Dangerous psychology- Diving beyond one's training

[MSDT476614]

Dear Tammy,

examples of

"-Bravado?
-Overconfidence
-Ignorance?
-Curiosity?
-Impatience?
-Peer pressure?
-Forbidden fruit?
-Thinking they are above the facts? (might fall in the bravado part)"

may be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okEmwaLUemU&NR=1&feature=endscreen

A possible answer to what's happening in the mind of many of the folks in the video above may be found here: Official Ron White - You Can't Fix Stupid - YouTube

Have a good one! Don't wonder so much. There are coming to 7B people on this space ship. We need some room. Let Darwin's theories work their course. Only hope insurance doesn't cost the sky though its almost there.

Enjoy your dives & be safe!

 

[MSDT476614]

The short answer to your question is, who cares if someone doesn't go through formal training (like Emile Gagnan and Jaques Cousteau)? If someone wants to try something new and it doesn't impact anyone else then leave them alone and good luck to them. This is all predicated on the definition of risk being relative, and people being free to act independantly of others.

I couldn't agree more! As long as the cost of insurance doesn't go up for me and you (that's right buddy, its our 'businesss') and silliness does not result in governmental regulation as a result of too many deaths (your business for sure bud! again.)

 

[biscuit]

Good topic! To the list of reasons, I'll add complacency. To be more specific, reckless complacency. This is the diver with a few OW/AOW dives who then goes on deep dives with little or no training/prep for dealing with being narc'd. It's the diver who goes on a dive vacation to destinations above his or her experience level or training. Divers are too often complacent because (or so I've heard them say) they figure they can rely on DMs and the more experienced divers on the boat. In other words, someone can/will save them if they get in over their heads.

At some dive destinations (Mexico and Nassau's Wall, at the Tongue of the Ocean come to mind), I've seen divers split from the group, get caught in a current and be unable to swim back to the boat unaided. They don't have enough air left to get beneath the strong surface current, and aren't good enough swimmers to make it back such a long distance on the surface either. So everything comes to a halt while rescue swimmers go get the divers that are now moving out to sea, usually in a panic, and haul them in on their backs, towed by their BCDs. And I ask myself, whatever happened to training, practice dives, and some experience prior to going to some of these dive sites?

Learning what to expect in rough situations and practicing in various conditions builds muscle memory and helps divers keep calm when things go wrong. Of course we all want to assist a diver in trouble, but a diver deciding to do dumb stuff, hoping someone will be there in case it's too dumb, is a hazard to the rest of us.

 

[first4ce]

Those that will, will. There is no stopping them. Life is a conscious choice and those that will throw it away for the approval of fools or an adrenaline rush are the least of humanity. If there is a purpose, a real quantifiable outcome, then that risk is justified. Just know that dead is dead, without justification.

 

[klemheist]

I couldn't agree more! As long as the cost of insurance doesn't go up for me and you (that's right buddy, its our 'businesss') and silliness does not result in governmental regulation as a result of too many deaths (your business for sure bud! again.)

Thanks Bud for making my point.

I think everyone got it the first time though.

 

[Denis Finnegan]

Interesting thread. We all have seen and probably done some things that weren't prefect. I think it is a risk / reward issue mostly. Diving is risky and we train buy good gear, choose good buddies and plan our dives, usually. Stuff happens, we forget our back up lift bag or SMB, we have a little discomfort form breakfast, we are using rental gear, etc. Each step away from the perfect and we add risk.

Adding risk is not a big problem until the compound factor occurs. Something goes wrong and the added risk amplifies the issue. However, in the preparation portion of our diving we do not give this much consideration. And we make hundreds of dives without incident and we get nonchalant about diving.

I spent 24 years as a submarine officer and we practiced (drilled) every imaginable casualty over and over. One time I was on watch (early in my career and we had a flooding incident in the torpedo room. I was 22 years old. The first step is to shut the hatch on yourself and fight the causality. I reacted to my training and carried out the casualty procedures and all was well. My point I did not think I reacted based on sound training.

As a diver I must practice with my buddies for the eventual. Risk and reward, If I manage the risk I can reap the rewards!

 

[Divers UnderGround]

I think the main reasons why people go beyond their training are mostly curiosity and ignorance... After they've done a bunch of dives and nothing has gone wrong people might think "What is the big deal about going a few meters deeper?" or "Just because you are inside an overhead environment doesn't mean your equipment is going to break!"... What they have not thought of is what they don't know, like massive narcosis, O2 tox, gas management, sediments and the possibility of zero viz inside a cave, getting lost, etc, etc, etc...

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

A truth applicable to far more stituations in diving than deep air, or just going deep period. I'll happily agree with the statement that any inexperienced diver heading to 180' on an AL80 filled with air is executing a stupid dive, and an inexperienced diver throwing on a doubles rig without understanding how to use it to mitigate risk isn't much brighter.

Where things start to be less black and white is when the diver has the experience, gear, and gas supply necessary to do the dive in a way that controls for a greater number of the inherent risks of being a human under 180' of water.

... experience, gear and gas will help you manage problems at that depth ... as long as it doesn't require creative thinking. But none of those things will substitute for the physiological changes all humans experience when breathing nitrogen at those partial pressures.

It's a lot like driving drunk ... if you do it often enough, you can get pretty good at it. But you're still drunk ... and if you suddenly find yourself faced with a problem you haven't conditioned your body to react to, you're kinda hosed ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[DCBC]

...Are you really telling people that it is fine to go to 180+' on air if they have experience, gear, and gas?.

Absolutely, over 10,000 commercial divers worldwide make their living breathing air at this depth. The last time I checked, the maximum depth for sport diving was 130 FSW. As this clearly doesn't fall into the 'Basic SCUBA' discussion area, further discussion is inappropriate.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Absolutely, over 10,000 commercial divers worldwide make their living breathing air at this depth. The last time I checked, the maximum depth for sport diving was 130 FSW. As this clearly doesn't fall into the 'Basic SCUBA' discussion area, further discussion is inappropriate.

Agreed ... we had a rash of deep air threads on SB a year or so back. If anyone's really interested in the topic, I'm sure they're still out there. But promoting dives below recreational limits is inappropriate for the Basic forum ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)