Living the Dream in Durham North Carolina

Hello! My name is Emily Hellmann, and I am this year’s Our world Underwater Scholarship Society Divers Alert Network (DAN) Diver Safety Education intern. A little background on me:

I am 22 years old and from Manassas, Virginia. I have been diving since I was 11, but I’ve been surrounded by the sport since I was little, as my dad is a scuba instructor trainer. Because of my diving experiences, I have always wanted to do something with the ocean in my future career. When I started college, I naturally picked marine biology as my major at Old Dominion University. But after a couple of math classes, I changed to Earth Science Education. It was bittersweet, because it was not what I originally wanted to do, but I would still be involved with the ocean. It was this past semester that I realized I was moving toward what I was meant to do. Watching kids get excited to learn about marine processes really hit it home. If I can get more young people excited about the ocean, then as they grow up, there will be more older people who care about the ocean.

The switch also led me to this AMAZING internship, which includes the best of both of my worlds: diving and education

My first week lined up with the visit of the Our World Underwater Scholarship Society’s North American Rolex Scholar, Yann Herrera. During this week, the DAN Research interns and myself were able to tag along with him to each department in DAN to hear about what they do. We met with the medics, researchers, the teams from membership, liability insurance, communication and marketing, plus IT, and so many more! It was very interesting to be able to meet all the people who make DAN work and to see just how important they are to the diving community.

Another great opportunity I had this week was to go through the Diving First Aid for Professional Divers (DFA Pro) course, taught by Patty Seery, DAN’s director of training. It was a very long but rewarding course. We practiced all skills in the course in a very hands-on manner, from neurological assessments and how to care for hazardous marine life injuries to CPR, first aid and, most importantly, emergency oxygen for scuba diving injuries. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. It was a great course!