CSM Meeting February 2026 - Mistakes Divers Make with Dan Orr

Описание: Chicago Scuba Meetup is please to be able to bring to you our speaker this month, Dan Orr, retired President of the Divers Alert Network. He will be presenting remotely and this will be a Zoom only meetup.

MISTAKE DIVERS MAKE

Recreational scuba diving is inherently safe but is very unforgiving of mistakes. When you look at the available diving accident data, especially the ‘triggering events’ in diving fatalities, the majority of triggering events are either directly or indirectly caused by human error. Identifying and discussing mistakes that divers make coupled with recommendations on how to improve safety, will provide important knowledge and tools that will help reduce the likelihood that an incorrect choice will plunge the diver into a cascade of events leading towards truly unwanted circumstances.

Bio

Dan Orr, President of Dan Orr Consulting, has more than 50 years of diving experiences. He retired from the position of President of Divers Alert Network (DAN) after 23 years where he helped DAN focus on its worldwide diving safety mission. During his tenure at DAN, he assumed a variety of roles including Director of Training (where he was Dan was responsible for the development and implementation of the DAN Emergency Oxygen First Aid Program), Executive Vice President and, ultimately, President/CEO.
Prior to his service at DAN, he worked and taught recreational diving in a retail store, developed and implemented course curricula in the academic environment, and collected data and supervised research efforts in the field of science diving. Dan was certified as a US Navy diver and tested diving equipment for military contractors. He has served and continues to serve in leadership positions on the Board of Directors of many companies and organizations throughout the diving world. Consulting projects have included generating reports on fire safety improvement for liveaboard dive vessels, first aid and accident management improvements on dive vessels and safety management system review and improvements.
Dan has been an invited speaker at numerous national and international diver conferences and conducts regular webinars on a variety of diving safety subjects. He has published and co-authored more than a dozen books and manuals including 101 Tips for Recreational Divers, Scuba Diving Safety, Pocket Guide to First Aid for Scuba Diving Injuries; Pocket Guide for Hazardous Marine Life Injuries; and the DAN Oxygen First Aid for Scuba Diving Injuries Training Manual. He has also published a variety of articles including The Normalization of Deviance (aka shortcut mentality), Time to Return to Diving but Cautiously, COVID-19, Local Diving and The Older Diver, The Ageless Diver, A Crisis Lurking Below the Surface-Emergency Hyperbaric Chamber Availability, Returning the Dive Travel – Be Prepared Part 1 & 2.
Dan has been honored by his peers by being the recipient of many prestigious awards and honors including the NOGI Award in Sports/Education, the Leonard Greenstone Award for Diving Safety, the Our World-Underwater Award, Beneath the Sea’s Diver of the Year, the Wyland Foundation Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the DEMA Reaching Out Award. He is a member of the Explorers Club, Hall of Fame for Disabled Divers, the Diving Industry Hall of Fame, and the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame.