DAN DISPATCH
Since its debut in 2024, DAN’s Continuing Education for Dive Professionals program has helped enhance safety and support risk management within the diving industry. The program’s newly launched third course, Barotrauma Legal Drama, continues this work by providing dive pros and businesses practical guidance at the intersection of professional responsibility, risk awareness and diver safety.
The course’s cinematic narrative follows a fictional open-water course incident through a simulated legal deposition, showing how a dive pro’s decisions and documentation may be scrutinized in the event of a lawsuit. This story is paired with commentary from DAN’s safety and legal experts.
The course explores ear barotrauma, one of the most common dive injuries, along with fitness to dive, the right of refusal, and related topics. By illustrating the potential consequences of cutting corners and making exceptions, Barotrauma Legal Drama aims to empower dive pros to champion safety and make the difficult calls that help safeguard both their divers and their careers.
As a non-profit global organization dedicated to dive safety, medical information, research, and education, DAN develops educational resources informed by real-world industry experience, dive-related accidents and lawsuits that occur most often. This perspective, combined with DAN’s dive safety and medicine expertise, informs the content of Barotrauma Legal Drama. The course aims to strengthen knowledge and habits that reduce risk and help make every dive safer.
The new course is free to all dive pros via the DAN E-Learning platform. In designated countries where DAN Professional Liability Insurance is offered, DAN members who complete the course are eligible for an additional discount on their liability insurance premium. For more information, visit World.dan.org/ConEd.
© Alert Diver – Q2 2026