a lesson learnt

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lermontov

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We had completed our dive and were now heading back to the mooring line. Still with a third of gas I indicated to go and have a look at a room I knew was close, it would only take a few minutes and was pretty easy one way in and out, through a hatch door down a staircase and then back. I headed down to the chain locker and into the inky blackness swimming to the back of the room not worrying about a line. Id been in there before it was a straight forward dive - I went in about 10 m and turned to see that my 'buddy' had bolted leaving a thick orange cloud of rusty silt billowing toward me. Leaving the torch on seemed to magnify the now zero visibility, and with no line I wasnt sure which way to go.
My third of gas now felt woefully small, I was at 25m clocking up deco- how could I have been so careless, stay calm, slow my breathing. I needed a plan, think think think. Are there any other doors? was there any cables or vinyl hanging down? getting tangled up was not an option I could afford.
I come up with a plan-I knew the general shape of the room so swam in one direction until I touched a wall, then keeping my left hand on the wall I followed the room around to a corner then along the next wall until my hand felt the handrail of the stairs and at that point I knew where I was. Id gone into a no light penetration dive with only a third of my starting gas, and without a line. As I exited the hatch door I vowed to myself to never let that happen again.
 
This is not an easy thing to admit and share so thank you. It is very easy for any of us to armchair and criticize but I definitely won’t. I am quite confident you already know all the things that you should have and should not have done and how the outcome could have been if it did not go like it did.

I am glad you’re safe. Just remember, the next time, the danger might manifest itself in a different way so keep on your toes! :)
 
Last time we had a work safety expert in to talk to our workers he mentioned that any time you think you will do something as a ”quick nip” here or there, basically any thought that contains the threads of
doing something quicker than normal pace
or that it will only take a very short time
or that since no one is here to see it, I can...
we all need to hear an alarm bell when we think these thoughts with a warning bell.
Stats on reported accidents and near misses among trained persons - like our workers, or certified and experienced divers - have shown that 1 or more of those 3 thoughts often immediately preceed an accident.

Somehow in the back our minds normally intelligent and logical persons have an inate tendency to think (at least in the moment), that doing something normally not acceptable is OK if it is done quite quickly, or if no one sees you tossing normal protocol out the window for just this one time.
Never mind that ”just this one time” is the top of the top of the slippery slope named normalization of deviance.

I won’t risk privacy issues by noting the deals, but some of our very experienced workers have indeed gotten injured by doing astoundingly dangerous things in this ”real quick I’ll just...” mode.

Thanks for sharing!
 
Thanks for sharing. Was there a reason your 'buddy' bolted?
 
Glad you planned the escape and survived.


The question is how many time before have you done something similar and got away with it.
were all one fin kick away from a problem
 
Thanks for sharing. Was there a reason your 'buddy' bolted?
to be honest, when i look back i think he was a bit stressed from dive we had just completed and decided he'd had enough- hard to know really
 
Last time we had a work safety expert in to talk to our workers he mentioned that any time you think you will do something as a ”quick nip” here or there, basically any thought that contains the threads of
doing something quicker than normal pace
or that it will only take a very short time
or that since no one is here to see it, I can...
we all need to hear an alarm bell when we think these thoughts with a warning bell.
Stats on reported accidents and near misses among trained persons - like our workers, or certified and experienced divers - have shown that 1 or more of those 3 thoughts often immediately preceed an accident.

Somehow in the back our minds normally intelligent and logical persons have an inate tendency to think (at least in the moment), that doing something normally not acceptable is OK if it is done quite quickly, or if no one sees you tossing normal protocol out the window for just this one time.
Never mind that ”just this one time” is the top of the top of the slippery slope named normalization of deviance.

I won’t risk privacy issues by noting the deals, but some of our very experienced workers have indeed gotten injured by doing astoundingly dangerous things in this ”real quick I’ll just...” mode.

Thanks for sharing!
completely agree, since that dive ( a while back) ive not ventured past anything other than a simple look around after completing my primary dive
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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