My name is Morgan… DAN was there for me?

It is always a source of great joy for the DAN team to hear testimonials from our members. Therefore I want to share another DAN member story with you!

I would like to relay my first experience with DAN and let you know what a pleasure it has been dealing with DAN. During the course of this last week, I was in Miami in Florida and was invited to go and dive the Spiegel Grove US Navy wreck near Key Largo in the Florida Keys. I was due to fly out of Miami to London on Sunday 12 May and was a little wary of doing the dives in Key Largo before a very long flight back to London and then on to Cape Town. Through all my training (I am a certified master scuba diver holding specialities in wreck, nitrox, deep, search and recovery, rescue, navigation and Emergency First Response [EFR]) I had been told that flying and diving were a no-no. However, I had been told that the minimum time allowable before flying was 18 hours.

My concern was that I would have done two nitrox dives and then two exceptionally long flights waited ahead of me, so I was unsure of the procedure for that kind of scenario. I contacted DAN and spoke to Dawn (medic), who requested my dive plan and asked what my depths, etc. would be. I was absolutely astounded by the level of service I received from not only Dawn, but Dr Meintjes in Cape Town too. He looked at all my plans and made recommendations accordingly, raising concerns where concerns were due and giving me sound advice; advice I used to further investigate the process of diving and then flying.

I planned the dive properly and ensured I stayed within my limits during the dive, and have since travelled from Miami to London without incident. What amazed me even more was that when I got to London there was an email waiting for me from Laurel (medic) who was just double checking that all was in order and that I had travelled safely.

This has raised my faith in DAN completely and I cannot see myself being a diver, whether it be recreational, technical or professional, without my safety net that is DAN close by. To all involved, thank you very much for allaying any fears I may have had going into the dive and for ensuring that I had one of the most spellbinding dives ever. Your advice and guidance were brilliant and you all went beyond what I had expected. To any diver, DAN is something you shouldn’t even consider, it is something you should just have! To DAN, thank you again for everything! Here’s to many more happy and safe dives!

Alert Diver and the DAN Blog is read almost exclusively by the DAN members. As such, important messages like Morgan’s do not reach non-members unless DAN members make the material available to them or talk to them about it. As such, I would really like to ask you, as a loyal DAN member, to tell your diving buddies about DAN and the value of being a DAN member. DAN is so much more than diving medical cover. DAN represents a culture of care, a heart for diving. It goes beyond helping in the occasional emergency towards serving and protecting the very enjoyment of this wonderful sport of diving!

We’d like to ask you a favour! Do you mind posting a Google Review via the DAN Google platform? It will be great if you can add any images you have with a DAN flag, t-shirt, sticker etc. or at your favourite dive shop or dive site. More importantly is the review! You can use this link https://bit.ly/dangooglereview

We look forward to reading your DAN review!