Page 24 - QARANC Spring 2024

24 The Gazette QARANC Association
‘Creating lifelong friendships through scuba diving’
Diving With the Injured (DWI) expeditions have become the highlight of the year for the Defence Medical Services (DMS) Diving Club and its members predominately from the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine.
The DWI expedition 2023 returned to the Maldives archipelago on 2–10 December. A liveaboard trip, those on board were 10 veterans with 16 support divers that consisted of 11 military nurses, two military doctors and three military advanced instructors.
Veterans are buddied up in diving pairs with serving DMS members to conduct three to four dives a day. These included reef dives, drift dives, shark dives, and Manta Ray dives both at day and night. Many personnel were also conducting training dives such as navigation, planned decompression dives and emergency drills for their next diving qualification. This also involved the gruelling task of trying to stay awake for lectures held between the dives in preparation for exams.
The evening meal (often with the most amazing freshly caught sushi) was a time to relax and reflect on the day’s diving and to get to know one another
One of the nurses described
the DWI expedition
as a great opportunity to meet injured veterans
better. Before dessert is served, it is DWI tradition to vote for the biggest goof of the day, the more creative stretching of the truth the better. It’s an apprehensive half hour anticipating who will receive the overall vote to volunteer to wear ‘Spank’ the monkey hat for the next 24 hours. It is a great icebreaker that even the boat staff get on board with.
One of the nurses described the DWI expedition as a great opportunity to meet injured veterans who had been treated within the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Some of the veterans shared their experiences as a patient, which was useful for us to have as consideration when nursing injured service personal in the future.
The expeditions have formed an integral aspect of decompression for both veterans, many of whom are still fighting their battles and for medical staff to have a rewarding week of leave. It provides a positive