Diving Doc: Preventing and Treating Coral Scrapes

Scuba diving is traditionally a look, don't touch kind of sport. But even careful divers can inadvertently run into trouble. By far the most common diving injury is the common scrape, usually from coral.

Irritations often occur as a result of a brush with coral or sponges. Coral scrapes can be painful and sometimes difficult to heal because the living organisms in the coral can get into the wound and cause infections. Contact with a sponge can leave irritating fibers in the skin, producing an itching rash that can range from mild to severe, possibly with pain and blistering.

Even if you're careful, it's likely you'll come into contact with coral someday. If and when, here's what to do:

1. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Makes sure your body is covered, even if just by a dive skin, and wear gloves where allowed.

2. Regularly irrigate a scrape with copious amounts of vinegar over a period of about 30 minutes.

3. Apply triple-antibiotic to the wound twice a day for a couple of days.

4. Scrapes can become infected even with proper initial care. Watch for hotness to the touch, redness or red streaks around the site, swelling, discharge of pus, or fever. If you see them, contact a doctor.

5. Fragments of coral sometimes become lodged beneath the skin and the body mounts a prolonged allergic reaction to them. In some cases, debridement is required to resolve the reaction.

Even in the absence of embedded coral remnants, it is not unusual for a marked hypersensitivity response to a coral injury to continue for three to four weeks before significantly improving. Sometimes the lesion will resolve, then return.

If a scrape doesn't substantially resolve within a month, or gets worse, you should consult a dermatologist.

Editor's Note: Even innocent injuries can turn deadly if you have an allergic or severe reaction. After any accident, watch for severe swelling, dizziness, blurred vision, breathing difficulties, weakness, muscle pain, cold sweat and a rapid heartbeat. If any occur, call 911 (or DAN's emergency hotline 919-684-4DAN if no emergency services are available) immediately. Injectible epinephrine can help calm allergic reactions. CPR may be necessary until help arrives.

DocVikingo has been scuba certified for more than 35 years and has dived all over the world. He is a practising doctor in the Baltimore/Washington D.C. area and has held faculty positions at several major hospitals, including Johns Hopkins. With an interest in diving medicine, he serves as administrator at Scuba Clinic Online.

Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com

Giant Strides in Underwater Photography

Written by Katy Danca Galli for Scuba Diving

Well, I’m back from the Digital Shootout and am ready and patiently waiting for next year’s event to hurry up and get here. I learned a TON during my week at the Little Cayman Beach Resort with the Backscatter Underwater Video and Photography crew. Here is a list of the most important things I remembered:

Strobe placement should not require a protractor, compass or other mathematical device to figure out. According to Berkley White, position your strobes above and behind the dome port for best results. If you are shooting with a super wide angle lens (like I was) and want to achieve that close focus, wide angle look, keep your strobes the same distance away from your camera as your subject object is from the dome port.

Try losing weight. No, I don’t mean you should run to the nearest Jenny Craig or buy a StairMaster. I mean loose lead weight. I have ALWAYS dived with ten pounds in salt water, and I was down to six by the second day of the Shootout. Try loosing three pounds to start and then go from there.

As I’ve said in my day four blog — FIRE CORAL IS BAD. I went the entire week without a wetsuit, and boy did I live to regret it. If you think the water is too warm for neoprene (like it was for me in Little Cayman), at least wear a skin. It’ll keep down the ouchie factor 100 percent.

Marine creatures are a lot like cats — they are finicky and never do what you want them to do, ever. After spending multiple days trying to chase down all the sea life on Bloody Bay Wall and only managing to chase them away, I learned that the best method is to simply let them come to you. The squid I shot loved my camera strobes and approached to me to investigate. All I did was click the shutter to achieve success.
Lastly, use your shutter speed to control the exposure instead of your aperture. It completely un-complicates things and works like a charm the majority of the time. I realize this is not how many underwater photographers work, but almost every image I shot was exposed properly (so there).

Next year the Backscatter team is heading to Bonaire and sign-up has already begun. Check out thedigitalshootout.com for more information and coverage of past events. THANK YOU twenty times over to everyone from the Little Cayman Beach Resort for their amazing accommodations and food, Reef Divers and their awesome dive staff, everyone from Backscatter who helped me immensely and allowed me to join this awesome event, and all of the zany, wonderful people who participated and gave me advice. May the force be with you all and hope to see you next year.

Kathy Dowsett

www.kirkscubagear.com