KBAT has held a three day Deck Decompression Chamber (DDC) operator course at Samcheonpo Seoul hospital in Sacheon City, South Korea.

A total of 17 students from various Korean Diving companies and operators of hyperbaric treatment chambers attended the course which was organised by Lee Chan Soo of La Mer Solutions.

The course consists of both the theoretical and practical hands-on training using a brand new 2 compartment DDC specially set up in the adjacent car park of the local cultural museum and has since generated much interest among the passers-by. The training was further supplemented by visits to the hospital’s 10-person hyperbaric facility.

Lee said: “I’ve organised the course not to make money but as a service to the Korean diving industry, in order to raise the diving safety standards to an international level”.

Head of Diving Training, Alan Rhodes, said: “The facilities were first class and the students were very keen to learn and improve their knowledge. This is the second time KBAT has conducted a DDC operator course in Korea, we have built on our good connections and hoped to conduct more diving & competency skills training in the near future.”

Whilst in Korea, Head of Diving Training, Alan Rhodes was asked to present a lecture on ‘Diving Safety’, conducted in the auditorium of the Kyungnam Technical College, Jinju City. Interest was high, due in part to the recent tragic loss of over 400 lives, many of them were school children in the ‘Sewol’ ferry disaster. In that ferry disaster, there was a subsequent further loss of two divers’ lives and several decompression illness incidents during the rescue/salvage operation.

94 delegates from the diving industry and various public bodies attended, along with two TV news crews and resulted in leaving standing room only. There were also representatives from the Korean Coastguard, Jinju City 911 rescue team and Jinju City government administration officers.

Press Release