I just plug my ears and sing la la la when this topic comes up. It is too scary for me to know about.Originally Posted by Tradd
IL is neither my mother nor the boss of me!
I just plug my ears and sing la la la when this topic comes up. It is too scary for me to know about.IL is neither my mother nor the boss of me!
I had a work friend that did cave diving and had severe asthma. I liked her a lot but was glad when she transferred out and I didn’t know what was happening. She was a only child and I am sure her parents worried.
The severe asthma concerns me more than the cave diving. I really don’t know how her doctor signed off on her diving if she had the asthma.
She was only 27 but had been hospitalized in the past for asthma. I wonder what the law’s here are about that. Maybe don’t need a doctor’s permission?
You DO need a signed medical form for training classes if you answer YES to any of the questions on the form. Asthma is a HUGE no. I can't imagine any doctor approving someone with asthma to dive. It's an automatic no. I have to get a signed form each year due to allergies (can interfere with equalizing on descent).
I have recently seen some episodes of the BBC series "Time Team" where the crew performed underwater archeology on shipwrecks. It looked fascinating and overwhelming all at the same time. I don't know if the heebie jeebies would overtake me if I tried it, but it looks incredible.
Just out of curiosity, how much training did you have to do to qualify to dive?
Open water class, which is the basic certification. Nitrox, advanced, and rescue are the next normal ones. I want to go deeper than recreational diving limits - which is 130ft - so I need additional training. This is called technical diving. Advanced Nitrox, Decompression Procedures, and Helitrox (helium to 35%) will get me down to 150ft. I'm obsessed with Great Lakes shipwrecks.
The cavern/intro to cave class later this month is also tech diving, but this is non-decompression class. We'll be no deeper than 70ft.
I've been diving for four years and have approximately 315 dives.
I was curious and depending on the type of asthma, etc some people do get cleared to dive from doctors.
The problem is that some GPS don’t fully read the medical form and just sign off on people. Other people lie about their medical conditions.
There was a case with a Boy Scout whose parents didn’t indicate he had asthma and he ended up dying on the first dive of his certification course (some BS troops get certified).
From what I read online, the UK doctors are a bit more lenient with signing off on asthmatics diving than in the US.
My open water instructors were a couple of whom the woman was a nurse. She had one or two bad experiences with divers who had asthma. A sign off by a GP wasn’t sufficient. They had to be signed off by the specialist and have proof they did the exercise test indicated in the form guidelines. She went above and beyond but given she had a medical background and with the experiences she personally had with students, I can see why she did it.
My youngest son had asthma from ages 1-12. I wouldn’t even let him camp with the cub scouts). He was triggered by allergies and I didn’t trust the adults to recognize he needed medical help and get it soon enough. Luckily near the Wisconsin Dells there was a camp that was donated every summer to kids with medical conditions staffed by volunteer nurses and doctors. So one week every summer he got to camp. They would set aside 2 weeks for a certain condition and then the next week it would be something different. Ironically I developed it at 50.
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