How important is armchair incident analysis?

[D_O_H]

I agree with Divin'Hoosier - 1) yes 2) no.

Reading the accident analysis threads keeps me from becoming complacent and makes me focus on safety more than I would otherwise. I've never dove with Kimber or Rob, but I have a pretty good idea they are much better and more experienced divers than I am. If something can happen to them (human error or otherwise), something certainly could happen to me, so I better do whatever is reasonable to protect myself. If they made any mistakes, I want to know what they are because I am likely just as susceptible to making those same mistakes.

These threads also give me stories to tell some of my overly cocky dive buddies who don't know enough to know what they don't know yet (sorry for sounding like Donald Rumsfeld). I can sometimes get them to focus more on safety and being a good buddy if I rattle off the latest "lesson for life" from Rodales or tell them that a highly respected dive instructor recently died for currently unknown reasons on an ~80' dive.

I do agree that there is some kind of rubberneck factor to it all as well. It's human nature.

I think it's most important to remember that we're talking about a human being with friends and family (who may end up reading our thread) when we carry out these discussions. So long as that happens, I think the value from analysis outweighs the dehumanizing rubberneck factor.

1) I find that it helps me to keep focused on being a safe diver and constantly maintaining a healthy respect for the dangers of our sport. I find it as an antidote to complacency.

2) No ... but being a new diver I have sure learned alot about the unseen dangers and how to avoid them. I do feel that this type of analysis has helped me personally to be more aware and better prepared.

 

[Walter]

Question everything. Learn something.......

We only learn when we think. Asking people not to speculate, not to discuss is counter productive at best and often harmful. Of course looking at accidents, questioning how they happened and how they can be avoided in the future is helpful to us all.

1) Can you list anything you have changed in your diving as a result of armchair incident analysis?

Yes, I've changed many many things about my diving because I've thought about what causes accidents and what prevents them. Two obvious ones are I always carry both a buddy line and a light when diving.

2) Have you ever helped clarify, resolve or bring about any good by armchair analysis?

Of course. Listening to facts, questioning them, testing conclusions in the field stopped three od us from being eaten just over a month ago.

3) If the answer to both 1 and 2 are no, isn't this form of armchair analysis the cyber equivalent of freeway rubbernecking?

I wouldn't know, the answers to both are yes.

Information is a good thing. Suppression of information is not.

 

[Spectre]

1) Can you list anything you have changed in your diving as a result of armchair incident analysis?

• I am very complete in my pre-dive checks.
• I follow a procedure that involves taking any bungies off my valves myself before every dive, to ensure I can reach my valves.
• I doublecheck the ability to reach my valves during every dive
• I follow a strict "two errors" policy. If two things go wrong, no matter how miniscule, I thumb the dive.
• I keep a running memory of every marker and feature on the guideline in a cave. If I forget the order, I thumb the dive.
• I test my gas, I smell my gas, and I taste my gas before I ever get in the water.

And that's just a few things; all things that were emphasized from various accident discussions. Theres a ton more; but of course they are hard to list since they are things that are -now- engrained in my diving style.

I've stated before that if I should end up in an accident, discuss it. Accuse me of things I didn't do, if they are things that someone may have done and thinking it killed me prevents them from doing it again...

 

[miketsp]

Well apart fom the fact that we pick up a lot of tips that we can use or modify for our own use, I'd say that the main area where incident analysis helps is buddy separation protocol. If you're a little narced, it's a lot easier to work through the options and the decision tree if you've already thought a lot of the standard cases through beforehand.
Note that I don't just mean a lost buddy situation but I include those where you see your buddy disappearing fast be it in an uncontrolled ascent/descent or in a current.

 

[do it easy]

I have changed some things, but indirectly- reading about accidents reminds me of my mortality and increases my "paranoia" level. After making some stupid mistakes, I have talked myself out of diving, but obviously, I did not have the conviction to follow through with it.

I do believe that most of the 'accident analysis' that goes on here is more or less rubber necking. We usually have very few facts, and we do a poor job of separating the hypothetical speculation from the fingerpointing and the need to understand the accident in neat and tidy buckets.

 

[HowardE]

1) Can you list anything you have changed in your diving as a result of armchair incident analysis?

I would say - yes. Certain equipment, I now carry because of incident analysis here on SB. I am sure that from SOME incidents, other people have also added certain pieces of equipment to their repertoire

2) Have you ever helped clarify, resolve or bring about any good by armchair analysis?

Me personally - I don't think that I've actually been able to shed any real light on an accident. More of what I post in accident threads is to try and keep wild speculation to a minimum. Some people throw rediculous analysis out there, and just say what comes to mind. Without truly thinking it through logically first. Often times, from what I've seen, a lot of speculation turns into accusation, and blame. It seems that many people need something or someone to blame. People are rarely satisfied with "freak accident"

3) If the answer to both 1 and 2 are no, isn't this form of armchair analysis the cyber equivalent of freeway rubbernecking?

1 Yes - 2 No - 3 - Sometimes.

Some may be rubberneckers.

I think that here on SB, some people go from possible scenarios/speculation about accidents to wild accusations all to easily.

There is a difference between wild speculation, and informed hypothesis. I think that formulation of a hypothesis regarding an accident is positive, while wild speculation often leads nowhere except down the road of looking for someone/thing to blame.

We can learn from a proven hypothesis. How often does wild speculation become a proof?

It seems likely that in our quest to justify our own persuit of SCUBA, we hope to find the cause of any accident related to SCUBA quickly, and in such a light, as to re-assure ourselves that it's ok to dive.

I would personally prefer to see accident analysis kept to intellectual discussion based on facts. If we are to base our analysis on fiction, then why even analyze the accident at all?

 

[lamont]

but accident analysis is only as good as the facts you get.

I actually disagree pretty completely. If you've got bad facts then accident analysis is useless to discover what actually happened (and also useless for finding blame). It can lead you to consider scenarios that might have occured, however, and investigate them. For example, if a buddy team both die on a dive and aren't recovered speculation is unlikely to uncover the truth of what actually occured -- but the fact is that two people died and considering how this could occur in theory is likely to be a useful excersize and hopefully leave the diver doing the excersize better prepared.

If I ever wind up dead for mysterious circumastances, please speculate away about it, even if there are few facts to be had. You may have no idea what actually happened, but the process may keep you safe when whatever you imagined happened actually happens to you (which may not have happened to me at all -- i won't be at all worried about that though).

 

[Walter]

If I ever wind up dead for mysterious circumastances, please speculate away about it, even if there are few facts to be had. You may have no idea what actually happened, but the process may keep you safe when whatever you imagined happened actually happens to you (which may not have happened to me at all -- i won't be at all worried about that though).

Excellent point!

 

[miketsp]

I would say - yes. Certain equipment, I now carry because of incident analysis here on SB. I am sure that from SOME incidents, other people have also added certain pieces of equipment to their repertoire
..snip..

Very true, I would feel quite strange diving without an SMB, a spool, a dive alert, a storm whistle & a mirror.

 

[H2Andy]

It can lead you to consider scenarios that might have occured, however, and investigate them.

i don't need a real accident to trigger that off. i can do that in a vaccum, and
just use my imagination.

that's not accident analysis. that's speculation.

accident analysis seeks to determine what happened in a particular
accident, analyze it, and learn from the real world situation.

all the speculation in the world won't reveal to me what is actually killing
divers out there. only accident analysis can.

and instead of speculating about 10 possible reasons, i can analyze the one
actual, real reason, and learn from that.