One other idea that's gaining a lot of traction is asking other leaders of large groups what they do, specifically, to help ensure the safety of their trip participants? I suppose we can start with you, Ken, since you've taken an interest. No group, even a large one, is an island and we can all benefit from the best practices of those around us. Share yours if you would.
Happy to contribute.
In the spirit of full disclosure, when we had our brick-and-mortar store open, we ran about 50-60 local SoCal trips a year (mostly 1-day, but some 2- and 3-dayers). In the course of 18 years of doing this, we had two fatalities on trips. One was a guy who had a heart attack on the surface kicking back to the boat. The other was a guy who (IMHO) basically scared himself to death by diving to 156 feet at Farnsworth (despite our briefing instructions not to exceed 100 feet) and passed out underwater, was brought up by his buddy, was given heroic and massive rescue efforts, and didn't make it. We had a few bends cases, none that I recall seeming to be too serious and many which didn't manifest themselves until post-trip or the next day, and no embolisims. Since end of 2006, we don't run many local trips but do generally 6 foreign group trips each year and have had to this date no fatalities, bends, or embolisms. And the point of telling you all of this is that, while as Bill said, no group or man is an island, no one's perfect, either.
Here are some of the philosophies and practices we employed, in no particular order, and then I'll wrap with a story of how all of those in concert likely saved a guy's life:
• My people are all quite empowered to be The Scuba Police. They are authorized to tell you you're not doing a dive when their judgement says so. We'll do our best to sugar-coat it and convince you it's a good idea (or even YOUR idea), but in the end, our judgement trumps yours. I'd rather piss you off or refund you than go through years of litigation and pay off your estate.
• I also tell them that good DMing is invisible. Try to do it with a velvet glove, not an iron fist. Clever manipulation is a good thing and having people come up with as their idea what you hoped they would do in the first place is ideal.
• Everyone personally checks in with the DM when you arrive. No "The sign-in sheet and waivers are over there." You fill out a form that gives us highest-level cert, # of dives last 12 months, # of lifetime dives, date of last dive, and chat with us a bit. Just gives us a quick picture, especially if we've never met you before.
• Everyone sits through the 15-minute 28-point pre-departure briefing. (If you're a "regular" and we know you well enough, you could sign a waiver that asks to skip the briefing because you know it and agree to abide by it.)
• We always had at least three working DMs on every trip. That would be one of the deck running the dive with the roster tracking divers on and off the boat, one suited up on the deck available for rescue, and one diving either escorting or off on his/her own.
• My favorite saying is "You never get hurt on a dive you don't make." We'd try to include that thought throughout the day.
• We try to drill into divers during the briefing that we cannot be responsible for their safety underwater. Only THEY can do that. We also let them know that if there's a problem, they need to do everything they can to get themselves to the surface and stay there. (See weight policy below.) We told them that we can respond once we know you're on the surface but if you're missing underwater, it's likely a body recovery, not a rescue.
• We had a strict out-of-air policy. Run out-of-air, done diving for the day. No exceptions.
• We would try to be aware of your night-before (many of our trips were outer island so left at 1AM) drinking habits. If you seemed hung over, you skipped the first dive. (I'm amazed at when people say that if you have a beer for lunch, you can't do the 2 o'clock dive, but they have no problem with the diver downing shots until 2AM splashing at 7AM.)
• We encouraged you to drop your weightbelt if you had the least inkling you were in trouble and we offered to replace it at no charge if we couldn't find it. Many dead divers found on the bottom with weightbelts in place MIGHT have had a chance had they ditched the weights and floated - even unconscious - to the surface.
• We rarely believed you when you signaled "OK" and didn't panic when you didn't signal. Drowning divers have signaled "OK" as they go down. I encourage my people, again, to use their judgement. We'd often send out a rescue DM to see if someone was OK or to kick back with them just because things didn't look right. In fact, in the case of the aforementioned surface heart attack fatality, he had given
three OK signs on his kick back but my DMs didn't like the way he was kicking and we already had someone halfway to him when he passed out.
There are more things but this post is already long enough. Here's the story of all of this put into practice:
We're diving Farnsworth. I'm the in-charge deck DM. I have a DM on the bow suited up to jump if necessary and another DM about to get in the water to do the dive with one other person. Diver jumps in the water and his AIR2 immediately begins free-flowing. I'm yelling down to him but he either ignores me or can't hear me as he kicks to the bow (maybe 40 feet). I yell up to the bow DM to shout down to him. (Diver is either diving by himself or catching up with his buddy. Can't recall which.) Diver still doesn't respond and dives down the anchor line before bow DM (wetsuit only - no tank or weights) can jump. I instruct my about-to-dive-DM. "Go down and find the guy with the bright green fins and check his air. Bring him up if necessary." My DM jumps in and heads down the line and catches up with the diver in question at 100 feet as he's heading deeper. (Also recall, at Farnsworth, we'd try to set a depth limit of 100'.) DM grabs his fin and gets his attention, motions to check air pressure. Diver doesn't look at gauge and signals "OK". DM shakes head and motions again and this time diver checks. He's got a little less than 300psi (this is less than 3 minutes into his dive.) DM grabs hold of diver's BC and signals "You and I are going up". Diver nods and they ascend. At about 80 feet, diver sucks his tank dry and DM hands him DM octo. They continue up. DM tries to slow them down to do a safety stop but diver is a bit anxious and keeps kicking so they miss the safety stop and pop up (both OK) just off the bow of the boat. My DM escorts diver to the swimstep of the boat. After a short calming-down period, we review the dive with the diver, suggest he sit the next one out (and perhaps the rest of the day), and tell him that if he wants to do dive #3 or #4, he'll go with one of us.
There is absolutely NO doubt in my mind that if we didn't have the mindset about safety that we do, and didn't have the policies and procedures in place that we do, that that diver would have likely died on that dive and we prevented that.
Enough of what we do. Anyone else want to share their organizational policies?
- Ken
