Dan - Human error in diving

[ScubaSteve1962]

I wonder. It demonstrates that the folks who are getting in the water are not prepared for the experience and, it would appear, the proximate cause of the lack of preparation is "rustiness" but ... I'd suggest that the ultimate cause is, in point of fact, that they never really "mastered" the skills to begin with, but rather were trained to the "do it once and rush on to the next skill" standard of practice.

In this microwave society, most want things to happen quick, fast, and in a hurry!! I've taking several training classes, both personal, and job related, and they all seem to have had 2 things in common,
1) you were giving alot of information in a short period of time.
2) you were told that you are by know means an expert when you finish this course, that it comes with time and experience by getting out and trying to master the skill that you have been giving.

But you always have the student that once they get the certificate (C-card) in their hand they think they don't need to learn anything else. Don't realize they never really learned it in the first place.

---------- Post added May 5th, 2012 at 05:01 PM ----------

I have to tell you that having seen a number of people die in bed, I'd much rather die a month earlier underwater.

flots.

yea, just take me over to the deepest depth, let the air out my bcd and let me go

 

[TSandM]

It would be interesting to do a study at a dive resort to figure out how many bad decisions are made by divers that might have resulted in accidents. This would be an easy study. Just ask your DM's to report everything they observe the vacation divers doing that's not safe, and after a month or so put it into an article. Of course, the DM's would correct the divers to prevent the accidents.​

I'm too lazy to look for it right now, but just recently, the Rubicon folks highlighted an article where just that was done. Although it did not include observations in the water, they did have DMs keep a log of errors made on the boat and in the process of entering the water and reboarding. A truly frightening percentage of divers made significant errors, ranging from no equipment check to improperly assembled equipment, failure to check their gas, failure to turn on their gas . . . it went on. It was a scary read.

 

[Thalassamania]

...

• Forget to check your air supply?
• Arrive back on the boat with less than a safe margin of air?
• Drop an item of equipment and have to retrieve it off the bottom?
• Enter the water without first inflating your BCD?
• Dive improperly weighted?
• Suffer a preventable injury?
• Have a fogged mask because you forgot to defog before diving?
• Ascend faster than the recommended max ascent rate?
• Forget to do your 3-minute safety stop?
• Exceed your recreational diving limits, necessitating a deco stop?
• Lose track of your buddy?
• Get separated more than a safe distance from your buddy?
• Dive in cold water without adequate thermal protection?
• Suffer any type of baro-trauma?
• Come in contact with flora or fauna due to poor buoyancy control?
• Stir up silt due to poor buoyancy control?

Some thoughts:

• Forget to check your air supply? - Need to do that.
• Arrive back on the boat with less than a safe margin of air? - A "safe margin of air" means air in your tank. But air in your tank is air that you could have blown off at 10 feet and made your dive even "safer." This rigamarole of, "back on the boat with 500 (or whatever) PSI still in your tank is just so much crap and is only a "rule of thumb" to avoid thoughtful gas management planning.
• Drop an item of equipment and have to retrieve it off the bottom? Link
• Enter the water without first inflating your BCD? - Most of the time, flailing about on the surface is a waste of time, energy and gas.
• Dive improperly weighted? - Need to do that.
• Suffer a preventable injury?- Duh.
• Have a fogged mask because you forgot to defog before diving? - Sure, and sometimes spit or even 500 PSI doesn't seem to work. What's the big deal, a little water int he bottom to swish about by moving your head takes care of that. Not perfect, but perfectly workmanlike.
• Ascend faster than the recommended max ascent rate? - The current "recommended max ascent rate is way to slow on the deeper end. I use much faster deep and slower shallow.
• Forget to do your 3-minute safety stop? - Safety Stops only exist to slow people's ascents, that were way too hast in the pre-computer days (and to fill a small gap in the PADI model where they call them Safety Stops, but hey really should be seen as decompression strops). I never "forget" to do a safety stop, but I often choose not to.
• Exceed your recreational diving limits, necessitating a deco stop? - The "recreational diving limits" are horse pucky. They are not based on anything real, rather they are an adaptation of the depth at which the U.S. Navy chooses to move from scuba to surface-supplied air a meaningless operational rule, when it comes to recreational diving. You will hear all sorts of "reasons" for the recreational diving limits, all of which are simply ex-postfacto rationalization.Now ... if you want to change that to "personal" or "experience" based diving depth limits, I'm with you. In the science community we use 30, 60, 100, 130, (and deeper) with 12 dives being the criterion for moving down a bracket. I think that the "recreational diving limits" actually create a hazard because they create a mythical "safe zone" as well as a target depth.
• Lose track of your buddy? - no excuse for that.
• Get separated more than a safe distance from your buddy?- no excuse for that. How far? Close enough to intervene on your buddy's behalf in an emergency ... I read that as not much more than reaching distance.
• Dive in cold water without adequate thermal protection? - a shivering diver is of no use to anyone.
• Suffer any type of baro-trauma? - lots of divers hurt their ears, why they do not learn to keep a tiny bit of positive pressure in their middle ears on descent is beyond me.
• Come in contact with flora or fauna due to poor buoyancy control? - no excuse for that.
• Stir up silt due to poor buoyancy control? - or lack o training/competence in non-silting kicks ... no excuse for that.