Dive accidents - why so little information afterwards?

[Mike]

Hi, you'll have to pardon my ignorance on this, but why is it that we hear about dive accidents/fatalities through media or friends in the industry, but after the initial announcement, there is no real information out there? Wouldn't it make sense to let the dive community know the specifics of an accident and what happened so that we could learn from the mishap and hopefully prevent future incidents?

I don't understand why all the secrecy?

In some cases, money is at stake, people's businesses, reputations and future bookings. In some cases its more far reaching than a single business and the locals don't want anything to negatively effect a dive destination, from the dive operators to the taxi drivers and everybody in between.

 

[peterbj7]

In my local area there's a perception amongst tour operators and hoteliers that "bad news damages business". Given that the events that cause the bad news happen anyway, their "next best" approach is to suppress the news. The authorities here at least tacitly (sometimes actively) support that approach. This isn't just about diving, but anything concerning tourists.

Of course, that means that people don't get the chance to learn from unfortunate events, and every time they happen it's as if it was the first time. Such as when a gang of armed robbers was at loose near an extremely up-market inland resort and nobody - the resort, the police, the tourist authorities, the newspapers - nobody breathed a word about it. There was consequently little pressure on the police to find and stop the gang, and group after group of innocent tourists who had paid for a really up-market holiday were robbed. It was only revealed when one of the victims posted details at her local newspaper back home and someone here spotted that paper's internet edition. It had gone on for months.

Diving here is no more dangerous than at any other resort destination I have come across. Accidents are rare. But inevitably they do happen and there are instances of inadequate professional behaviour. Occasionally these do surface and the press hears about them, but all too often even locals in the dive business don't hear even that there was an incident, even when the authorities are in fact taking action behind the scenes. In my view this is intrinsically unhealthy, but as you can imagine this is a not a popular view here and no-one will thank me for posting this. I have tried to interest the authorities in some of the more systemic problems, but they show no desire to interfere. This area is not unique, and I have come across similar secrecy in other countries where there is no rigid and enforced reporting structure in place. But that doesn't make it right.

 

[Mike]

Peter's posting reminds me of Bonaire and the blind eye paid to the infuriating petty theft of car break-ins at dive sites. A tiny island of 14,000 people and they can't figure out how to prevent it, and it's a hush hush subject, and one that's blamed on the tourists for creating the temptation. I've even seen ludicrous inuedos that it's fellow tourists doing the break ins.

 

[redacted]

Peter's posting reminds me of Bonaire and the blind eye paid to the infuriating petty theft of car break-ins at dive sites. A tiny island of 14,000 people and they can't figure out how to prevent it, and it's a hush hush subject, and one that's blamed on the tourists for creating the temptation. I've even seen ludicrous inuedos that it's fellow tourists doing the break ins.

They do know how to prevent it and seem to do a good job of advising tourists. At least they have always advised me and I have never had a problem.

Don't leave anything of value in your vehicle. It is not that hard.

 

[peterbj7]

Don't leave anything of value in your vehicle. It is not that hard.

It often is kinda hard. If your dive site is just down the road from your home then there's probably no need to take much with you other than the diving essentials, but if as is common in many areas you have a long drive (I used to have a 3hr drive each way when I was in England) it's very restricting to have nothing with you. In any case, you always have money, dive cards, a phone, in many countries personal id, none of which you can take down with you. What do you do with it?

 

[ianr33]

IMHO the lack of information is outrageous. (With a few notable exceptions e.g. Richard Mork)

What killed Wes Skiles? If I was diving the same model rebreather he was using I might like to know that.

If I kill myself diving feel free to rip me to pieces afterwards.

 

[Dive Tigger]

I can completely understand the need for privacy, both legal and for family grieving reasons. I guess what I would like to see is generic information about an accident released once the investigation is over and any legal issues have been dealt with. Have a deconstruct of the incident - what caused it (diver error, equipment malfunction, etc), circumstances around the incident - current, overhead environment, downdrafts, heart problem. I don't have the desire to "rip apart" someone misfortune, but I want to learn from it and I want others to learn from it, too. If this information was available to organizations like PADI, NAUI, SSI - preventative measures could be incorporated into their lesson plans to keep others safe.

My only other comment related to mishaps and accidents is I would really like to see organizations like PADI include more cold-water diving content in their material. On the coast of British Columbia, we have drysuits, currents, cold water, low visibility - it's a different diving experience than diving in warm water. Not easier or harder, but different.

 

[billt4sf]

On the coast of British Columbia, we have drysuits, currents, cold water, low visibility - it's a different diving experience than diving in warm water. Not easier or harder, but different.

It's harder.

Makes you a better diver, too.

 

[Johnoly]

....what caused it ...

97% of the readers and poster's here are making the same misunderstanding as you typed. They are looking for the one single cause that they can point to and say "See, that's the single thing that killed them". (ie zero air)

But most of us who have investigated accidents, sent months of letters, spoke to onsite witnesses, and pulled dead divers off the bottom know that's not the case.

Every accident is a line sequence of events, that when perfectly combined, results in a homicide. Breaking just one step in the sequence will most likely result in survival. Just like the Medical examiner always lists the final cause of death in a dive accident as drowning, it's up to the reader to do the extremely hard, long and difficult work of finding out each sequence of events that led up to the drowning.

Most readers won't do the work and just want to simply point at a single instance in the sequence as the problem and lay 100% blame on it. (ie tank's empty) It's easy and convenient but they don't learn how to be a better diver from the accident. They should probably read the near misses section, that's how they can learn without doing the long background, paper work and phone calls.

 

[diverrex]

A woman died diving off the coast of So Cal on Friday. My understanding (may not be accurate) is that it was her first cold water dive. Cold water & low viz is definitely different and I would say harder, at least at first, than warm clear water.