[3 min read]
Diving into action: a critical scenario
You, the Diver Medic Technician, receive an urgent call that a crew member has fallen, is unresponsive and severely bleeding from their leg. What would you do? We were faced with this exact scenario at the end of our Diver Medic Technician (DMT) course.
From crisis to noodles: Jon’s recovery
Jon, who is one of the brilliant DMT course instructors, acted as the injured crew member. Thanks to the 2 week DMT training course that the DDRC Healthcare team provided, we were able to successfully stabilise Jon, facilitate a safe evacuation and coordinate care with the multidisciplinary medical team. Thankfully, Jon made a miraculous recovery and was soon well enough to join the group for some very spicy noodles. Not that they’d admit it, but some ‘hard-core’ divers defo shed a tear or two over those noodles!
Remote dive medicine challenges
As a nursing student who loves the outdoors and has a keen interest in remote dive medicine, I was fully prepared to embrace my inner nerd on this course! Thankfully, I was surrounded by an engaged, competitive group that had a great sense of humour. Our diverse backgrounds included members of the DDRC chamber team, a saturation diver, commercial divers and a military medic. This allowed me to gain invaluable insight into the medical challenges faced by various diving professionals. I was struck by the realisation that to return from the moon is quicker than to resurface from saturation diving. This emphasises how vital DMT skills are for a range of diving careers.
Snapshot glimpse: DMT Photo rundown
The fab DMT group were more than happy to take snaps for this blog, thanks! Hopefully, these snapshots give you a glimpse into the theoretical and practical aspects we learnt. From diving physiology, basic life support, advanced airway management, trauma management and more.
Continuing the remote medicine adventure
I left the DDRC DMT course feeling inspired and excited to continue a career in remote medicine. With DDRC kindly inviting me back, and only being based 10 minutes from my university, I’m looking forward to returning when finishing my nursing degree at Plymouth University. I want to thank DDRC for having me and sharing my enthusiasm for dive medicine.
A huge thank you to Rolex, Our World Underwater Scholarship Society, Divers Alert Network and my equipment sponsors Fourth Element, Suunto, Halcyon Dive Systems, Reef Photo and Video and Nauticam for making this opportunity happen.
