DAN needs your input .. help them help you

[Saturation]

The Divers Alert Network is facing our current recession as with the rest us.

Help DAN focus its mission. Divers, speak up for support of accident investigation and reporting as integral to the broad mission of DAN. There is strong possibility that cutbacks will seriously reduce information assessment of diving accidents in the Americas, and possibly worldwide.

As DAN prioritizes cutbacks, we attest that diving accident investigation should remain vigorously supported by DAN. Accident investigation is integral to injury prevention and diving safety, just as insurance and re-compression chambers are to treatment.

Please sign the petition. It will be forwarded to DAN management in 2 months.

Keep Diving Accident Investigation at DAN Vigorous Petition

 

[doctormike]

Yup, good point...

Also, if you can spare a few bucks, they do appreciate donations..!

I have used their free hotline services (as well as their insurance), a good cause, IMHO.

Mike

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I have used their hotline and support them in both the spring and fall campaigns. I do have one way for them to increase their funding though. Start certifying more DAN instructors. There are currently none in my area within 75 miles or so. I would love to become one but finding a DAN instructor trainer is even harder. I can afford the course or the travel to take one but not both. Also now it seems that to become a DAN instructor you need to be a first aid/cpr instructor through someone else and do a crossover. Why? If I become a Red Cross or AHA instructor what benefit really is there in crossing over? To teach hazardous marine life? If DAN would just put on an instructor course from scratch ( and it would not be that hard the red cross course is two 8 hour days) they would have more instructors, train more divers, and make more money.

I will continue to support them but it burns my butt that I could be servicing a huge area and cannot because there is no one to train me to do so for DAN. Heck they could even offer reduced price instructor classes for areas underserved or not served and recoup that in a few short months. As it is now I get my updates thru work. I could be getting them via DAN or conducting courses myself. It seems by not doing this they are shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[knotical]

I have used their hotline and support them in both the spring and fall campaigns. I do have one way for them to increase their funding though. Start certifying more DAN instructors. There are currently none in my area within 75 miles or so. I would love to become one but finding a DAN instructor trainer is even harder. I can afford the course or the travel to take one but not both. Also now it seems that to become a DAN instructor you need to be a first aid/cpr instructor through someone else and do a crossover. Why? If I become a Red Cross or AHA instructor what benefit really is there in crossing over? To teach hazardous marine life? If DAN would just put on an instructor course from scratch ( and it would not be that hard the red cross course is two 8 hour days) they would have more instructors, train more divers, and make more money.

I will continue to support them but it burns my butt that I could be servicing a huge area and cannot because there is no one to train me to do so for DAN. Heck they could even offer reduced price instructor classes for areas underserved or not served and recoup that in a few short months. As it is now I get my updates thru work. I could be getting them via DAN or conducting courses myself. It seems by not doing this they are shooting themselves in the foot.

Hi Jim,

On the chance that this might help.

This URL:
Divers Alert Network : Training & Education : Instructor Qualification Course (IQC)
says in part:

Prerequisites for DAN Instructor Qualification Course:
Active scuba diving educator*
Current CPR Instructor if not completing this from DAN

* Note about the scuba diving educator requirement: Any scuba diving instructor or assistant instructor with a recognized scuba training organization can attend the IQC.
A divemaster/divecon who is also a CPR and First Aid instructor with a recognized training agency can also attend the IQC.

As I read it, you don't need to be a CPR / First Aid instructor. Only Divecons must be.


And starting at this URL:
DAN: Find Instructor

I entered your ZIP code (15317), selected 200 miles distance, and clicked on "Find Instructor".
Then when the initial list appeared I selected Filter: Instructor Trainers.
This revealed that Devonna Morra of Loretto, PA, and David Snethkamp, of Akron, OH, are instructor trainers who appear to be only a couple of hours drive from you.

best wishes,

k

 

[Saturation]

Thanks everyone, for your support!

A few days since the petition was created, it has had a significant impact, and the message has been heard. Its now possible to end the petition early, because the mission is accomplished.

I would like to thank the pioneering signatories for openness and willingness to put their names on the statement. If you'd like to be part of the crew whose names are now signed, now's a good time to do it.

The petition will close tomorrow 3/24/2010 0800H EDT.

Thank you all again!

 

[craracer]

161 signatures is enough?

 

[D_B]

162

 

[Saturation]

161 signatures is enough?

For a democratic process, you need 50%+1 of the population to sign.

For a private organization, you need whatever it takes until 50%+1 so the organization notices. If they notice with only 100 signatures, then its enough.

Thanks again, for the help.

 

[Diver0001]

Looking as a layman I'd say DAN has two main functions:

1) the hot-line
2) education

Research comes in 3rd. The diving community has enough bonafide experts that accident analysis and statistical compilation could be done without DAN, provided there was as central clearing house for the information. If DAN would like to fill in this roll as "independent" of the training agencies then I would support that.

One of the big *down* sides to DAN is that they have specific information about accidents that could be related to training and procedure that is kept *secret* from the main body of the diving community.

If you ask me, taking DAN out of the loop would help more than it would hurt because the raw facts would probably move into the public domain. I hate to see DAN participating in the industry wide conspiracy to keep conclusions being drawn from accident statistics. (how I see it).

Divers would be much better off if DAN focused on their prime directive. Education and the hot-line. The rest should be left to the community. Let's have accident analysis done in the full light of day.

R..

 

[Saturation]

It may come to what you suggest if DAN decides it can not afford to maintain the database.

You miss its biggest point, #4 the excess dive injury and other dive related insurance.

DAN receives injury calls from its hotline, so it already has some information regarding where accidents are happening, and its status. All it needs is to follow up these calls, and to make sure the energy and costs to do so are worth doing. All those using the insurance [ for injury clearly] also call DAN to activate it. So without effort, injury data is funneled to them. If this data is no longer collected and analyzed, then all the additional information regarding #1 is lost.

If another agency did the collection, they would have to hunt for each accident by detective work in the dive boats, caves, newspapers and scuba forums, exactly like I do, and its enormously time consuming and thus, expensive. Even if the information was funneled by DAN to the other agency, interagency communication is still weaker than if it all resided in one locale.

divingaccidents : Diving Accident Repository

As for conspiracy, I note in your signature a support for a 'legal fund'.

As you probably now experience, this sport is particularly litigious, at least in the USA. Accident data is vital to pursuing wrongful injury and death litigation. As required by law, all such information is confidential, and it takes enormous effort to get such publicized without risking HIPAA law violations, and yes, dead folks are still protected indefinitely unless the information is released by the estate. Thus DAN reports can only 'sanitize' reports to remove HIPAA issues.

DAR group, is not faced with sanitizing but we can only release what the injured or estate releases to us. So we have raw data, but have no resources for statistical analysis.

Looking as a layman I'd say DAN has two main functions:

1) the hot-line
2) education

Research comes in 3rd. The diving community has enough bonafide experts that accident analysis and statistical compilation could be done without DAN, provided there was as central clearing house for the information. If DAN would like to fill in this roll as "independent" of the training agencies then I would support that.

One of the big *down* sides to DAN is that they have specific information about accidents that could be related to training and procedure that is kept *secret* from the main body of the diving community.

If you ask me, taking DAN out of the loop would help more than it would hurt because the raw facts would probably move into the public domain. I hate to see DAN participating in the industry wide conspiracy to keep conclusions being drawn from accident statistics. (how I see it).

Divers would be much better off if DAN focused on their prime directive. Education and the hot-line. The rest should be left to the community. Let's have accident analysis done in the full light of day.

R..