Are you on good terms with Lady Luck?

[TSandM]

I've been ruminating over some of the accident and incident accounts which have recently been posted, and something kind of gelled for me.

Every dive has requirements. You need a certain amount of gas, have a certain limit with respect to decompression (whatever it is), perhaps need to be able to swim against current or get back on a boat in big swells. Each of these parameters sets a part of the limit that describes the dive.

When the resources you bring to bear are far in excess of what the dive requires, luck plays almost no role in how the dive comes out. If I do a 30 foot reef dive in calm, sunlit water, with double 80's on my back, a RIB to come pick me up if I get lost, and a very solid, experienced dive buddy, luck is going to have a hard time playing havoc with that dive.

On the other hand, if you do a bounce dive to 300 feet on a single Al80, you are seriously counting on everything going exactly according to plan . . . and in this case, if Lady Luck has a frown on her face, the outcome is not going to be pretty.

The closer you dive to the limits of your resources, whether it's gas, strength, experience, decompression, surface support or whatever, the larger a role you are allowing Lady Luck to play in how the dive comes out. Since she is known to be a fickle mistress, it may not be a great idea to invite her along for the dive.

 

[g1138]

Just like my mom, Lady Luck doesn't like it when you expect her to do all the work for you.....

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Your now out of luck if you think any luck at all is in diving.

Diving is being aware of the simple procedure it takes to dive. when you do not pay attention to time, gas supply, and depth, you now have a problem to solve to make it to the surface.

300' bounce dives are done on al80's and they will cut you short on air as you will now run in to some deco, from the time it takes to get to 300' and back. you must know what your own dive status is in order to make a decision on a planned dive to that depth.

Every dive has its hickup's and its how fast you resolve them and most are taken in to consideration when diving on a daily basis.

You will die diving for some unknown reason, and only you will have that feeling at the last moment and yell through your reg F%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

 

[Ste Wart]

Lynne,

I recommend reading Mark Ellyats' Ocean Gladiator. If you want to hear how one guy gets by on Lady Luck on a huge amount of dives. The chapter on his 200m dive in Coniston Mine is enthralling.
The writing style is god awful, but is a fascinating recount of a the life an Extreme Tech diver.

 

[CamG]

LUCK?
Luck is for gamblers and games.
DIVE PLANNING is for divers!
CONSERVATISM is for divers!
We train for the WTF moments to happen and have a plan to fix them or deal with them till we get to safety.

Anyone who dives to the ragged edge of survival can count on being a fatality one day.
It does not matter what level you are or what style of diving you do it is a fact.
As harsh as it sounds it is true and it crosses over into other sports or activities.
This is YOUR CHOICE as a individual to decide how to run your dives or activities.

One of the things that I love about diving is the fact you plan the dives taking into account all the factors and are always looking for new issues to pop up.
All of these are ran through the conservatism screen to temper the plan to ensure we maintain proper adherence to the safe diving rules of conduct that we have CHOSEN!
Not all of us have the same code but that is why we call our own shots / dives.

I speak of luck at times all the while I know the truth that they are moments of GRACE which is a gift from above.
The OH SXXT moments that jerk a knot in your rear when you realize the gravity of what just happened.
These lessons are gifts that not everyone survives but once they occur we are not going to willingly repeat them but instead train to manage them in our skill sets.

Nothing will make you acutely aware of your lack of skill mastery, lack of good judgement, or NOT BEING CONSERVATIVE as an incident in the water at depth.
The issue is being ready to handle it because if you dive enough IT WILL HAPPEN!
We TRAIN FOR THEM TO HAPPEN!

LYnne great post, thanks for making all of us just stop and ponder for a moment.
I try to reflect very often to keep things in perspective.
Safe diving all and stay sharp Murphy is on every dive waiting patiently.

CamG Keep Diving....Keep Training....Keep Learning!

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I'd have to say based on personal observations and many reports of how divers were and are being trained that lady luck has little to do with it. I'd say dumb luck is the reason we don't have more accidents!

Tempting fate by pushing boundaries too far and too fast is not tempting lady luck. Its just being downright stupid. When people get hurt doing these things its hard to feel any compassion for them. Especially when they should know better.

New divers can be excused for some things. They get poor training and the real risks are glossed over or omitted so as not to scare them. But when its experienced divers or worse professionals then you have to think did they just get their comeuppance? Maybe. Sometimes bad things are deserved when stupid, reckless, and outrageous behavior is what led to them happening.


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[gsk3]

Whoa, strange reactions to a very reasonable post. I don't think it's particularly controversial to say that anything in the ocean involves some degree of chance, that certain diver practices (training, equipment, boat/pilot choice, fitness, etc.) and environmental conditions (weather, depth, cold, vis, current, etc.) affect the likelihood of something happening.

Claiming that a conservative ubermensch diver will never have problems seems to me to dramatically overstate the case. Risk is in everything, but the more benign an environment and the better the diver practices, the smaller the risk is.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I don't regard cave diving as a sport that involves luck or similarly any great degree of risk.

With proper planning, training, configuration and prudent action and decision making by the team during the dive, there is just not much that can go wrong that you cannot handle. What's left are the wildly improbable events like geologic movement and multiple failures in successive redundant systems. Give my inability to win the lottery, I don't worry much about odds in the > one in a million range.

Marci and I do tend to stay on the prudent side of the line, especially when we usually dive in a two person team, either in terms of bringing extra reserve gas or in terms of turning the dive early to maintain a much more conservative reserve and I will often carry a reserve primary light in a pocket. The extra gas and light degrades efficiency but we're not setting records and it turns any failure into a non-event.

I regard offshore technical diving as being a riskier sport as there are more uncontrollable variables involved. Consequently I further increase the conservatism and allow for even greater reserves, margins of error and unanticipated events.

 

[TSandM]

All of you who are saying that luck doesn't play a role, are also saying that you plan to make sure you have more resources than you need on a dive, and that was precisely my point in the opening post. It's when you DON'T plan properly that you become dependent on luck, because the dive has to go perfectly or you are in trouble.

I am reminded of a statement by my friend Ben Martinez. He told me he never turns a cave dive on gas, and were he to do so, he would feel that he had screwed up. Because, if he turns on gas, it means he didn't bring enough gas to do the dive he proposed to do -- he knows where he is going, and how long it will take, and makes darned sure he has more gas than will be required to do that. Ben's not courting Lady Luck at all

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Relying on luck is when you

... do deep bounce dives on small single cylinders
... exceed your deco limits with no idea how to manage deco obligations
... enter overhead environments without overhead training
... dive solo with no redundant air
... plan your dive and ignore your plan
... rationalize any diving decision by thinking that something bad "won't" happen

Usually Lady Luck will be gracious, and you'll end your dive just fine. But at some point, if you push her far enough, she'll decide she wants a divorce. At that point, you'll have to deal with the consequences ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)