Meeting of 5/10/05

The meeting was held at Borah High School in one of the science class rooms. Dr. Eric Johnson, the DAN Doctor was the guest speaker. There were 16 members present.

As with the first talk that Eric gave, this one was extremely interesting and engaging. He began the talk with something that we as divers may not be aware of as much as we should, the dangers of lightning. He went over some ways to be safe when you are caught in lightning and some of the ways that you can detect it before it strikes. There are lightning detectors that are about the size of a cell phone. He carries one when he hikes. As divers we need to be aware of the hazards because we do go around with a large metal cylinder on our backs.

He then talked more in depth (no pun) about decompression sickness and diving at higher altitudes. One other important thing to be aware of here in Idaho is when we dive and then travel over a high pass, such as Red Fish Lake and then going home over Galena Summit. He said that one way to be safe doing this is to calculate your dive or set your dive computer for the highest altitude that you will be traveling over before your last dive of the day. He went over the statistics of “getting bent” and said that it was 0.002% per 100,000 dives.

The Elks Rehab Hospital will be getting 4 deco chambers on June 27th. We will be scheduling a trip to go and see and possibly take a ride in them this fall. With the addition of these here in Boise, if anyone does get DCS they will not have to be flown to Salt Lake.

This was another very interesting talk and we will have him back to entertain and inform us again. With his extensive travel and diving experience he has much more information and stories to tell.

Earl then went over the upcoming events and meetings. The clean up at Fairwell bend on May 21, the next meeting we will dive at Bob Rice Pond on June 14, and the Lake Harbor Clean Up on June 18.

As stated the next meeting will be at Bob Rice Pond on June 14. So bring your gear and blow some bubbles.

Dirk Spackman, Sec/Treas.