I was just reading a profile of a 25 year old male that seems to be a lot like I was fifteen or so years ago. I started reminiscing about the freedom, the parties, the lack of responsibility and so on but I also started to think about what I have now.
When I was in high school, I had a good job, decent grades, lots of "friends" and plenty of freedom. I graduated and got a better job, more freedom, my own home and eventually a wife. All was good. Along came a couple of kids, a nicer home and a promotion. All was good. Then came lots of hours, a lonely wife, and eventually a life changing divorce.(is there any other kind?) All was not good. I was a basket case for a couple of years. I hooked up with the first warm body that would listen to my story and almost made the biggest mistake of my life, but I learned from it. I eventually found another mate and we decided to have another kid. She already had two, I already had two and the other one gave us five. Everyone thougt we were nuts. Probably one of the best things that ever happened to me. All is good again.
I stll look back on my younger years fondly but I wouldn't give up anything I have now to get back what I had then. It seems whenever life is going a little too good, something happens to bring you back to earth and when life sucks, something good always brings you back from the edge. If you look too far ahead, you'll miss what you have now and if you are always looking back, you'll miss all the good stuff coming up. Live for now because you'll be old and feeble before you realize what you missed.
When life throws you a curve ball, just remember, stop, breathe, and remember what you have right now. You just might surprise yourself. Life is like diving, plan your dive, dive your plan but don't miss all the good stuff to get a good picture.
Every year there is a conference on hyperbaric medicine in St. Catharines, Ontario. Last year there were several key note speakers one of which was Dr. Louis W. Jankowski. He was to speak on his research ofChildren in Diving. I desperately wanted to attend but unfortunately could not. I have two friends who were able to and gave me a general overview of what was presented. Forgive me for any inaccuracies as I am severely underqualified to be a definitive source of this information and I wasn't there to hear it first hand. I really wish I were.
There are a few concerns regarding children breathing compressed gasses in a pressurized environment.
First, the increased pressure adversely affects the long bone growth in children. As they approach the age of 16, these affects are reduced. When children as young as 12 years old are exposed to a hyperbarometric environment, these affects increase drastically. These are some of the most important years in a child's physical development.
Second, the eustachian tubes in children are not at an angle condusive to clearing the pressure in their ears and sinuses. This is due to the underdeveloped skull and inner ear. The tubes start out running almost horizontal and as children develop, they begin to take on a more diagonal configuration. I believe the changes begin to take effect around the age of 12 and are complete by the time they are around 16.
Third, a child's underdeveloped brain has not developed the "hard wiring" to deal with highly stressful or panick situations. Because their brains are like sponges, they remember everything they are taught but may not recognize the urgency of a situation and if they do, they can not deal with it. This is not a psycological problem, it is a physical development in the brain that has not occured yet. Think about how an adult deals with a situation where a close friend or family member is in dire danger and then apply the same situation to a young child sometimes as young as 8 years old. when you are diving with a young child, if one of you are in trouble, you are both in trouble and the situation becomes exponentially worse.
Fourth, children are much more succeptible to oxygen toxicity. Nobody knows exactly what partial pressure of oxygen will become toxic to a child but it is drastically higher than that in an adult. This fact was discovered by accident when infants were given pure oxygen to assist in healing other ailments and were experiencing permanent retinal dammage (usually total blindness.) Some people are allowing children to dive on nitrox not realizing what they may be doing to their children. As should be taught in any basic course, oxygen toxicity often causes blindness and seizures(almost always fatal in a marine environment.)
Fifth, the effects of nitrogen saturation are unknown in children. There have been studies that show increased incidence of the bends in children even in conservative dive profiles. There are several studies under way but all results are inconclusive as to why this happens.
All in all, I am not saying not to allow your children to enter the sport of diving, just educate yourself on the potential hazzards of it. I do not consider myself anything near a knowledgable resource on the subject. I apologize to Dr. Jankowski for any information I have skewed, omitted or misinterpreted.I invite anyone to correct me or add to the information that I have tried to provide here. At the very least, I hope to have sparked an interest in researching this subject further.
Our children are our future, let's not kill them with a lack of knowledge or the blissful ignorance that nothing bad could ever happen to them.
Just think about what we are all doing here in Dive Area. With all the crap going on in the world right now, everyone seems to be able to put aside all their differences just because we like to splash around in the water once in a while. It doesn't seem to matter whether you're black, white, asian, arab or jew. We just seem to get along. I think the rest of the world could learn a lesson from us. I feel like a hippie saying this but spread the peace man.
