Sandals and Beaches resorts recently partnered with the Diver’s Alert Network (DAN) to offer training sessions for 24 hand-picked watersports team members across Jamaica.

The training sessions provided participants with the necessary skills and knowledge to attain the first-aid Divers Alert Network Instructors certifications.

DAN is a dive safety organisation dedicated to the health and welfare of divers who have partnered with Sandals resort for 25 years.

Jim Gunderson, director of training at DAN, shared that this year’s training sessions were more in-depth, with the aim to make the team a self-sustainable group of trainers.

“The goal is to eventually have instructor trainers at all the resorts throughout the region,” Gunderson shared. As such, this year there was a larger target audience across multiple locations.

Team members were given refresher sessions on adult and child cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) skills, foreign body airway obstructions, the delivering of oxygen for emergency scuba diving and other submersion events.

The team was also edified on a signature DAN skill – the use of the manually triggered ventilator, which is currently only practised and taught by that organisation.

While there are several precautions taken to ensure a safe diving experience, there are often risks associated with the activity. One such risk is decompression sickness.

Decompression sickness is when gas bubbles that form while diving do not have adequate time to be reabsorbed. When the bubbles are not absorbed they are trapped in specific regions of the body, particularly the joints and shoulders, and can expand, causing injury to tissue.

In recognition of this, Gunderson said the team also covered skills for neurological assessment.

Decompression illness is very common and this can sometimes be spotted through neurological signs.

Team members of the Sandals watersports team shared that they were grateful for the training, noting that they learned and relearnt valuable skills.

“Though we are already skilled in the areas of CPR and first-aid, these sessions have given us a new outlook and I am looking forward to passing on what I have learnt to the rest of my team,” said Oshane Lawrence, from Sandals South Coast’s watersports team.

Sharing the same sentiment was Open Water Scuba Instructor at Beaches Negril, Kimberley Saunders, who thanked Sandals and DAN for the opportunity.

“The sessions were great and it’s good to see that we can use our previous knowledge to cross-reference the new information that we have received. I am looking forward to having my own students and passing
on what I have learnt, so they can do the same,” said Saunders.