Honest assessment?

[Wookie]

I have been bent multiple times. I would call them (mostly) "undeserved" hits, as in, I can't take a lesson because I don't know what I did different than any other dive that I got bent on that particular dive. Has it made me more careful? Maybe, because I fully understand the effects of losing someone else's vacation while I sit in a chamber. Has it changed how I operate a boat? Most definitely. I am quick to put someone on O2 and much slower to rush them to shore and stuff them in the pot.

 

[stuartv]

I looked at who was successful and copied.

Define "successful". Doing challenging dives and living and not getting bent?

Hopefully, you aren't copying Ed. He might have been "measured" as successful - up until his last dive.

Accomplished Bad Divers

 

[PfcAJ]

Define "successful". Doing challenging dives and living and not getting bent?

Hopefully, you aren't copying Ed. He might have been "measured" as successful - up until his last dive.

Accomplished Bad Divers

Doing big successful dives all around the world in all kinds of conditions and not getting bent or ded. And not just one person, lots of people over lots of dives over lots of years.

 

[Akimbo]

What has helped you gauge your own decisions as safe enough for you and loved ones close to you?

Wow, that's a complicated matrix based on the dive. Failure mode and accident analysis was a huge part of my training and work in saturation diving. It was also a bigger part of my basic Scuba diving course when I was trained in 1962 since the sport was still evolving much more than it is today. Scuba training is very "rule dependent" now.

The great majority of the cumulative knowledge presented in diving classes at all levels resulted from accidents that scared the hell out of, injured, or killed someone. Thanks to all the pioneers the preceded me, living or not.

This concept has kept me alive:

... Avoid drowning, embolism, and getting bent in that order...

That simple statement guides my "what-if" planning. When things, usually 3 or more, start going sideways you are faced with a choice. I would rather take a chance on getting DCS than an embolism and would take an embolism over drowning since it has the least chance of survival. Obviously, avoiding any of them is part of plan A, B, and C as a minimum.

 

[100days-a-year]

Honestly assessing a single diver and their relative freedom from any negative consequences or another who has been hurt diving within established practices is not really an assessment but more like a Ouija Board.

I do ridiculously stupid and dangerous dives(within most current established protocols) and am free from any serious consequence,having had only a few minor pains that could have been from all the other stupid hobbies like martial arts,motorcycle racing,climbing,contact sports etc.I don't recommend diving with me much less like me but from an objective point of view my choices have been just as safe as anyone else.

Statistics need big sampling sizes to be accurate.The number of divers being small,the "science" of diving being mostly theoretical and the variability of susceptibility to DCS being so large it is mostly chest beating to say "I am safe" or "They are wrong" vs. being a quantifiable risk.

My personal lifestyle choices are far more of a danger than any I make diving even as a commercial spear fisherman so I
A.Keep my weight down
B.Don't smoke
C.Watch my diet for harmful things(mostly)
D.Keep my cardiovascular system fit
These will make my diving safer and more rewarding in addition to my life in general.

 

[Pullnglide]

I get all my dive wisdom from those guys on "Cooper's Treasure".

Going to 205' on a single steel isn't ok?

 

[Doby45]

Going to 205' on a single steel isn't ok?

Sure, those guys do it all the time..

 

[northernone]

Sure, those guys do it all the time..

Anyone can do it.... once.

 

[Caveeagle]

2) Accident Analysis - The mistakes that we can learn from and shouldn't replicate.

5) Near-misses - analysed as per accidents.

I wish we had more people share details of the "near miss" situations. In my work life, we probably have 5/1 near miss situations. That's a ton of information we tend to ignore. (as a whole)