In 1964 he finished the Marine-technical military school, in 1965 he finished the course for submariners and was embarked on “SUTJESKA” submarine. Upon immersing for the first time using “DRAGER” – closed-circuit breathing set, during that course, he realizes that diving is the activity that gives him pleasure.

In 1968 he was set as crew member on the new submarine “HEROJ” (at that time under construction), where he met for the first time the soviet rescue equipment for submariners IDA – 59 ISP – 60, which was a precursor of modern REBREATHER apparatus.

In 1969 Yugoslav Navy selected 6 young officers, who, having passed two diving courses and a Russian language course, were sent in USSR for being trained for Instructors of Deep diving and Rescuing of ships and submarines. Dragisa Koprivica was one of them.

In Naval-Military Advanced School in Baku Dragisa experienced diving with all type of equipment and breathing apparatus used at that time in USSR navy, AVM-1M and UKRAINA, closed-circuit underwater breathing apparatus IDA-57, semi closed-circuit apparatus IDA-59 ISP-60 which he used during training when coming out of a sunken submarine through torpedo tube, and, at the end, deepdiving equipment with gas mixtures GKS – 3M.

When talking about this kind of equipment Dragisa and his friends were the first foreigners who reached the depth of 160 m.

Afterwards, coming back to Yugoslavia Dragisa and his friends were assigned to the Unit for Rescuing on sea and worked as divers, mostly using the classic divers’ equipment.

In 1976 Yugoslav Navy got the newly built ship PS-12 SPASILAC for purposes of rescuing on sea with modern apparatus for deep diving, type DRAGER and mini submarine, depth range 700m.

Of all divers who were trained in USSR only Dragisa passed rigorous medical examinations and was embarked on a new ship.

Prof.doc.med. colonel Stracimir Gosovic known as “father” of Yugoslav submarine medicine and diving, together with Dragisa Koprivica, trained a new group of young, but already experienced, divers. Dragisa was in charge of deepdiving (surface supplied diving and saturation diving) supervisor. DRAGER SMS semi-closed circuit diving apparatus were used and when using TRIMIX mixture a depth up to 160m could be reached. First saturation diving was performed in November 1977, guided by prof.doc. Stracimir Gosovic /superintendent/ and instructors Dragisa Koprivica and Petar Draganovic /supervisors/, with the help of experts from abroad /instructor John Haugestat from Norwey, doctor Fust from Germany and doctor Cabarou from France/. Reached depth when saturation diving in question was 100m, sometimes 120m.

In 1981 Dragisa worked on a ship of Libyan Navy, training their divers. 

In 1982 Dragisa worked in the Institute for submarine medicine at Military hospital in Split, as examining diver and operator of hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber. With cordial help of prof.doctor Gosovic and his medical team Dragisa improved his knowledge in submarine and hyperbaric medicine taking part in examining of different types of new diving equipment and closed-circuit, semi-closed circuit and open circuit breathing sets /FGG, FGT, LAR, OXIMIX 3C, MIX 2A, DRINA etc./. Almost every day he accompanied his patients in hyperbaric chambers. He also continued, together with doctor Gosovic, to participate in all complex operations of deep divining performed by PS-12 SPASILAC

Till retirement Dragisa accomplished 5063,15 hours of diving with compressed gas breathing sets, 516,52 hours of trimix diving, 545,56 hours using oxygen rebreather /staying with patients in chambers included/ which represents a total of 6235 hours of diving..

At the same time, in 1982, Dragisa joined the Club PIK MORNAR in Split and the Diving Association of Croatia and Yugoslavia.

In 1990 in Split he got the vocation of 3* CMAS Instructor. 

He dedicated his own life to divers training, so that he became a member, later the president, of the Teaching Council of Diving Association of Croatia and a member of the Committee for submarine activities of Diving Association of Yugoslavia. He held a great number of courses for all diving categories, and participated in three courses for instructor as teacher and member of examining board. 

From 1981 till 1991 he trained divers in different towns: Split, Trogir, Sibenik, Zadar, Omis, Sarajevo, Zenica, Kragujevac, Skopje, Ohrid, Dojran and Niksic. 

In 1993 he founded the diving club “Neptun-Mimoza” in Tivat…