Plan for contingencies

[mikerault]

Do you think ahead and plan for contingencies? This article tries to point out that almost all dive fatalities are preventable:

http://scuba-diving.suite101.com/ar...ive_fatalities?CFID=80203251&CFTOKEN=70751839

What do you think?

Mike

 

[mikerault]

I would like some feedback on the article from more experienced (or less experienced) folks...

 

[Xman]

I would agree that the vast majority of dive incidents are preventable.

There would be far fewer incidents if divers practiced safety/rescue skills/drills. Got appropriate training for the dives they were doing. Took heed of medical advise, and THOUGHT a bit more.

Having said that, there will always be dive incidents.. Despite what training agencies spout, it is a sport with inherent danger. We owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to mitigate those risks where sensibly possible.

 

[Doc]

I believe I read your article correctly.

I disagree with your basic premise as to what kills most divers.

I believe that plain and simple, it's panic.

I have been involved in recovery of three divers from overhead environments. All three had air remaining in their tanks.

I have heard recent reports of a diver drowning in very shallow water after being exposed to extreme waves and turbidity.

It's panic.

Your list is interesting, and yes- on a "fresh" wreck, I have made sure that every diver brought either a 24" bolt cutter or a similar pry bar. This character of advice is for extreme situations, focusing on equipment to solve or prevent problems is not a primary direction of 99.7% of all readers here.

The big thing you missed is the previsualization of the incident. This is a difficult to define method that is fairly simple to teach- to the motivated and willing.

An extreme but popularized and simple example (the fear of happening is inversely proportionate to the likelihood of occurance): being left behind on the surface. Previsualize the experience. Unlikely to occur, but there will be no successful resolution in the unlikely event that it occurs lest you previsualize.

Now, Mike, I notice that you "bumped" your post 20 hours after you posted it. I look at SCUBABoard as it was intended. Share your information here, why direct readers to your website like the "helpers" do for Undercurrent? I have a BLOG website as well, but as you see, I put it in my sig line and that's it. I do not start threads asking people to hit my site, but I will refer readers to it when there is an ongoing discussion on point.

That said, your advice is absolutely dead-on and well reasoned, but unfortunately heavily biased towards the hardware end of the equation.

As Burt Reynolds told us in Deliverance, "Machines will fail..."

Manage the brain.

 

[JKSteger]

I enjoyed the read Mike.

Thanks,
J:

 

[two.crows]

Hi Mike - is this based on the 1997 HSE report "SCUBA Diving - a quantitative risk assessement?" (munitor has posted this together with other interesting links in the Reg philosophy thread #32 and #55) if not - you should read it. There are many paralells in their reasoning even though we see some issues (eg. trimix) with a slightly different emphasis now, ten years later. I would tend to agree with RoatanMan on the panic issue, but one has to realize that in most cases it is what the HSE calls a "contributing cause" to death, not a principal cause. The distinction may be a bit academic from an operational point of view, but is important for risk analysis.

It seems to me the points you list in your article could possibly be more complete and practical. The way you write about gas planning is not useful for someone who doesn't know how to, and not necessary for soemone who does. Why not list one planning method in practical detail - the one you use yourself perhaps? Entrapment might mention the skill of doffing gear under water; also it should include virtual entrapment due to loss of viz, i.e. the need to run a line. Uncontrolled ascent, yes, but the real killer there appears to be AGE due to barotrauma. Proper exhalation technique! Preventable equipment failure - not sure about that one. No one (unless competing for the Darwin award) would knowingly dive with faulty equipment. So where does the "preventable" come in? I am not aware of a specific and comprehensive check list of equipment tests pre-dive, that would include such sensible measures as: pressurizing and depressurizing your SPG to ensure the needle moves freely, and vacuum testing your second stages, to ensure you have proper seal. That would be useful. Non-preventable equipment failure - the redundancy discussion: I think proper redundancy for life support systems requires planning for two major equipment failures, not just one. Mind you, one of the redundant systems is your buddy (as long as you stay together).

In general, I find blanket statements to be less helpful - reminds me of when my mom used to say "Don't fall off the tree!" or "Be careful when you ride your bike!". Of course she was right, of course I didn't want to fall off and of course I fell anyway sometimes, but not because I didn't know better.

That said, I'm fully with Roatan Man - he calls it Previsualization, I like "mental simulation" .. that, and scenario based training is the way forward as far as the theory part of taining is concerned.

Thanks for your work!


two.crows

 

[mikerault]

I am somewhat limited by the site itself, they generally want shorter to-the-point pieces. I am intending on covering gas management in a later article. I bumped the piece because I didn't do a very good titling of the post so wanted to get a bit more exposure for it.

I agree visualization is a vital skill. The whole dealing with entrapment would probable make another good article by itself.

Thanks.

Mike