PADI Open Water Course, no medical insurance. Injury possibility?

[hungrynbored]

I'm thinking about taking a PADI Open Water Course but my travel insurance doesn't cover me during the course. The courses I'm looking at involve 4 beach dives, and no boat dives, in Sydney, Australia. Are injuries particularly common or rare during Open Water courses? What types of injuries are most common?

Is it possible to find a scuba dive center that provides medical insurance for any injuries sustained during the course?

 

[azchipka]

Ask your instructor to enroll you in DAN Student insurance. It's free and provides basic coverage of dive accidents during your course. You can also do it yourself by visiting www.danismybuddy.com and clicking students button.

 

[dgreenh]

None of my students have ever had anything other than the very occasional cut or scrape. There has never been an incident that would even remotely required a Doctor visit. We don't do Open Water in the ocean so I would not be able to tell you if there is a greater risk doing shore dives or not.

 

[dry heat diver]

Join DAN (Divers Alert Network). For about $75.00 or $80.00 per year they cover dive accidents including evacuating you out of remote areas to adequate medical care facilities including a recompression chamber if needed. It's the bargain of the decade. That said, with a good dive training operator the risk is probably quite low. We've been diving now for nearly 5 years approaching our 100th dive and we have seen one incident of mild decompression sickness on a boat in Cozumel and one member of our travel group managed to get himself bitten by a large puffer fish in Fiji a couple of years ago. You're more likely to get sun burn and mosquito bites than anything else if you just pay attention and follow the rules.

 

[blkirk91]

DAN, never used it but have had it for 3 years and will continue to have it as long as I am in the water

 

[lulubelle]

If you are living on this earth and do not have medical insurance, I'm not sure I understand why you are concerned about covering yourself medically just for the OW course and not before or after the course. It is a pretty low risk activity.

Driving to the grocery store for instance is not. Being a person, regardless of age and fitness level, is also not.

If you are not able to obtain medical insurance before and after the course, I certainly wouldn't worry about getting it just for those 4 days.

 

[MarineResearch]

Regardless of what Miss Fancy Boots says, splurge and get a DAN policy for the diving. It could save you a lot of money if you were to have an accident.

 

[Kiwi303]

Lulubelle, check the OPs post a bit more carefully, he/she mentions Travel insurance not covering SCUBA. He or She likely does have medical insurance at home, but many/most insurance schemes cover only incidents which happen within the country of residence, or in the case of the EU, within countries with bilateral/multilateral common travel treaties.

I know my medical insurance covers SCUBA within NZ but not outside NZ, and while it covers chronic illnesses with origins within NZ and predatign travel, it does not cover injury or illnesses contracted while outside of NZ with causes from within the country traveled to.

To the OP, I'd say get a better travel insurer next time which does NOT exclude SCUBA or other adventure sports. Meanwhile, as others have said above, get DAN student insurance. Azchipka says it's free.

 

[knowone]

A dude dove (see, I'm almost fully fledged) into a sandbank on a Sydney
beach, a couple of years back with his head, and broke something.

Sued the local council and got paid a pretty penny.

Only cost him cheap, some sort of plegia, of sorts.

Oh well.

As the late great Louis Daniel Armstrong sang some years back before that

And I think to myself, the world has gone maaad, ohhhhhhhh, yeahhhhhh.

But this is far more poignant.

YouTube - Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful World Lyrics.flv


I'm not being facetious.

 

[haumana ronin]

If you are living on this earth and do not have medical insurance, I'm not sure I understand why you are concerned about covering yourself medically just for the OW course and not before or after the course. It is a pretty low risk activity.

Driving to the grocery store for instance is not. Being a person, regardless of age and fitness level, is also not.

If you are not able to obtain medical insurance before and after the course, I certainly wouldn't worry about getting it just for those 4 days.

Hmm, does anyone have stats about the risks of traveling to and from diving?