Safety Stand Down - Power SCUBA - San Diego CA

[Kaamoss]

Within the context of this thread, and diver safety while on a boat dive, I'd like to share a story with you all from about 4 years ago.

I was doing 2 separate boat dives to Catalina in a single day with a local instructor friend of mine, and some mutual friends. We were diving on a boat out of Long Beach (I think it was the pacific star but I'm not 100% on that), and the plan was 2 boat rides to the island and back in the same day, one morning dive, and a night dive. The morning trip, our ride out was pretty mellow, calm seas. We arrived at Ship Rock mid morning, and we did our first dive (I was on nitrox). The ride back into Long Beach that afternoon was a fair bit rougher than our ride out. I've been sailing my whole life and the only time I've ever been seasick was crossing the Molokai aka Kaiwi channel (arguably one of the roughest channels in the world). Anyways, once we're back we move our gear onto the second boat we're taking for our night dive and grab some food. Once we were back on our way from Catalina, the passage was significantly more choppy and windy, and our boat was a bit smaller too. Everyone was crammed like sardines in the saloon and obviously cold. No one looked like they were having a good time, a few people were sick over the side.

As we near our dive site, people are started to gear up and get their wetsuits on. I tell my instructor friend that I don't feel great, and that I'm going to hang tight for now and judge conditions once we get to the dive site. Him, and the people in my general vicinity began cajoling me into suiting up with the usual "it won't be that bad", "I've dove in worse conditions", etc etc. Once we get to the dive site, I can just feel that there's a strong surge near the bottom. Adding to my apprehension was the fact that the boat we were on only had air, so my second fill was air added to a little over half a tank of 32% eanX. My plan was to dive on an air profile and still assume the same MOD as my first dive. I decided to call the dive. Again, nearly everyone on the boat, even people I had just met, were trying to twist my arm to get into the water. I was reminded a few times that there were no refunds, and it would be a shame for me to pay that money for nothing, etc. Personally, the cost of the dive isn't even a blip on my budget, so I could care less about that. Even if it were an expensive dive, no amount of money lost is worth making any dive when I don't feel 1000%.

Once the divers began surfacing, it became very clear I had made the right call. As I had feared, there was a massive surge at the bottom, tossing people around like a dryer. A number of people became sick underwater, throwing up through their regs (including my instructor friend). This was a lobster dive, so perhaps the divers were just trying to chum the waters? Not a single person who got out of the water that night looked like they had fun, they were wet, cold, and miserable. I think only 2 divers snagged legal sized bugs. Oddly enough, the entire boat ride back, while I sat there toasty and dry, no one felt the need to convince me that I really missed out not diving.

I think in a lot of boat diving situations, there's a certain amount of pressure placed on people to make the dive, even if it's clear that they don't look comfortable or calm. I think if we really want to emphasize safety in a boat dive setting, operators should consider insisting on a generous refund to divers who don't seem like they're 100%. At the end of the day, the weight of that responsibility of course falls on the individual diver to make their own call. But if safety is our primary concern, shouldn't we be striving to make people feel like they don't HAVE to make any dive, and not doing a dive is fine, even encouraged, for whatever reason?

 

[Bob DBF]

I think in a lot of boat diving situations, there's a certain amount of pressure placed on people to make the dive, even if it's clear that they don't look comfortable or calm. I think if we really want to emphasize safety in a boat dive setting, operators should consider insisting on a generous refund to divers who don't seem like they're 100%. At the end of the day, the weight of that responsibility of course falls on the individual diver to make their own call. But if safety is our primary concern, shouldn't we be striving to make people feel like they don't HAVE to make any dive, and not doing a dive is fine, even encouraged, for whatever reason?

The operators in CA make their money taking divers to the destination, the ones I've been on will change sites if conditions are adverse, and if bad enough will cancel the trip. Whether one dives or not is a personal decision and should not financially penalize the dive boat which takes divers to the site.

As for safety, I have never heard any boat crew encourage a diver to make a dive they did not want to do, and have heard them help a diver to decide it was ok to skip a dive. On one boat I was asked to dive with a couple of new divers because they were apprehensive about making their first boat dive after OW. They were fine, just nervous, and made the other dives on their own. If there were extra crew available, I have seen a boat DM dive with a buddy pair under similar circumstances.

The only pressure on any diver to make a dive is their own. If your buddies are pressuring you to make a dive, get some new buddies. I guess I sound flippant, but I've been diving a while and have never seen any diver injured by not making a dive, and I have made a number of dives I wish I hadn't.



Bob

 

[Power Scuba]

Objectively, PADI looks like an endless money grab and sales pitch. I've also noticed that most PADI programs... {ad nauseum}

Sorry, if you look at the beginning of this thread, you'll notice it wasn't a PADI Vs NAUI conversation. Nor were the agencies of any of the bends sufferers even mentioned.

Just not applicable, appropriate, or reasonable to try and turn it so.

 

[Hatul]

Interesting comment.

We have had a number of threads on ScubaBoard recently related to the research on deep stops. Those discussions have been quite extensive, and they have included some of the foremost authorities on decompression science in the world, people like Dr. Simon Mitchell and Dr. David Doolette. Duke Dive Medicine's comments are completely in line with the clear consensus of the threads and the cited research.

You went on the world's largest public forum for scuba discussions and made a strong statement in your role as the leader of an organization, a statement that runs counter to current research. You have to expect that when you do so, people will respond when they disagree. If you have thousands of people in your organization, I would assume you would want them to have access to the latest thinking on a subject as important as this.

I recall the debate on deep stops in Alert Diver and the conclusion was they may be useful if built into the algorithm but should not be made outside the algorithm. The Scubapro computers Galileo, G2 and Aladin Tec 3g implement a deep stop (they call Profile Dependent Deep Stop) at a depth where net nitrogen outgassing takes place in the leading compartment. Whether more is nitrogen absorbed it all depends on the depth at which the deep stop is made.

 

[markmud]

Sorry, if you look at the beginning of this thread, you'll notice it wasn't a PADI Vs NAUI conversation. Nor were the agencies of any of the bends sufferers even mentioned.

Just not applicable, appropriate, or reasonable to try and turn it so.

Hi Bill,

With hindsight comes awareness. Did your Safety Stand Down prove to be effective? I don't mean in terms of increased safety per se, did your members, in the main, respond well to the week's worth of safety refreshers?

Thanks,
markm

 

[TrimixToo]

I recall the debate on deep stops in Alert Diver and the conclusion was they may be useful if built into the algorithm but should not be made outside the algorithm. The Scubapro computers Galileo, G2 and Aladin Tec 3g implement a deep stop (they call Profile Dependent Deep Stop) at a depth where net nitrogen outgassing takes place in the leading compartment. Whether more is nitrogen absorbed it all depends on the depth at which the deep stop is made.

I think it's a bit more complicated than that. As I understand it, the controlling compartment for ascent will always be relatively fast in any recreational diving and even in most technical diving. Assuming I've got that right, when you stop as soon as offgassing begins in that fast controlling compartment, it will be deeper than the depth where you reach that compartment's M value minus the conservatism factor in the algorithm plus any you add--that is, the calculated ceiling. So, the slower compartments are still ongassing at a higher rate than they would if you ascended to the calculated ceiling. I don't want to turn this into another deep stops debate thread, as that's quite off-topic in this one. But you can look at Dr. Simon Mitchell's posts over the past few months and find one of those threads easily enough. I think you will be able to draw your own conclusions afterward.

 

[Power Scuba]

With hindsight comes awareness. Did your Safety Stand Down prove to be effective? I don't mean in terms of increased safety per se, did your members, in the main, respond well to the week's worth of safety refreshers?

We received a couple dozen positive responses, which on it's own seems great, but looked at in view of our 4,000+ members is simply "good". Social media is that way though. Lots of draws for people's attention out there.

I know that for every person who took the time to write back, there were many more who read the safety articles and, hopefully, took something away from them.

In the spirit of full disclosure, though, I will also share this FB message sent to me by mistake by a member who thought he was sending it to another FB friend of his: "I think we’re going to have to suffer through two more of these until his Jam-Down is finished. -Bob"

• This served as a valuable reminder that no matter how hard and sincerely you try to get a particular message out, there'll always be those who 1)think they have nothing left to learn or 2)bark back at you for having the temerity to try and tell them how they should dive.

Thanks for your thoughts, Mark.

Bill

 

[markmud]

We received a couple dozen positive responses, which on it's own seems great, but looked at in view of our 4,000+ members is simply "good". Social media is that way though. Lots of draws for people's attention out there.

I know that for every person who took the time to write back, there were many more who read the safety articles and, hopefully, took something away from them.

In the spirit of full disclosure, though, I will also share this FB message sent to me by mistake by a member who thought he was sending it to another FB friend of his: "I think we’re going to have to suffer through two more of these until his Jam-Down is finished. -Bob"

• This served as a valuable reminder that no matter how hard and sincerely you try to get a particular message out, there'll always be those who 1)think they have nothing left to learn or 2)bark back at you for having the temerity to try and tell them how they should dive.

Thanks for your thoughts, Mark.

Bill

Thanks for your response Bill,

Unfortunately, leadership is not a perfect endeavor. You will never perform a task perfectly or be free of criticism. I am sorry for the back-stab wounds and arrow scars that you received.

As far as the deep stop issue goes, I feel that some people are taking your words too literally. Deep stops while doing staged decompression are not helpful from what I have read. Their logic seems reasonable.

However, while on an NDL dive while well within your computers NDL parameters, stopping for a minute here and there is nothing more than multilevel diving. I do it to ensure I am not exceeding my ascent rate. I hope my margins aren't actually so tight that a one minute stop at 40 feet while ascending from 130 fsw will make the difference between getting bent or not.

Thanks,
markm