In April of 2018, Immersion Freediving’s Ted Harty was awarded the inaugural Dimitris Kollias award at the Blue Wild Expo for his promotion of safe freediving practices to the spearfishing community.
Harty subsequently took that check and hired a web developer and two professional videographers, with the goal to create a comprehensive online resource on freediving safety.
A full-time instructor since 2005, Harty is a past USA freediving record-holder, was captain of the USA Freediving team at the world championships and his deepest freedive is 279ft/85m. He says:
“For almost a decade I have heard people say, ‘I would like to take a freediving course but I can’t afford a course, or I can’t get the time off work.’ There is no excuse now. FreedivingSafety.com provides an online course covering freediving safety principles at no cost. You will learn the three most important rules while freediving and more importantly I will convince why they are necessary.”
The course will teach participants why blackouts can happen on dives even when you feel completely fine, as well as what to do if your buddy has a loss of motor control or blacks out at the surface. Harty adds:
“By my estimation, there are 50-75 fatalities per year in the United States while breath holding. This is because most of the people participating in freediving have no formal education in the risks and how to manage those risks.”
Consequently, FreedivingSafety.com was created in an attempt to make the sport safer.
Harty even has a challenge to sweeten the deal: The course contains a quiz. If you can pass the quiz, you will get discount codes from the following retailers:
- Divers Direct
- Gannet Dive Company
- Ben Greenfield’s new company Kion
- Noob Spearo
- Speared Apparel
- Born of Water
- East Coast Divers
- Oceaner Wetsuits
- Front Line Freediving
- Neritic PoleSpears
Check out the video below of a freediver who survived a blackout because his buddy knew what to do. For more information about the course, go to www.FreedivingSafety.com.
