Reading Diver Down

[HilaryRN71]

Did anyone else...as a new OW diver who actually still subscribed to Rodales...(oops did i type that?) read "Lifes Lessons" and get that sort of panicky anxiety feeling in their chest? I did...MAN it used to stress me out!! But now that i have a few dives under my belt...I think accident analysis is vital. If nothing else, it's a reminder to be aware of potential problems.

I remember one life's lesson about a guy with 72 dives under his built..found him out of air at the bottom. Gear analysis showed the BC failing to hold air. The reconstructed scenario from his computer data, etc, was that he couldn't establish bouyancy, tried to continually inflate his BC until he was out of air. Never ditched weights, they were found with his body. THIS particular scenario stuck with me because I had about that same number of dives, AND had experienced a similar problem only a couple of weeks earlier. I had just exchanged a LPI with a Air 2, and had not threaded the hose right when I screwed it back on, so my BC was leaking. I figured it out AT the surface, swam with a bit of difficulty back to the boat, got it fixed, dive went on...didn't think much about it. But then I read a couple weeks later that this problem KILLED someone...what a bummer!!

Whoever said "It almost never gets better, it only gets worse" needs kudos. What an amazingly simplistic yet vital rule to remember. It is that chain of events that leads to an accident. When I had my one near miss with an accident, my husband used his background in critical incident training to "debrief" me. It helped so much to talk about it, and where it went wrong and why. It was exactly that...one bad decision that snowballed. Stop the cascade and you stop the accident.

 

[Code Monkey]

I found that I'd have avoided most of the scenarios I read about because I know I wouldn't go into a cave without training/ignore the dive briefing/fool the divemaster so that I can do something I _know_ he'd hate/etc. There were, of course, cases where I was _not_ comfortable in the knowledge that I'd have easily recognized and avoided them -- those got me thinking.

I believe that I'll be a safer diver because of this book.

 

[TheRedHead]

I mostly think that the victims in the "Lessons for Life" column have failed to remember their OW training. Sometimes I think they are just unfortunately dumb.

 

[gangrel441]

this got me to thinking... these columns were taken from ScubaDiving Magazine,
known for its pro-advertiser and pro-industry stance.

so... what do you think the odds are of them printing *a single* incident that
had to do with equipment failure or computer problems, or something *other*
than diver error?

i mean, are we seeing a true picture of what happens out there, or are the results
being biased by not including instances of equipment failure, or bad air, or bad
DM-ing, or crews leaving people behind, etc...?

Well, in all fairness, if they presented a basic ***** happens type of equipment failure scenereo, it wouldn't really live up to the name of the column, would it? In order for it to be a lesson for life, the diver has to have some way to avoid or mitigate the problem. My objection is when they clearly just make up an incident to give a message for the sake of industry politics. My attitude is simply that one you catch someone in a lie, everything they say before and after becomes suspect.

 

[TheRedHead]

I remember one life's lesson about a guy with 72 dives under his built..found him out of air at the bottom. Gear analysis showed the BC failing to hold air. The reconstructed scenario from his computer data, etc, was that he couldn't establish bouyancy, tried to continually inflate his BC until he was out of air. Never ditched weights, they were found with his body.

I had this happen to me recently when I changed inflator hoses on a wing and didn't tighten it down properly. It was a slow leak that became much more noticable at depth. At around 50 feet I realized that it was leaking and continued my descent to 100 feet. I sgnaled my buddy to stop and I wrote him a note on my slate. He tightened the elbow and we proceded with our dive. At any time, I could have swam my rig to the surface so I wasn't worried about ditching my 2 lbs of weight.

 

[mdmbike to scuba]

Jen do you know what triggers your asthma? I have asthma more on the med to high side, I have so far no trouble "Thank God" diving. Now I only have 11 dives in still new. My Doc gave me the ok to dive. My shop wouldn't let me dive with out his ok. I do worrie about it and I do need to learn more about it..

 

[H2Andy]

In order for it to be a lesson for life, the diver has to have some way to avoid or mitigate the problem.

well... mitigating the damage done is integral to dealing with equipment failure.

there are lessons to be learned from divers who survived equipment failures.

my point was that they try to avoid those scenarios, as though equipment
never breaks... because they don't want to make new divers and potential divers
fear equipment and decide to stop diving or not start diving

i just think it's an interesting editorial bias, that they try to avoid mentioning
equipment failurers... of course, the bulk of their advertisers are equipment
manufacturers...

:33:

 

[Storm]

well... mitigating the damage done is integral to dealing with equipment failure.

there are lessons to be learned from divers who survived equipment failures.

my point was that they try to avoid those scenarios, as though equipment
never breaks... because they don't want to make new divers and potential divers
fear equipment and decide to stop diving or not start diving

i just think it's an interesting editorial bias, that they try to avoid mentioning
equipment failurers... of course, the bulk of their advertisers are equipment
manufacturers...

:33:

I take it you're talking bout the magazine articles and not the book.

 

[HilaryRN71]

I think you're right, how you deal with equipment failure is JUST as valuable as how you deal with mistakes underwater...and they do gloss over that. I haven't read Rodales in a long time, but when i did, I don't recall them having any Life's Lessons that were specifically dealing with catastrophic gear failure. Only as a side note...BC not holding air, etc.

Rodale's makes their money off of advertising. Their target audience is new OW divers. Ones still buying equipment and are influenced by advertising...would be bad for business to admit that equipment fails. which is sad, really. A dis-service to their target audience, who could learn from it.

 

[jennasnyder1980]

Jen do you know what triggers your asthma? I have asthma more on the med to high side, I have so far no trouble "Thank God" diving. Now I only have 11 dives in still new. My Doc gave me the ok to dive. My shop wouldn't let me dive with out his ok. I do worrie about it and I do need to learn more about it..

Mdmbike,
Well, my asthma is mild. I get it when I have allergies sometimes (dogs, cats, pollen) or when I exercise sometimes.

Surprisingly, I own two cats that I have grown accustomed too so don't get the asthma from them when it's pretty clean, just others' cats. Also, I notice that my asthma mostly comes when I am out of shape and exercising or it's humid or really cold. Last night I went to the gym and was able to run for over twenty mintues and breathe through my nose easily and felt relaxed. A few weeks ago when I was getting back into shape, I was huffing, puffing and have asthma like symptoms.

Do you mind me asking how much it costs to get a specific DIVE checkout from a ENT doctor? I heard they make you run and do lots of stuff in that case.

Also, Mdmbike, do you take a puff of your inhaler before diving or not???

Thanks
Jen