Kali­fa Clyne

Two ex­pe­ri­enced divers yes­ter­day em­pha­sised that div­ing is gen­er­al­ly a safe passtime but they ad­vised novice divers to get train­ing from cer­ti­fied div­ing in­struc­tors. Div­ing in­struc­tor El­lis John, based in To­ba­go, and mas­ter scu­ba div­er train­er Rick Ram­paul, based in Ch­aguara­mas, spoke to the T&T Guardian about some of the dan­gers of div­ing and how they could be avoid­ed. John said de­spite the death of 28-year-old Scott Tuck­er on Sun­day in To­ba­go, he con­sid­ered div­ing to be a very safe sport.

Tuck­er died fol­low­ing a dive in wa­ters at Spey­side.

John said div­ing had po­ten­tial dan­gers but those could be avoid­ed if rules and div­ing laws were fol­lowed. "There are very strict laws in div­ing and when you break these laws it can re­sult in death or se­ri­ous in­jury," he said. John, who has over 23 years pro­fes­sion­al div­ing ex­pe­ri­ence, said the most im­por­tant thing when learn­ing to dive was to seek prop­er train­ing. "You need to learn from a cer­ti­fied div­ing in­struc­tor who is rec­om­mend­ed by a recog­nised div­ing body," he said. Div­ing bod­ies, such as the Pro­fes­sion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Div­ing In­struc­tors (PA­DI), Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion of Un­der­wa­ter In­struc­tors (NAUI) and the Pro­fes­sion­al Div­ing In­struc­tors Cor­po­ra­tion (PDIC), are all in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised.

John said divers ex­pe­ri­enced changes in their body when div­ing be­cause of the pres­sure un­der wa­ter.

He ex­plained that the air in the lungs com­press­es when div­ing to low depths and ex­pands again when a div­er as­cends.

He said if a div­er as­cend­ed too quick­ly that could cause the air in the lungs to ex­pand at an ac­cel­er­at­ed rate, caus­ing lungs to be ripped or punc­tured. He said if divers fol­lowed the div­ing laws a lot of prob­lems could be avoid­ed. "Al­most 90 per cent of times divers get in­to prob­lems it is be­cause of their own neg­li­gence," John said. Ram­paul al­so be­lieved the ma­jor­i­ty of div­ing ac­ci­dents could be blamed on user-fail­ure. He said though there were no of­fi­cial sta­tis­tics, To­ba­go ex­pe­ri­enced more div­ing in­ci­dents than Trinidad. Ram­paul, who has over 25 years ex­pe­ri­ence, said he had not wit­nessed any div­ing ac­ci­dents in Trinidad over the past 20 years.

How­ev­er, he added. those were not un­com­mon in To­ba­go.

He said over the years there had been in­juries and dis­ap­pear­ances of divers in To­ba­go.

Ram­paul said be­cause To­ba­go's wa­ters were clear­er and al­lowed for deep­er light pen­e­tra­tion, divers ven­tured deep­er than they would in Trinidad.

Here are some safe­ty rules for divers.

• Al­ways check equip­ment for your safe­ty.

• As­cend to the sur­face slow­ly and with con­trol.

• Al­ways plan dives, plan the depths and the amount of time you can stay.

• And al­ways dive with a bud­dy and keep your bud­dy in sight.

Divers al­so are ad­vised that fit­ness lev­el and weight can fac­tor in­to breath­ing dif­fi­cul­ties and so your body should be able to take the stress of swim­ming and div­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to John, once these rules are fol­lowed div­ing ac­ci­dents will be avoid­ed.