertension. They're very clear they wont cover anything remotely related to hypertension injuries/illness.

• Have a heart attack while diving? not covered - easily claimed as being related to high blood pressure HBP, which is agreeable I guess
• sudden death? same thing

I mean, theres a huge mass of cardio related injuries and issues that are inherent to diving..... but are also a major risk factor in HBP. So these diving insurance policies basically say they dont have to cover anything relating to the circulatory system if you admitted to having HBP. Of course, they'll not cover a thing anyway if a person lies about it either.

That strikes me as a very large portion of possible diving conditions that are automatically un-coverable, as if a person could never sustain them as a bonafied diving incident.

And lets face it, most of the words best diving sites (IMO) are pretty far from reliable diving medicine, meaning the report is up in the air. We dont even have a chamber on Boracay, but we do have a diving medicine doctor in the clinic..... who apparently has the medical knowledge of a highschool biology student.

I was thinking about this when looking thru diving accidents and remembered a death that occurred here a little over a year ago. They hushed it up really quiet. Even denied it ever happening. I finally got in touch with a freelance reporter in Kalibo and he said it's because it wasnt diving related. He had a heart attack at 10m. He was a lifelong diver (MSD, former DM) that would charter small boats and dive with his friends rather than hop-in with a dive shop trip... he also worked locally in the DOT. I asked my own dive shop and they were blase about it saying it wasnt diving related because it was a heart attack.

I'm like... hold on.... heart attacks ARE a risk factor in diving according to this literature. Heck, even sudden unexplained death is too.

(incidentally, no "diving fatality" was ever officially registered for Boracay that year.)

But in looking thru the Diving Medicine book (which came from DAN btw) it lists tons of cardio related issues as highly relevant worries--- that also happen to a high factor in hypertension.

watcha think?

 

[Saturation]

I'm not sure what you're asking. Those exclusions are not in the USA DAN policy, maybe its Asia DAN or European DAN?

In USA DAN, there are no pre-existing conditions that disqualify dive accident insurance. Are you talking about their other insurances, like group life? If so, its not really a diving related issue but more a benefit of membership, like 'trip' or 'gear' insurance.

Is hypertension or cardiac disease an exclusion from diving? In the RSTC form, there are a number of condition that potentially contraindicate diving that requires a sign-off by a physician. Once the sign off is done, diving is thereafter permitted. It presumes the physician has seen or controlled the disease to the point where the physician assumes the diver is 'like normal' and thus, can dive.

One can have a heart attack with relatively 'normal' coronary arteries. So long as the accident or death occurs to a USA DAN covered diver while diving, as defined in the USA DAN brochure, its a diving accident. Gas emboli can enter the coronary arteries and block them. You can also 'overwork' the heart like you can 'overbreathe' a regulator. When the Spartans sent a youthful runner to Greece after Thermopylae, he arrived after a non-stop run, shouted 'Nike', and promptly died, presumably from 'exhaustion.'