Is the surface the most dangerous part of the dive?

[TMHeimer]

I would think a lot of the accidents that occur on and around the dive boat and dock are things (or similar to things) that could happen to you no matter where you are. You could drop a sledge hammer on your foot in the garage just like a 10 pound weight on a dive boat. It's like they say "you are way more likely to be injured driving to the dive site than on the dive itself". Yeah, but you could be in a car accident going to the dentist. Can't count having trouble climbing up a boat ladder -- vaguely related to the diving. Depth, current, surge, equipment malfunction..... That sort of thing is my concern, not cutting myself with a knife, banging into another diver or sunburn.

 

[Al Stevens]

How about forgetting to turn your air on and no air in your BCD upon entering the water? I heard of a girl that did just that and drown in 15 feet of water.

 

[johndiver999]

I've seen lotsa people get in trouble immediately upon entry into the water. That is another specific example of "problems at the surface'.

While we are doling out advice... I am guilty of removing the mouth piece and talking in the water. I don't know how many times I have been "re-educated" just how stupid this is, especially right next to the boat.

You can have a regulator out and enough buoyancy at the surface to talk and breathe and adjust to the prevailing sea state with little trouble, but when you get right next to the boat the pattern is completely altered. Even 1-ft waves bounce off the hull and come back at you and slap you in the face in a very unpredictable pattern. I've sucked in a mouthful, I don't know how many times until I figured out why it was happening next to the boat.

I've also seen, several times, people spit the reg when climbing the ladder and the second stage gets caught on the ladder and as the diver ascends, the second stage is instantly destroyed as it has been ripped off from the hose making quite a scene and giving the DM another chance to say.."and that is why your regulator should be in your mouth when climbing the ladder", as they turn the tank valve off.

 

[TMHeimer]

How about forgetting to turn your air on and no air in your BCD upon entering the water? I heard of a girl that did just that and drown in 15 feet of water.

Agree. This is the one thing that always concerned me when I did boat dives. Well, that and making sure a buddy knows how to drop my weights and I his. You are taught to take a few breaths and look at your gauge to make sure the needle doesn't drop so you know your air is on as a final check before entering the water. As far as taking the reg out on the surface, well, you're taught not to do that. So again, I'm assuming one follows the basic rules when I then say that depth, current, etc. are the most dangerous aspects.

My OW instructor 18 years ago said regarding getting to the surface -- "There's plenty of air up here". I guess that's what I'm trying to say-- IF you follow the rules when on the surface you have no possibility of running out of gas. Not so in all circumstances if you're very deep. That also get us back to the threads about CESA. If you can do a CESA from 30 feet you'll get to all that surface air. Maybe not gunna happen from 130 feet?

 

[cerich]

When I used to dm for a living I would give the same weight belt to pretty much every customer, 10kg with a 15L steel tank and a 7mm one piece and not many of them would complain.
Trust me, there are more divers who are diving heavily overweighed, and are actually incapable of diving without the extra 2-3 kg, than those who dive properly weighted.

different strokes for different folks I guess. When I was doing it FT for a living I spent every day explaining to folks they didn't need that much weight and working on having my guests not overweighted.

To your second paragraph, yes

 

[MB NZ]

I'm always most concerned about entries/exits and being on the surface. Despite being a hostile environment that we swimming monkeys can't survive for very long without life support equipment, underwater is generally safer in my opinion.

 

[Edward3c]

When diving on holiday I’m normally the only one with a reg, or snorkel, in pre and post dive on the surface. We had a fatality where a diver drowned in 3ft water because they didn’t have their reg in. The weight of their twinset prevented them from getting up before help arrived.

 

[Celt]

Complete and utter garbage, for a property weighted scuba diver the surface is where you’re the safest. You can’t get decompression sickness if you stay on the surface, you can’t drown if you stay on the surface, you can’t hit yourself with a boat some other clown has to do it. YouTube crap.
Edit: This stuff must be made for people who have no experience of going outside their own houses.

 

[IrishLoaf]

Complete and utter garbage, for a property weighted scuba diver the surface is where you’re the safest. You can’t get decompression sickness if you stay on the surface, you can’t drown if you stay on the surface, you can’t hit yourself with a boat some other clown has to do it. YouTube crap.
Edit: This stuff must be made for people who have no experience of going outside their own houses.

I tend to think you also might stand a better chance of being rescued if you are on the surface.

The only serious surface incident I ever read about which really scared me was with Kirsty Maccoll. Absolutely insane stuff. Kirsty MacColl - Wikipedia

How about forgetting to turn your air on and no air in your BCD upon entering the water? I heard of a girl that did just that and drown in 15 feet of water.

So many things there that would have saved that life and completely preventable.

There are dozens of things going on in scuba prep, many of them repeated, so that can't happen. As far as I know, even a complete failure of an O-ring in the hub will result in leaking air, not no air at all.

Divers who enter the water give the hand-on-head signal that all is okay. If it doesn't happen, then attention is immediately given to that diver, with hopefully the DM directing the rescue response if serious.

So it is mindboggling how such a death could happen that way without a complete failure of prep and response. I would be thinking did someone murder her when no one was looking by deflating her BCD and closing the air? Did she do it herself trying to commit suicide?

I would assume the police and the relevant scuba forensic people would have turned up all sorts of issues on that dive.

 

[happy-diver]

You are not a diver on the surface, nothing works as it should you are like a Centaur having no control
Neither here nor there and what do they do, do they go to the pub for a beer or to the stable to sleep

Centaurs :: Half-Man, Half-Horse

Centaurs are half-human, half-horse creatures in Greek mythology. They have the body of a horse and the torso, head and arms of a man. They were consi...

www.greekmythology.com

Mask on face, reg in place
fins on feet till bum in seat