Kategorie: News
On March 31, 2022, MD Ralf Busch (* 6/8/1965, † 03/31/2022) passed away after a severe illness due to multiple organ failure in Düsseldorf. The Cologne-born physician was 56 years old.
MD Ralf Busch was a physician and known to most as a diving and hyperbaric specialist. In addition, he was both a sports and travel physician. He could look back on a long history in the diving scene. He started his career with diving training at the DUC Cologne up to VDST Gold. After that he became an instructor until he continued his career at PADI to Divemaster. He finally did his instructor training at PDIC-USA and finally at IDA his advanced training up to TL***.
Due to his outstanding performance, he was appointed TL**** years later. MD Ralf Busch was never satisfied. He wanted the safe training of all divers. Therefore, in his career as a diving instructor followed the DAN Instructor Trainer, Crossover Examiner before he became Vice President of IDA. His main focus was on diving medicine as well as maintaining international contacts (RSTC/ABRE/ITLA/etc). He was an eCCR Instructor, but also loved to be out and about with Nitrox21 in local waters.
As a physician, MD Ralf Busch committed himself to diving and hyperbaric medicine at an early stage - lucky for the diving community. From 2000 to 2007, he served as medical director of the Kassel Pressure Chamber Center. From 2007 until today he claimed the management as well as medical direction of the Pressure Chamber Center Cologne Bonn. For many years the "Taucherdoc", as most people called him, worked for the medical hotline of the VDST as well as the Medical Board of aqua med. His main focus was the handling of complex cases, especially in the field of tec diving. For some years MD Ralf Busch was co-initiator of the initiative "Ein Herz für Taucher" (A heart for divers), which is concerned with the project AED at well frequented dive sites.
With Dr. Ralf Busch the diving sport not only loses an extremely competent diving instructor and diving physician, but also an incredibly helpful and lovable person.
Ralf, we thank you for your selfless, positive and humorous way to deal with the world and we will miss you in our midst for a very long time. The thoughts of the whole Taucher.Net team are now with your family. We would like to express our personal sympathy and deepest condolences!
| For Ralf: In the following some personal words from the editorial office and the editorial environment. Ariane Schild: Many of you knew Ralf as a "Taucherdoc" who never feared a discussion about diving accidents, decompression problems or hyperbaric medicine. Some were lucky enough to meet him in the course of their training. I had the great fortune to call him a friend. Those who knew him a little better looked forward to a jar of his homemade chili sauce every year. I personally adored his kiwi jam. The BOOT trade fair became an illegal trading ground for the much-desired jars. Ralf was a person you could call day and night, which I made use of more than once. A friend, with whom one stopped simply times briefly for a coffee, in order to find oneself afterwards in the midst of hundreds of tomato and chili plants, alternatively among 600kg of Kiwis. A Sleeping Beauty Garden, behind which an honest, lovable person was hiding. Ralf invested so much time and love in his plants and the resulting weeks of harvesting and canning. He only wanted to make others happy with it. Never wanted to have something for it, except that one donated voluntarily something to the children's hospice. He never asked to be told. If one did not find him in the garden, he tinkered around with devices that were abstruse for me. A conversation with him and his father usually ended in witty entanglements that will remain unforgotten to me. His self-sacrificing nature was more than I knew from anyone else. He did not know rest. Whether it was gardening, donations, outreach or for any diver, no matter how unknown to him, who had a question. Ralf was always there, but never complained about his life, his thereby limited free time. No, on the contrary - that was exactly his life. With Ralf, one of the few thoroughly good people has passed away. He leaves a gap that is extremely difficult to close. Ralf, I thank you for your friendship, your plants - your aloe still is alive with me -, your ear, your „ rebreather-persuasion-discussions", your advice when I was not well, your open nature. I will miss you. I hope you have a gorgeous garden where you are now. Thomas Kromp: Ralf was a very good physician and always up to date. In addition, he knew diving perfectly and was very pleasantly communicative. At the Boot Düsseldorf he supplied us with his extraordinary spices for many years. Especially his social engagement in St. Augustin and beyond has to be emphasized. A great loss for all of us! Dr. Anke Fabian: Ralf was a long-time companion: whether at the GTÜM, aqua med, BOOT, Heidelberg Pressure Chamber Center, in Egypt, above water, under water and privately. Versatile, open, interested in everything. Inventive, courageous. Human, empathetic and an ear that was always and at all times open for others. Helpful, generous and creative. The best „cat-food can opener" and chili cook! The memories of you are your mark left on our hearts and lives. Now you are no longer here and the finality becomes painfully aware. Grateful to have known you - grateful that I was allowed to be your friend. Until we meet again! Armin Süss: Gosh Ralf. What is this? You can't leave us alone with all the problems in the world, especially in these crazy times? Esteemed diving colleague, your presence as IDA representative always had a value that I will miss. Dear Doc, our trip together through the piranha infested Amazon will be remembered forever, you were a reliable partner and always had a dry but sharp-witted humor along with a mischievous grin. There was enough to laugh about ;-) Ralf, you always had a solution for my questions. Thanks for everything. Take care on your last dive. You will not only be missed by me. |