Call for regulation for hookah diving equipment to save lives

Hookah diving is popular with recreational and commercial fishers, but there are concerns from the medical and diving fraternities that the lack of regulation of equipment and divers is dangerous and puts lives at risk.

Hookah diving is diving with a supply of air generated by a machine on the surface.

Divers are unencumbered by scuba equipment which they say provides more freedom of movement under the water.

Professor David Smart has more than 3,000 hours of diving experience, and 35 years working in hyperbaric medicine and until recently he was the co-director of the Royal Hobart Hospital’s Hyperbaric Unit.