Dan - Human error in diving

[Tigerman]

Yeah, it's kind of a nothing story. The sea wasn't at fault...no surprise there

Don't have a heart attack and don't run out of air. Accidents could be reduced if you don't do those things

About all you can conclude from almost any dive accident report IMO is that you should dive more frequently (have more recent experience) and be more self-aware.

If you look more closely the article says that in SIXTY PERCENT of the cardiac events there was recognized cardiac symptoms in the divers involved. Id say when you have recognized cariac issues while on the boat it is VERY MUCH a human error to jump into an enviroment where you cant breathe anything but whats in your tank and any form of emergency response is severely inhibited..
I also cant see how running out of gas is NOT a human error.

The only way I can find this article to be a "nothing story" is if you already have knowledge of these things and if you do, its not targeted towards you in the first place.

It's easy to dismiss what Mr. Orr is saying, but I found a couple of very interesting statistics in the talk.

Although it's very intuitive that the first dive of a trip would be higher risk, 88% is an extremely high number. This immediately suggests to me that we might be able to reduce fatalities by ensuring that first dive is done under very controlled circumstances, and I wonder if the numbers are different at resorts that require a "checkout dive" before taking people to the "real" dive sites. Or if the number would be different if we looked at folks who either had recent (say, within a month) dive experience, or a recent refresher.

Yet theres a lot of people on scubaboard frowning upon checkout dives because they feel its an insult to have to prove they can dive..
(as has been seen in threads discussing the topic before)

 

[Thalassamania]

...


Yet theres a lot of people on scubaboard frowning upon checkout dives because they feel its an insult to have to prove they can dive..
(as has been seen in threads discussing the topic before)

What is the problem there? Is it all just ego on the part of the divers or is it that the checkout process is so unimaginative and boring that the divers subjected to it naturally balk, especially when they are paying for it? In the scientific diving world you expect to do a checkout. You do one the first time that you need to dive under another institution's auspices, you do one whenever you need to dive under another institution's auspices and have not done so for a year. It doesn't matter who you are or how accomplished everyone knows you are. I can remember going to another institution and diving a checkout less than a week after I had conducted a checkout for the person who was now checking me out, because that other institution's DSO needed to dive from our ship. If the checkout is something more than assemble your gear, drop down to the bottom, kneel, flood and clear your mask, share air and ascend ... then perhaps divers would have less objection?

 

[flots am]

If the checkout is something more than assemble your gear, drop down to the bottom, kneel, flood and clear your mask, share air and ascend ... then perhaps divers would have less objection?

How about:

1. Drop your gear on the bottom
2. Jump in
3. Flood your mask,
4. Assemble your gear
5. Clear your mask
6. Ascend

flots.

 

[Tigerman]

What is the problem there? Is it all just ego on the part of the divers or is it that the checkout process is so unimaginative and boring that the divers subjected to it naturally balk, especially when they are paying for it? In the scientific diving world you expect to do a checkout. You do one the first time that you need to dive under another institution's auspices, you do one whenever you need to dive under another institution's auspices and have not done so for a year. It doesn't matter who you are or how accomplished everyone knows you are. I can remember going to another institution and diving a checkout less than a week after I had conducted a checkout for the person who was now checking me out, because that other institution's DSO needed to dive from our ship. If the checkout is something more than assemble your gear, drop down to the bottom, kneel, flood and clear your mask, share air and ascend ... then perhaps divers would have less objection?

Where I have done checkout dives they have by themselves been worthwhile dives, so personally I write it down to peoples ego.
Usually its been first day of diving with a new dive op (or not having dived for some time) and they have been pretty good at picking out who they need to see perform basic skills based on how they "behave" on the dive.
Ive actually never been requested to do any basic skills on the chekout dives, Ive just been doing a easy, relaxing dive in pretty, but not challenging conditions while the people checking divers has picked out those with "questionable" skills for closer inspection.

Actually, come to think of it.. I WAS "requested" to do a basic skill once, but he knew me from previous trips, so the way he "requested" me to do it was that he took my mask - and then gave me his to put on and clear.

 

[boulderjohn]

It's certainly human error, however I'm not sure you can call it "diver error".

FWIW, I'm not sure that 88% is a useful number. It's like saying "My car keys are always in the last place I look"

I had similar thoughts a couple of years ago when I first heard that DAN's studies showed that more than 80% of DCS cases happen on the first day of diving, and more than 80% of those happen on the first dive. Since people don't dive after such an incident, you would expect the numbers to be higher for the first day of diving, even if it were pure chance. So I did a more thorough probability analysis on those statistics, and found that they really are significant. Yes, it is indeed statistically more likely that a fatality will occur on the first dive (and then the second, and then the third, etc.) because people don't continue to dive after they are dead, but it is nothing close to 88%. That number really is very significant.

At least we can attribute it to something like rustiness--the DCS statistics have no clear explanation.

 

[Mike]

Human error translates to me from reading the article = poor judgement and poor skills.

With 88% of deaths occurring on the first dive, that pretty much backs up human error = poor judgement and poor skills.

I've got a heart condition, but I'm going diving = poor judgement

Oops my weight belt fell off at 100ft and I run away ascend = poor skills

Oops ran out of air = run away ascent = poor skills

Reading between the lines the point being that people on dives are dying because of being eaten by sharks, being rolled in the surf against rock cliffs, being pulled underwater by mysterious devil currents, their dying because they haven't dived in a year or more and they jump in and can't remember what the heck to do.

 

[boulderjohn]

Human error translates to me from reading the article = poor judgement and poor skills.

With 88% of deaths occurring on the first dive, that pretty much backs up human error = poor judgement and poor skills.

I've got a heart condition, but I'm going diving = poor judgement

Oops my weight belt fell off at 100ft and I run away ascend = poor skills

Oops ran out of air = run away ascent = poor skills

Reading between the lines the point being that people on dives are dying because of being eaten by sharks, being rolled in the surf against rock cliffs, being pulled underwater by mysterious devil currents, their dying because they haven't dived in a year or more and they jump in and can't remember what the heck to do.

You don't have to read between the lines, and you don't have to guess. DAN provides a paragraph description of every fatality for which they have that information in their annual reports. I have read every one of them for the past few years. You can go back and see how many of the scenarios you suggest typically occur. You will be quite surprised.

As for diving with a heart condition, the phrase is very broad. DAN itself will tell you which heart conditions are those with which one should not dive, and which ones are deemed to be reasonably safe.If I had a heart condition that DAN says is usually safe for diving, I would still dive. Is it poor judgment to follow DAN's advice?

I believe that in this report, the indication is that in 60% of the cases, the diver had symptoms of an active cardiac event prior to the dive. The problem is that those symptoms can be vague, and they can go away. The post-diving autopsy on my nephew's mother-in-law showed that not only had she had a heart attack during the dive, she had had one not long before it, probably within 24 hours. My guess is that she felt some symptoms she did not understand and was glad when they went away. We all experience that sort of thing regularly.

 

[supergaijin]

What is the problem there? Is it all just ego on the part of the divers or is it that the checkout process is so unimaginative and boring that the divers subjected to it naturally balk, especially when they are paying for it?

The skills demanded on a check dive are simple and 'safe'- they don't demand too much of the diver in question but how these simple skills are performed is a good indication of the general ability of the diver. Just like setting up equipment, everything is being 'noted' by the staff member.

If the skills required were to be ramped up, there would need to be another liability release signed, more paperwork, more grumbling.

As an aside, I ask divers to partially flood their masks, and then sit there and control their breathing for 10 secs before clearing. More than once I've seen confident divers who remove their mask instead (maybe to show me how good they are?), fumble around and take 2 or 3 breaths to clear the thing again, and because they're trying to do it so fast, the mask is sitting badly placed, leaking water etc. etc. - but they can do it while hovering so that makes them great divers :sarcasm:

How many times have I seen divers with 100+ dives fumble around with a stationary OOA drill, put in regs upside down, hose under the arm, divers with integrated inflator/octos not having the faintest idea how they work- this is by far and away the worst performed 'easy' skill that I see on check dives.

Sorry- i'm getting threads mixed up. But the 88% statistic about fatalities on the first dive I think speaks for itself. It makes plain sense to make the first dive in a shallow, 'controlled' environment where divers can run through the basic skills required for basic diving, where equipment can be used to see if there is a problem, where boat entries/exits can be discussed, where signals and other procedures can be discussed and used before throwing divers off a boat in the middle of the ocean.

 

[TSandM]

I have not had the experience of a dive op requiring a checkout dive, but I would have no problems doing one. I would, however, balk at some of the things I've heard. My friend NW Grateful Diver was asked to do a set of skills, did them in about 5' of water, hovering and stable, and when he surfaced, the DM supervising said, "Now go back down and do them properly, on your knees, as I asked you to do!" That would irk me.

My cave instructor was visiting Australia, and was told that, before he would be approved to use Nitrox (note: He's a cave instructor for GUE) he would have to get in the water and demonstrate fin pivots. Now, I have no idea what fin pivots have to do with Nitrox, but I am quite sure that you don't get a cave instructor card from ANY agency unless you have rather elegant buoyancy control, which is the ONLY thing fin pivots test.

So -- I think a checkout dive is a completely reasonable and probably desirable thing, but it has to be a rational evaluation, and it is probably only really helpful if the diver being examined has poorer skills, less training, or less recent experience than the person examining him.

 

[Thalassamania]

...
Sorry- i'm getting threads mixed up. But the 88% statistic about fatalities on the first dive I think speaks for itself. It makes plain sense to make the first dive in a shallow, 'controlled' environment where divers can run through the basic skills required for basic diving, where equipment can be used to see if there is a problem, where boat entries/exits can be discussed, where signals and other procedures can be discussed and used before throwing divers off a boat in the middle of the ocean.

I wonder. It demonstrates that the folks who are getting in the water are not prepared for the experience and, it would appear, the proximate cause of the lack of preparation is "rustiness" but ... I'd suggest that the ultimate cause is, in point of fact, that they never really "mastered" the skills to begin with, but rather were trained to the "do it once and rush on to the next skill" standard of practice.