Safety Questions for Remote Dive Ops

[bowlofpetunias]

A recent thread in A & I got me thinking. What questions should we ask about the safety equipment and emergency plans when we book to dive at a remote site.

At work one of the courses we teach is how to put together an emergency first aid plan. We also go out and do "Test Drills" to determine if the plan is effective.

Things we look at in determining if a Plan meets the requirements for Work Place codes of Practice and Legislature.

Risk analysis must take into account:

a) Number of people likely to be onsite at a given time
b) How long before emergency help can arrive
c) How long to transport to appropriate treatment facility
d) How risky are the activities at the site
e) Why kinds of injuries or illnesses are likely to occurr

Risk analysis is then used to determine

1) How many trained first aiders are appropriate and what level of training
2) What first aid equipment is required

Emergency plan should include

How first aid will be activated
Who/How emergency services are contacted
Who controls the scene
How the emergency equipment is brought to the scene
Who is responsible for documentation
Will someone be assigned to accompany the injured person to treatment centre
How will follow up be done and by whom (this should include debriefing and support services for witnesses and staff)
If required who will be liaison with officials, Investigators legal entities etc


I know this is pretty exhaustive but I am putting it out to trigger some discussion. What do the operators consider. What do you consider to be minimum criteria.. what are YOUR "Deal breakers"?

 

[RJP]

Do you have O2 and someone who knows how to administer it?
Do you have a phone or radio that works where we'll be.

Everything else is gravy.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Now for some questions we need to ask ourselves. We can't expect remote sites in third world countries to provide services comparable to first world ones. If we come from a first world country IMHO we need to take some responsibility for our own welfare.

Have I got adequate insurance? Is my DAN coverage up to date?
Am I in suitable health for the trip?
Have I consulted appropriate travel advisories and followed their advice regarding shots and antimalarials?
What medication if any should I bring?
Have I checked with the Dive operator regarding the diving to ensure I am suitably experienced and trained?
Do I have appropriate first aid/medical training to take care of myself and/or my travel companions?
Are the risks associated with diving with this dive Operator acceptable to me?

Questions to ask the operator

What emergency equipment do you have available? O2? AED?
What is the training of your staff?
What is the diver to staff ratio?
Will Staff be in water or remain on board
What is your search policy.. how long after a diver has failed to surface will a search be conducted/emergency services be contacted?
How far to a chamber and how do you get there?

These are questions to get people thinking... what are the minimum/maximum questions we should ask?

Too often we read of delayed responses, poorly equipped and poorly trained people contributing to death and injuries. We need to take responsibility for ourselves but we also need to push the operators to be safety conscious to earn our business!

 

[dmaziuk]

Do you have O2 and someone who knows how to administer it?

... to a heart attack victim. How about vitamin D and how to administer it to someone with venal bleeding from a gash in their calf?

duh

 

[TSandM]

I match the dives I do with the resources that are on hand. For example, we dove in the South Pacific off a little aluminum skiff, left unattended, and with no O2 on board. The proposed dive was within an easy swim of the shoreline, and max proposed depth was about 45 feet, and I thought the risk was acceptable.

I was a little more worried about our trip to the Socorros, where the dives were going to be big walls and known to have current. We bought Nautilus Lifelines in preparation for that trip, dove Nitrox, and kept our depths conservative (my hard deck was 80 feet for the trip). The boat had O2 and a radio, but it wasn't going to help much when we were 24 hours from port.

 

[gypsyjim]

I match the dives I do with the resources that are on hand. For example, we dove in the South Pacific off a little aluminum skiff, left unattended, and with no O2 on board. The proposed dive was within an easy swim of the shoreline, and max proposed depth was about 45 feet, and I thought the risk was acceptable.

I was a little more worried about our trip to the Socorros, where the dives were going to be big walls and known to have current. We bought Nautilus Lifelines in preparation for that trip, dove Nitrox, and kept our depths conservative (my hard deck was 80 feet for the trip). The boat had O2 and a radio, but it wasn't going to help much when we were 24 hours from port.

I believe that this ^^^ is exactly the sort of scenario BoP is opening a discussion on. A trip where a bottle of O2, a buddy and a cell phone might not be quite enough to get you home alive.

This thread has sprung off from a conversation started yesterday, as a discussion of the April 2012 fatality in the Maldives. As I understand what I read, the fatality was blamed at least in part on the operator failing to handle the diver's emergency quickly, and then compounding of that error by the medical "experts" failing to get the diver chamber treatment.

Honestly, until yesterdays discussion I was not even thinking very far along those lines. I was still in that O2 and a cell phone mode, myself. Having decent DAN coverage and relying on the professionalism of the dive op was as far as I though this through.

Traveling to remote, exotic dive destinations, and then venturing even further from immediate medical care on a live aboard does really expose a diver to concerns over safety equipment and procedures, quality of care, and logistics in case of a major emergency, that one need not general even think deeply about, diving closer to home.

 

[Lorenzoid]

The tricky part is to compile a list of questions that is short enough and simply worded enough that you are actually likely to get a reply to each question rather than a blanket reply like "No worry. Each year hundreds happy customers." A few reasonable answers to a short list of imperfect questions is better than vague answers to a thorough list of questions.

 

[gypsyjim]

That was sort of how I responded when we began chatting. How to get honest useful answers, and not come across as an A$$ and a troublemaker.

 

[tsuyoshi]

How about the air they provided for you? Whether they will let you test for CO. Those rusty diesel compressors commonly seen around islands doesn't provide much confidence.

 

[dmaziuk]

Traveling to remote, exotic dive destinations, and then venturing even further from immediate medical care on a live aboard does really expose a diver to concerns over safety equipment and procedures, quality of care, and logistics in case of a major emergency, that one need not general even think deeply about, diving closer to home.

You don't have to be diving in an exotic location. People freeze to death in their cars when it snows in Georgia.