Missing diver in Tacoma Washington (Les Davis)
- Thread starter wetb4igetinthewater
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wgw04024
Contributor
Well said. I have dove several dives daytime and nighttime in Key Largo with my relatively newly certed son of 17 and a close friend who was still rather new. Ideally I don't care for diving 3somes, but under the circumstances, we didn't have alot of choices. I definitely took more care keeping track of both of them...head on a swivel.
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Yes, it's been a difficult year ... and Lynne's words were particularly ironic in light of what happened to her just a couple months later.
As expected, the "facts" of this tragic accident were never disclosed ... nor do I expect they ever will be. Cases like this usually go through some sort of litigation, and settlement typically includes "sealing" any factual information that might shed light on what really happened. This, to my concern, is why situations like this draw speculation ... and while it may bring closure to the legal aspects of the case, it does nothing to help prevent similar accidents from occurring in the future.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Sadly we seem to NEED the discussions and speculation around these events about the contributing factors to get the vital messages across! They bring home the importance of the things we learn in training. The instructor saying if you do A then B will happen and B is death or injury doesn't drive the message home as much as saying. It seems like the diver did A so B happened. It is best to avoid A but if that happens and you do C you maybe able to recover.
IMHO even if we had every single FACT (a fact is information that has been proven to be true by the appropriately qualified authorities) I would bet my bottom dollar that every one of the contributors have been discussed in previous A&I threads. Sadly divers seem to need these tragedies to remind them of what they learned in the process of becoming certified!
We all knew as beginning divers that diving was inherently dangerous. We are entering an environment that is hazardous to our survival. Every piece of equipment we use to help us stay alive while we dive is a reminder of that fact
We can lament the level of training and beat up whatever agency we choose to make our villain but every new diver is responsible for making decisions about what is safe or not safe for them to do. 
We can cut to the chase and talk about the "Root Causes" of dive deaths. There really aren't that many IMHO.
Inexperience
*takes on a dive that is too challenging too quickly
*small problems escalate into unmanageable problems as panic sets in and skills learned but not yet set to muscle memory can't be executed
Complacency
*People get so comfortable in the water they forget the basics DO apply to them! Complacency Kills Highly experienced. skilled divers.
Equipment
*All equipment can fail. Well maintained and carefully inspected equipment is less likely to fail.
*Know your equipment and how to use it!
Medical Issues
*Unpredictable medical emergencies underwater may explain a lot of sudden buddy separation & "body not found" events.
*Predictable medical emergencies underwater Make sensible decisions about fitness to dive.
Environmental Conditions
*Mother nature is neither reliable or forgiving.
Seems in this case the first category may be the the root cause but access to facts may indicate any of the others as well. So the take home lesson for me as a more experienced diver is to be more aware of the experience level of the other divers joining one of these types of events.
I am not sure exactly what they mean by a "Guided dive" in the PNW. If one of the dive shops here was organizing one of those we are meeting and diving X site at X time things I would expect the DM organizing would be there to Organize people into buddy pairs or 3's, give a good dive brief "lead" anyone who wants to follow to the interesting stuff. It would not be expected for the DM to actually be keeping track of the dive buddy pairings.
I would rather not be pointing fingers at this stage not knowing more about the site/processes and responsibilities in the area.
IMHO even if we had every single FACT (a fact is information that has been proven to be true by the appropriately qualified authorities) I would bet my bottom dollar that every one of the contributors have been discussed in previous A&I threads. Sadly divers seem to need these tragedies to remind them of what they learned in the process of becoming certified!
We all knew as beginning divers that diving was inherently dangerous. We are entering an environment that is hazardous to our survival. Every piece of equipment we use to help us stay alive while we dive is a reminder of that fact
We can lament the level of training and beat up whatever agency we choose to make our villain but every new diver is responsible for making decisions about what is safe or not safe for them to do. We can cut to the chase and talk about the "Root Causes" of dive deaths. There really aren't that many IMHO.
Inexperience
*takes on a dive that is too challenging too quickly
*small problems escalate into unmanageable problems as panic sets in and skills learned but not yet set to muscle memory can't be executed
Complacency
*People get so comfortable in the water they forget the basics DO apply to them! Complacency Kills Highly experienced. skilled divers.
Equipment
*All equipment can fail. Well maintained and carefully inspected equipment is less likely to fail.
*Know your equipment and how to use it!
Medical Issues
*Unpredictable medical emergencies underwater may explain a lot of sudden buddy separation & "body not found" events.
*Predictable medical emergencies underwater Make sensible decisions about fitness to dive.
Environmental Conditions
*Mother nature is neither reliable or forgiving.
Seems in this case the first category may be the the root cause but access to facts may indicate any of the others as well. So the take home lesson for me as a more experienced diver is to be more aware of the experience level of the other divers joining one of these types of events.
I am not sure exactly what they mean by a "Guided dive" in the PNW. If one of the dive shops here was organizing one of those we are meeting and diving X site at X time things I would expect the DM organizing would be there to Organize people into buddy pairs or 3's, give a good dive brief "lead" anyone who wants to follow to the interesting stuff. It would not be expected for the DM to actually be keeping track of the dive buddy pairings.
I would rather not be pointing fingers at this stage not knowing more about the site/processes and responsibilities in the area.
Last edited:
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Good post, BoP.
For those who might be more academically inclined, there are a few interesting pieces of information out there on the 'net.
A presentation and the following article (Warning: PDF) from DAN's 2010 fatality workshop presents some work done on the analysis of 947 deaths. There's also an article in Diver Magazine talking about this presentation. For most diving fatalities the cause of death as determined during autopsy is drowning, and that doesn't tell us much about the underlying factors for diving fatalities. So, the authors deconstructed the data into Trigger, Harmful Agent/Action, Disabling Injury and Cause Of Death. The interesting part starts on page 14 of the PDF.
Link to the original article (Warning: PDF)
This approach is not dissimilar to BSAC's "Incident Pit" concept, a concept any safety-conscious diver should be aware of. BSAC's annual incident reports are also useful reading.
For those who might be more academically inclined, there are a few interesting pieces of information out there on the 'net.
A presentation and the following article (Warning: PDF) from DAN's 2010 fatality workshop presents some work done on the analysis of 947 deaths. There's also an article in Diver Magazine talking about this presentation. For most diving fatalities the cause of death as determined during autopsy is drowning, and that doesn't tell us much about the underlying factors for diving fatalities. So, the authors deconstructed the data into Trigger, Harmful Agent/Action, Disabling Injury and Cause Of Death. The interesting part starts on page 14 of the PDF.
Link to the original article (Warning: PDF)
This approach is not dissimilar to BSAC's "Incident Pit" concept, a concept any safety-conscious diver should be aware of. BSAC's annual incident reports are also useful reading.
dbulmer
Contributor
Sadly we seem to NEED the discussions and speculation around these events about the contributing factors to get the vital messages across! They bring home the importance of the things we learn in training. The instructor saying if you do A then B will happen and B is death or injury doesn't drive the message home as much as saying. It seems like the diver did A so B happened. It is best to avoid A but if that happens and you do C you maybe able to recover.
IMHO even if we had every single FACT (a fact is information that has been proven to be true by the appropriately qualified authorities) I would bet my bottom dollar that every one of the contributors have been discussed in previous A&I threads. Tragically divers seem to need these tragedies to remind them of what they learned in the process of becoming certified!
We all knew as beginning divers that diving was inherently dangerous. We are entering an environment that is hazardous to our survival. Every piece of equipment we use to help us stay alive while we dive is a reminder of that fact
We can cut to the chase and talk about the "Root Causes" of dive deaths. There really aren't that many IMHO.
Inexperience
*takes on a dive that is too challenging too quickly
*small problems escalate into unmanageable problems as panic sets in and skills learned but not yet set to muscle memory can't be executed
Complacency
*People get so comfortable in the water they forget the basics DO apply to them! Complacency Kills Highly experienced. skilled divers.
Equipment
*All equipment can fail. Well maintained and carefully inspected equipment is less likely to fail.
*Know your equipment and how to use it!
Medical Issues
*Unpredictable medical emergencies underwater may explain a lot of suddy buddy separation & "body not found" events.
*Predictable medical emergencies underwater Make sensible decisions about fitness to dive.
Environmental Conditions
*Mother nature is neither reliable or forgiving.
Seems in this case the first category may be the the root cause but access to facts may indicate any of the others as well. So the take home lesson for me as a more experienced diver is to be more aware of the experience level of the other divers of other divers joining one of these types of events.
I am not sure exactly what they mean by a "Guided dive" in the PNW. If one of the dive shops here was organizing one of those we are meeting and diving X site at X time things I would expect the DM organizing would be there to Organize people into buddy pairs or 3's, give a good dive brief "lead" anyone who wants to follow to the interesting stuff. It would not be expected for the DM to actually be keeping track of the dive buddy pairings.
I would rather not be pointing fingers at this stage not knowing more about the site/processes and responsibilities in the area.
I really, really like what you posted. The points you raise can be turned into (yet another) acronym.
ICE ME
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