Primary cause of preventable scuba deaths...poor judgment?

[gcbryan]

What about using experience and skills, including training, and learning from sources such as accident statistics, as the third cause instead? Those are the elements that result in judgement I'd say. Judgement isn't a static or intrinsic quality and I can only imagine that if you targeted 'judgement' as accessible to industry, you'd use case studies as a key teaching tool. I find those compelling at least. I have to say by the time we would have got around to it, I'm not sure I would have given much heed to anything my OW instructor had to say about 'judgement' or any personal anecdotes he might have shared.

I assume you mean use experience and skills to improve the third cause (poor judgment)?
I don't get "as the third cause" otherwise.

I think judgment is intrinsic. I don't think an instructor lecturing on "good judgment" would do anything either.

As I said, I think you either have it or you don't. Good judgment as it applies to a new diver is to know that you are a new diver, don't know everything, and therefore it means that you act in a conservative manner until you do get some more experience.

 

[gcbryan]

My knowledge of that diver was pretty much in line with yours ... but I also saw her as something of an excitable person ... someone who created "drama" out of easily solveable problems. For that reason I did worry about her ... as I do a few others I know like that.

And I do wonder how folks like that manage to make it through their OW training ... part of an instructor's job (to my concern) is to let folks like that know that diving probably isn't something they should be doing, out of concern for their safety.


Oh goodness yes ... I know exactly who you're talking about. Really nice people, total trainwrecks underwater ... every dive is an "adventure". What can you do about folks like that except worry ... and hope there's a guardian angel up there looking out for them.

I've had to throttle back my urge to "mother hen" people sometimes ... they're adults, and they (should) know what they're getting themselves into ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

I assume you remember and probably have met the solo rebreather diver from Idaho with the pickup truck that was at Cove 2 occasionally...the one who died in a dive shop swimming pool in Oregon. I was never clear as to what his mental state was but I don't think it was good. I agree that you can't do anything about people like that.

 

[spoolin01]

Knowone is the one they laugh at,
Nervous laughs, the kind that fools do,
Glancing behind them, seeking reassurance from other fools,
While the land disappears over the horizon,
The deep turns ever deeper and bluer than black,
And the gnarled pilot notes in the dog-eared log,
"Here There Be Dragons".

The deficiency of not studying liberal arts at my liberal arts college - is this a famous sailing poem? I tried googling some lines, but anything with dragons in it... well, it is the internet. His posts make me smile, not always sure why, maybe nervous...

I assume you mean use experience and skills to improve the third cause (poor judgment)?
I don't get "as the third cause" otherwise.

I think judgment is intrinsic. I don't think an instructor lecturing on "good judgment" would do anything either.

As I said, I think you either have it or you don't. Good judgment as it applies to a new diver is to know that you are a new diver, don't know everything, and therefore it means that you act in a conservative manner until you do get some more experience.

yes, I just keyed on judgement as the synthesis of experience, training, and thought - something that's induced from building blocks like those three, that are amenable to development, or the industry intervention you were interested in.

At any instant of course you've got what you've got, but you really don't see judgement as improvable? That seems to be what you say next so I guess it's just what nuance of the concept you're using.

 

[gcbryan]

Spoolin01- I suppose it's semantics as to whether it's judgment or experience that improving but it seems to me people with decent judgment don't make these mistakes even as new divers and those without decent judgment seem to make them regardless of experience since not all accidents involve new divers.

That's just my take of course.

 

[spoolin01]

Ah, I see now, you were using judgement as putting 2+2 together, like IQ. Well I suppose there's an intrinsic aspect to that alright. Seems hard to sort out which comes first though, the potential for or the realization of the skills/judgement/etc. It's a joint development project from step 1, and showing one reinforces the impression that you have the other ... the nature/nurture conundrum. It seem the good news is, people are teachable, whatever process you give the credit to. I don't doubt that training and experience determine the statistics in largest part - look at driving, the vast majority of people survive a lifetime of driving simply from some initial training and the benefit of experience (and the vigilance of others in too many cases!). It can be deadly, but that is a compelling motivator to work on your judgement. No doubt many of those who successfully navigate that process would appear to have lousy judgement as junior divers.

 

[gcbryan]

Ah, I see now, you were using judgement as putting 2+2 together, like IQ. Well I suppose there's an intrinsic aspect to that alright. Seems hard to sort out which comes first though, the potential for or the realization of the skills/judgement/etc. It's a joint development project from step 1, and showing one reinforces the impression that you have the other ... the nature/nurture conundrum. It seem the good news is, people are teachable, whatever process you give the credit to. I don't doubt that training and experience determine the statistics in largest part - look at driving, the vast majority of people survive a lifetime of driving simply from some initial training and the benefit of experience (and the vigilance of others in too many cases!). It can be deadly, but that is a compelling motivator to work on your judgement. No doubt many of those who successfully navigate that process would appear to have lousy judgement as junior divers.

That's true. It's definitely a matter of degree. We all survive the newbie phase (hopefully) in whatever we do and we all could have had "bad luck" during that phase and an outcome might have been different. However, some accidents just exhibit such poor judgment that just being a newbie isn't enough of an excuse as 99% of newbies wouldn't have made such a poor judgment either.

Under those circumstances there isn't much you can do and I think a lot of accidents are conducted under those circumstances. Locally, people have died doing things so "stupid" that virtually no one on here reading this thread would have ever done those dives under those circumstances regardless of how new they were.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I assume you remember and probably have met the solo rebreather diver from Idaho with the pickup truck that was at Cove 2 occasionally...the one who died in a dive shop swimming pool in Oregon. I was never clear as to what his mental state was but I don't think it was good. I agree that you can't do anything about people like that.

Met him, spoke with him on several occasions, and saw him "diving" around the cove with a camera.

That fellow was a really sad case. I doubt he had the IQ or maturity of a 10-year old. It boggles my mind that someone would've certified him on open circuit ... much less a rebreather. I think the main reason he solo dived was because no one wanted to be in the water with him.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Knowone is the one they laugh at,
Nervous laughs, the kind that fools do,
Glancing behind them, seeking reassurance from other fools,
While the land disappears over the horizon,
The deep turns ever deeper and bluer than black,
And the gnarled pilot notes in the dog-eared log,
"Here There Be Dragons".

Knowone is one of my all-time favorite SB posters. He makes me think. Most times I'm thinking "He's speaking to me, I know it. But I can't understand a word he's saying." ... ... but seriously, he's on my Top-10 list of SB posters I'd love to meet in person ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[dburg30]

I'm still way to new in my diving career but my .02 anyway.

As far as common sense (which by the way seeing more people I believe it isnt common at all) and judgement, well as one of the blue collar comedy people said (ron white) you cant fix stupid, granted that would be more aimed at common sense then judgement...

As far as other options, there is only so much you can train. I mean should training orgs make you go to so many different dive conditions and have you dive them over and over and over and over etc, so that you wind up with a bazillion miles and a million dollars just to get 'basic' certification? Then you have to do x dives a month in y conditions or you get your card revoked?

I mean this is a hobby / pastime / recreational 'sport' to most of the people that do it, and while I get that the training agencies should prepare new divers as well as they can, there is a point to where you have to make sure you keep it 'easy' enough that people are finding it a good value, and continue doing it, or you risk not having enough people getting certified to keep businesses interested in catering to us.

And while there are I'm sure MANY MANY people that just get their card to go warm water diving on vacations, there are others (hopefully myself) that dont care where they dive, so long as they get to. I'm just about able to change from 0-24 dives to the next one. I got certified in late June. So while that's not a ton of diving, and I'd love to have done more, I have to make sure when I dive, I'm ready and able to dive. ie: no reason IMO to go diving after working my ass off all day. I'm already tired, why would I go and do something that's requires you to be mentally 'ready'??

I think that's the problem. Some people just dont 'know when to say when', and you can lecture that all day long, but some people still just dont get it.

And just for the record I was certified thru PADI. Did they require me to be perfect on my skills to be certified? No. Did they make sure I was comfortable doing my skills? Yes. After that, it's on me to continue to practice those skills to make sure that if I need them later, I'll still be comfortable doing them.

 

[gcbryan]

Thanks for the post dberg30. I think (not positive) that it was Benjamin Franklin that said "common sense isn't so common" so you are in good company Most of us received only the most basic initial training. Yet most of us don't do the kinds of things that end up in the DAN reports.

You deciding to not go diving if you are too tired is a good example. No one needed to tell you to make that decision...you exercised some judgment. Being a new diver doesn't mean that someone can't have good judgment. Most accidents (I believe) are caused by divers who probably don't exercise good judgment in other parts of their lives as well.

Therefore the solution of better training (while a good goal in and of itself) isn't really going to change the accident statistics much.

When I see the DAN report it's easy to think of ways that these accidents could be prevented if you're only looking at the abstract numbers. The only place where I have more of the true details are local diving accidents. I'm sure this is true for most of us. When I look at local diving accidents more training is rarely the problem because it wouldn't have generally "worked" for those individuals.