Please be prepared to dive. Avoid an incident

[Hickdive]

The BSAC Incidents Report is published annually and covers incidents in UK water and abroad involving BSAC members and non-members. It uses a variety if sources including direct reporting, media reports and reports from the rescue services. The reporting year runs from October to October each year with the report issued in May; so incident and fatality totals for any given reporting year are at most six months behind.

The report breaks down information in a number of ways including incidents per month. There is traditionally a crop of incidents/fatalities in Apr/May which seem to correlate to the start of the "diving season" in the Northern Hemisphere.

So there is definitely an alternative to DAN for diving incident statistics and there is definitely an identifiable need, based on those stats, for people who have been laid off diving over winter to refresh skills, service and maintain equipment.

 

[Edward3c]

…

The report breaks down information in a number of ways including incidents per month. There is traditionally a crop of incidents/fatalities in Apr/May which seem to correlate to the start of the "diving season" in the Northern Hemisphere.

So there is definitely an alternative to DAN for diving incident statistics and there is definitely an identifiable need, based on those stats, for people who have been laid off diving over winter to refresh skills, service and maintain equipment.

Even though all the agencies in the UK stress the importance of taking it easy at the beginning of the diving season. I still come across those whom think in normal to dive in April as they were doing the previous October.

 

[Hickdive]

I still come across those whom think in normal to dive in April as they were doing the previous October.

Well I do precisely that but then I dive regularly November to March as well ;-)

 

[Edward3c]

Well I do precisely that but then I dive regularly November to March as well ;-)

Like you my diving season is 1 January to 31 December.

 

[HowardE]

DAN does its best with limited resources, and it is the best source for this information that I know. Since this has been discussed a million times on ScubaBoard, if there were a better resource, we should have heard about it by now. (IN fact, there have been several threads in which people have been challenged to provide a better resource, and none has surfaced.) The report only covers a small part of the world overall, so if there is a massive amount of deaths one year in the Philippines, for example, it won't have an impact. The DAN report comes out annually, but it is complete only up to a couple of years before. We won't have any idea of this year's numbers for a couple of years.

What if more people used the near misses forum to report more of these "whoops" moments? What if the SB community could help make diving safer as a whole? There's a whole lot of SB members... yes?

Looks to me (upon a cursory search) like there were 21 new threads in A&I during May and 20 of those were reporting fatalities.

 

[chrpai]

The threads are out there, just in other forums. Right now there is a very shocking thread over in the Texas Swamp Divers forum about a guy who came really close to winning a darwin award and he won't even face it. He just claims that the dive boat is horrible for taking so long to save him.

The captain of the boat got on here and posted what went down and the diver hasn't disputed it. Read that account and that's a text book near miss.

 

[bergersau]

I can relate to the OP after my experience today.

I'm trying to return to diving after a 7 year Hiatus. I've had my gear serviced and have been going over all my old training materials and I was attempting what was supposed to be a modest re-introduction pier dive at Hastings in Western Port bay in Victoria Australia.

Well - conditions conspired against me.
The weather was grey and gently raining when we arrived at the site. There was what looked like a modest swell and there was little wind, water temp at around 14 deg C, depth up to 5m.

We made a mistake and didn't walk the pier before gearing up, and conditions weren't as good as they looked from the car park. We decided to try and proceed anyway, since we had gone to all the trouble of gearing up.

Entering the water we found the vis was the worst I have ever had to deal with - only 1 foot or so. I could only see my buddy by his dive light at 3 feet distance. I was finding that the swell was stronger than it had first appeared before we entered the water and I was distinctly uncomfortable in these conditions after so long out of the water. My breathing rate jumped up and it was obvious that to continue the dive would be very foolish. Separation from my buddy was a near certainty not just a possibility. There was going to be no chance for me to do the various exercises I had planned - air share, mask removal and clearing, displaced regulator recovery...

Only about 1 minute after we hit the water I thumbed the dive. Right beside the platform we'd geared up on we were in no danger but to have headed of under those conditions would have been a different story.

I had no business attempting to continue that dive and putting myself and buddy into a bad situation and I recognized that fact.

I'll try again when the conditions are a little more forgiving.
Sitting here this evening - I made the right decision when I ended the dive.

 

[Edward3c]

I can relate to the OP after my experience today.

...

I had no business attempting to continue that dive and putting myself and buddy into a bad situation and I recognized that fact.

I'll try again when the conditions are a little more forgiving.
Sitting here this evening - I made the right decision when I ended the dive.

Its one of the most difficult things to teach/learn, when to call a dive. And even harder to call it before getting in the water.

A valuable lesson, well done.

 

[Hawkwood]

What if more people used the near misses forum to report more of these "whoops" moments? What if the SB community could help make diving safer as a whole? ....

To me, the whole "Flower Gardens' thread would be a great near miss thread. Lots of discussion and most of it providing great "take-a-ways" for prevention in the future. It has also been relatively "civil" and on topic. Just what you would want from discussing a near miss. As well, isn't that the point of reporting and evaluating a near miss?