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  1. GLOC

    The Dirty Dozen - Part 1 - Error/Accident producing conditions

    Introduction Ever looked back at an incident or accident to find the reason it happened and realised that you were stressed, tired or distracted and that is what caused the event? These are three of the ‘Dirty Dozen’ which human factors experts have identified as key contributory factors or...
  2. GLOC

    Free 60+ page eBook - Under Pressure - Applying Human Factors to Diving

    Martin Parker's presentation at Eurotek this weekend highlighted that the majority of the causal and contributory factors in CCR fatalities are down to either the variability of human performance or the poor interface between human and machine which are based on the assumptions of how humans...
  3. GLOC

    Checklists: If surgical teams don't comply, what hope do divers have?

    "Only 20% of surgeons would like to use a checklist in their operations……but 94% would like one used in an operation on themselves…!" Atul Gawande gave four presentations before Christmas as the 2014 Reith Lectures’ presenter (BBC iPlayer downloads and transcripts can be downloaded from here)...
  4. GLOC

    'Choices': Guaranteed small loss or a probable larger loss, injury or fatality?

    You have been blown-out for 4 weekends in a row and you now have an opportunity to dive this weekend as the weather is fabulous and the visibility has been reported as 10m+. However, you aren’t due to dive for another four weeks for a variety of reasons. Just as you getting your gear ready to...
  5. GLOC

    Risk of diving fatality is 1:200 000. However, you cannot be a fraction of dead…!

    The risk of a fatality in diving has been stated as 16.4:100 000 divers (DAN Figures) 14.4:100 000 divers (BSAC Figures) 0.48:100 000 dives (DAN Figures) 0.54:100 000 dives (BSAC member dives) 1.03:100 000 dives (non-BSAC dives) Fatalities Conference Proceedings but what does that mean? I can...
  6. GLOC

    Why ‘everyone is responsible for their own risk-based decisions’ isn’t the right approach to take

    Why ‘everyone is responsible for their own risk-based decisions’ isn’t the right approach to take to improve diving safety. A diver qualified in the summer of 1999 while on holiday in Greece. His final dive on his PADI Open Water course was to 25m, obviously beyond the standards of this course...
  7. GLOC

    Cognitive Dissonance - Why you are right and I am wrong...

    This originally appeared in The Human Diver blog "A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." - Leon Festinger Cognitive Dissonance has been...
  8. GLOC

    'Entirely Predictable' vs 'Managing Uncertainty': How many rolls on the dice means it's 'safe'?

    [This post was originally posted as a blog on The Human Diver website.] A couple of social media posts about diving incidents and near misses have triggered this blog because the term ‘entirely predictable outcome’ has been used to highlight that someone shouldn’t have done what they did...
  9. GLOC

    We cannot improve if we don't learn. We can't learn if we don't understand. [repost of Blog]

    "The divers were instructed by the DM to swim away from shore and then they were taken away down current and then spent the next 7 hours fighting for their survival in Xm high waves before being picked up some nine miles away..." "How stupid could they be? It is obvious that they should have...
  10. GLOC

    17 Cognitive Biases which Contribute to Diving Accidents

    Introduction Humans are subject to a variety of cognitive biases and heuristics (mental shortcuts). These directly impact the decision-making process of the diver, sometimes resulting in incorrect judgments when certain circumstances dictate. In most settings this can be relatively harmless...
  11. GLOC

    Free Webinar on Just Culture in Diving

    The aim of the webinar was to provide an overview of what a Just Culture is and how it can be applied to sport, scientific and commercial diving. Fundamentally, without a Just Culture, we are unable to tell context-rich stories which talk about the errors, deviations and violations which lead...
  12. GLOC

    Human Error in Diving: Is it really that simple?

    It is easy to ascribe ‘human error’ to diving incidents because we often lack details about what happened. It is also perversely satisfying to blame someone, an individual, rather than attribute it to a system issue. Part of this is because we can then start internalising this, distancing...
  13. GLOC

    Leadership in Diving? Why is it needed, it is only a sport...

    One of the worst dives I have undertaken was in the Red Sea on a night dive scootering between the four wrecks on the Abu Nuhas reef. The dive itself had the potential to be awesome. 10 divers on scooters, a mixture of OC and CCR divers (I was on CCR), following the reef from left to right on...
  14. GLOC

    We judge based on outcomes, not on process...

    One of the most powerful psychological effects is the feeling of social conformance. As humans we are wired to be part of a group, we want to be associated with others who are similar in fashion, outlook, activity, training or just enjoying the same sport. Diving, in the main, is a social...
  15. GLOC

    Why did he make such an obvious mistake...?

    Recently there have been a number of high profile incidents in diving in which the decisions made appear incredulous given the outcome. Using a phrase from Todd Conklin, a US-based high performance team developer and safety advocate, the outcomes whilst sad in many cases are not the most...
  16. GLOC

    "Known Unknowns...Unknown Unknowns" - Are they covered enough in diving?

    Posted originally on the HF Academy Blog and reproduced here in full. On February 12, 2002 Donald Rumsfeld, whilst talking about the lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups stated: Reports that say that something hasn't...
  17. GLOC

    Congratulations on surviving. Dude, you’re lucky!!

    This is the opening line of a candid interview between the owner of TopGunBASE, which is a wing-suit BASE jumping blog aimed at improving safety in this extreme sport, and a wing suit BASE jumper called Eric who ‘died’. The interview is extremely useful, not because it is about a high risk...
  18. GLOC

    "Today is a good day to die..."

    ...is something we never hear, but the concept that many divers actively or consciously choose to make decisions that will end in their demise appears to be rife. "How could they be so stupid?" "It was obvious that this would end in disaster?" "Why didn't they just ditch their weights?" "Didn't...
  19. GLOC

    Why is it so hard to thumb a dive?

    One of the key messages given to divers all through their training is that anyone can thumb (end) the dive at any time for any reason and no questions will be asked. However, those who have been in a such a situation, it isn't easy. "There were four of us diving on the wreck which lay in 48m...
  20. GLOC

    "Human Error" or "Diver Error": Are they just an easy way of blaming the individual?

    Copied from the original site linked at the bottom Human error is normal. Human error is part of the way we learn. It is almost impossible to remove human error from any system. Therefore, 'Human error' should not be the conclusion of an investigation. If it is, then we are not likely to...
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