Accident analysis reports online?

[Storker]

I've recently been reading BSAC's Diving incident reports, which actually are quite interesting. Are there other agencies (or other sites) where a similar systematic investigation of diving accidents is available online?

 

[vincent54]

I found it interesting that 23% of the ascent related accidents were from freeflowing regulators. It doesn't say if they were out of air or panic. NAUI used to have a skill where you push the purge button full on and practice ascending. Wonder if they still practice that skill. If it's 23% fail, might be something to think about. Thanks for the link.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Doesn't surprise me that BSAC would report such a high incidence of freeflows ... they're primarily cold-water divers, and that's where freeflows tend to occur. I don't think NAUI teaches that skill anymore ... although we do demonstrate in OW class how to breathe from a free-flowing regulator, and have the students try it in the pool. It is not a required skill in OW ... nor should it be. It's a far better, and safer approach to go on your buddy's air and surface without all the stress and distraction of bubbles in your face, removing your ability to see what you're doing.

On our side of the pond, we'll put the diver on their buddy's reg then shut down the tank ... wait a few seconds and turn it back on again. If it's a second-stage freeze that caused the problem, that will often stop the free-flow. If it doesn't, you're already on your way to the surface in a more orderly fashion, reducing stress and therefore the risk of an injury.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Storker]

I found it interesting that 23% of the ascent related accidents were from freeflowing regulators. It doesn't say if they were out of air or panic. NAUI used to have a skill where you push the purge button full on and practice ascending. Wonder if they still practice that skill. If it's 23% fail, might be something to think about. Thanks for the link.

OTOH, uncontrolled ascent related fatalities were rather low on the list (I counted a total of 9 out of 216 fatalities associated with an uncotrolled ascent).

The most common factor involved in fatalities was, with a good margin, buddy separation (64 of 216). Deep diving was #2, 3-person team diving #3 and medical issues (e.g. heart attack) was #4. Number 5 was rebreather diving and #6 was air supply problems (OOA, closed tank valve, reg malfunction/problem etc.).

Basically, a lot of these fatalities seem to be associated with things that proper pre-dive checks, basic skills/training and adherence to good diving protocol ought to take care of. 3-team diving seemed to be overlapping with buddy separation, indicating that extra care should be taken WRT buddy contact when you dive threesomes, and the number of deep diving related fatailties showed a marked decline during the 13-year period. It's all quite interesting when you start analyzing the numbers.


However, we're still talking about "only" a dozen and a half of fatalities each year. That's why I was wondering if anybody else than BSAC are doing this kind of a summary, because the more fatalities you can analyze, the better the statistics will be.

---------- Post added March 20th, 2014 at 04:45 PM ----------

we do demonstrate in OW class how to breathe from a free-flowing regulator, and have the students try it in the pool. It is not a required skill in OW ... nor should it be.

Hmmm... O-kay. I think.

I was shown how to breathe from a free-flowing reg during my OW class, and we had to demonstrate the skill. I always believed that it would be a handy thing to master, because in the event of a free-flow, my reg is a lot closer to me than my buddy is. Even with proper buddy contact protocol.

OTOH, while I think we dive in even colder conditions than the Brits do, I still haven't seen anybody having a free-flow under water. On the surface, though... During winter diving, it's more or less SOP that one in a group of 5-10 divers experiences a free-flowing 2nd stage after surfacing.

 

[Bob DBF]

However, we're still talking about "only" a dozen and a half of fatalities each year. That's why I was wondering if anybody else than BSAC are doing this kind of a summary, because the more fatalities you can analyze, the better the statistics will be.

Since diving is such a safe sport, there is no incentive for keeping track of the unpleasantness by the SCUBA Agencies marketing diving to the masses.

DAN and Scubaboard A&I are the only places I've seen interest, and they both have their limitations. There is no directive for reporting SCUBA accidents to anyone other than local authorities, and no federal government agency of any type compiles and/or investigates any incidents or fatalities from sport diving in the US. Commercial diving is somewhere under OSHA so that is watched.



Bob
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"If you don't like it, go on the internet and complain." Brian Griffin

 

[TSandM]

I believe Ontario has a group that publishes accident analyses, and some of them are quite good. The IUCRR used to publish analyses of cave diving fatalities in which they were involved, and those analyses are still on their website, but they don't publish them any more, they say for legal reasons. DAN publishes a report of diving fatalities with identified causes, but to my knowledge, doesn't present analyses of individual cases.

I've found some of the most fascinating reading to be here, in the Accidents and Incidents subforum, especially the Near Misses.

 

[boulderjohn]

DAN publishes a report of diving fatalities with identified causes, but to my knowledge, doesn't present analyses of individual cases.

At the end of each DAN report is a description of each fatality to the degree that they have that information. They are grouped by the key factors. For example, there is a section on likely cardiac events. These can be considered analyses to a certain extent.

For some reason DAN has not published such a report in a while.

DAN and PADI collaborated on a study of fatalities a few years ago. That study is the reason for a number of the new changes to the PADI OW course.

 

[Ayisha]

The Ontario Underwater Council reports on SCUBA accidents or incidents that happen in Ontario, Canada or to Ontarians outside of Ontario. The reports span the last 35 years, but they are not in-depth analyses. Each of them are more or less "involved" depending on the cooperation of those involved and government agencies. The take-away and the scope of the report is to try to learn from the incidents as much as possible in order to try to avoid similar accidents in the future.

Here is a link to the Ontario Underwater Council's Incident Reports, grouped by year and whether they are inside or outside Ontario. Scroll down: Ontario Underwater Council

 

[boulderjohn]

Some information to consider....

In Florida cave diving, an organization called the IUCRR is called in to lead body recoveries in cave diving accidents, investigate the circumstances, and issue a report. They used to publish the reports on their web sites, but they no longer do. They have been told that publishing such reports can potentially leave them open to lawsuits from family members of the deceased. This is especially likely if their was a medical issue involved. They therefore provide the reports only to the police. If you want to see their analysis of a fatality, you have to wait until the police complete their own work and then petition them for the report through freedom of information laws. That sort of thinking may be a reason you aren't seeing more published analyses of diving fatalities.

 

[Storker]

I see the problems with confidentiality. But in the BSAC reports (and the incident reports from my own Association), no names are mentioned. IMO, that should satisfy both the need for confidentiality and for making accident circumstances available for the public. And for learning purposes, even the brief categorization of factors involved in accidents you can read on the first pages of the BSAC reports are quite valuable.

OTOH, we Euros aren't that eager to sue for anything and everything, so that may have something to do with it...