Accident analysis reports online?

[boulderjohn]

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...

I used to engage in research and creating resulting reports as a part of my profession, and one of the things I learned is that the standards for such reporting is that you don't have to identify the name of the person to have a problem. The person just has to be identifiable to someone doing a reasonable search for that information. In one education-related study we did, the results were pretty darn spectacular and enlightening about effective instructional practices. The study was done on behalf of a school district, and it included anonymous survey results of teaching beliefs. Because of an unusual characteristic of the data, we researchers were able to tie the individual anonymous surveys to their results in student achievement, something the teachers would not have suspected. Our report was able to show that 100% of the teachers who held a particular belief about instruction had very poor results, and 100% of the teachers who held a contrary belief had excellent achievement results. Think of the implication of that for educational practices!

Our report did not name a single person. However, it would have been possible for someone to look at our report, look at the publicly-reported data, and pick out a couple of the teachers with reasonable accuracy. We were therefore not allowed to publish the results outside of the district administration.

I am toying with that issue right now. I do write dive accident reports, and I have submitted the results of a recent incident for publication. I omitted from that report some key medical information for that reason, leaving a rather bland report without it. I think the medical issue is really, really important. If I want to write about the incident in ScubaBoard, I have two choices.

1. I can write about the incident without the medical information, leaving nothing worth talking about.
2. I can create a thread about the medical information with so few details about the original event that it would be unrecognizable, making the discussion generic.

If someone were to write about the original incident (which lots of people know about without the medical details), and I write the generic version with the medical details, it might not be too hard for someone to put 2 and 2 together. I could then be in trouble.

 

[bada3003]

Thanks for sharing the link. Very informative data. As to other online data, I have seen reports from DAN in the past but whether they are available online or are published yearly I do not know.

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?

---------- Post added March 22nd, 2014 at 12:19 PM ----------

There is room for disagreement and free flows have different causes. But, in colder waters, when doing no deco diving, I would strongly disagree and suggest doing the opposite: controlled ascent while sipping from the free flowing reg. And, this should be practiced, practiced, practiced.

I know of at least one incident (second hand account) where an experienced diver, in colder waters, encountered free flow due to the 1st stage freezing. It would appear the diver did not panic, tried to "fix the problem," tried the backup 2nd stage, then tried to reach his buddy some feet away. Of course, the usual fixes in warmer waters don't apply when the 1st stage freezes. These delays depleted the remaining air and trying to reach a buddy resulted in an OOA panic situation. Several books have tables that show how little time one has (in a typical AL80 cylinder used for rec diving) before free flow depletes a cylinder. Upper bound 2min, depending on depth, much shorter.

In colder waters, assume it's a 1st stage free flow, signal your buddy if within near reach, then commence controlled ascent sipping from the free flow. The air is VERY cold at depth, and practice is important. One of the what-ifs I practice, as thermoclines in the midwest can result in 40s temps. Another reason I dive sidemount in non-overhead, no deco dives.

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.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)