PLEASE READ Special Forum Rules & Updates

[The Mod Squad]

December 2023 Update​

The Accident & Incidents forum has evolved for more than 20 years. We have decided that our member’s and reader’s best interest would be served by making the following changes:

1. Forum Objective:
   Discuss incidents that are near, on, or under the water that divers can learn from. The main objective is to make us all safer. We no longer limit discussions to purely diving incidents, just those that divers can learn from.
2. To that end, we have merged the Near Misses & Lessons Learned forum with the Accidents & Incidents forum and renamed it to Accidents, Incidents, & Near Misses.
3. We added mandatory Thread Prefixes, commonly called title flags, to help readers find threads of interest.

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A more detailed description is provided for the brief Thread Prefix that you select:

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Note that ScubaBoard’s Advanced Search function can be used to locate Thread Prefix flags.

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The basics stay the same​

None of us want to die, be injured, or even have a close call — especially while diving. Consequently, this forum is for everyone that comes to ScubaBoard to find out what happened and how to avoid it. Our goal is to allow discussions about an incident in order to make sense of the facts we do have. Hopefully, this will result in modifications of both attitude and technique, creating safer divers.

Please remember that someone has died, was injured, or came close to it. While we strongly discourage it, family and friends may be reading these threads, so stay civil and respectful. This is a Learning Zone, so stay on topic. In that respect, you can be sure that there will be speculation, especially since it's so hard to get actual facts. If you are family or a friend, we recommend that you do not read this forum.

Special Forum Rules:​

• Be kind
  • No blame storming (assigning blame)
    • Stick to discussing the actions that contributed to the incident
    • Mishap analysis & "Blamestorming"
  • No trolling or flaming
• No chest thumping
  • This is not the place for you to push your pet peeve or agenda
  • This is not the place to brag that you have info that you can't or won't share
• You may not use real names here, until after they have appeared in the public domain (articles, news reports, sheriff's report etc.) Please cite the source if you do.
• Condolences belong in the Passings forum.
• Legal ramifications belong in the Diving Litigation forum.
• Please refrain from telling others how they should post as that's ScubaBoard Moderator’s job
  • There will be speculation
  • Facts rarely come out, so why wait
  • This type of introspection and speculation is normal and not ghoulish
  • Instead, please report any post that you believe violates the ToS (Terms of Service and Rules) and/or these special rules.

Please also refer to these threads:

1. Accidents and Incident Threads: Victim Perspective
2. Mishap analysis & "Blamestorming"
3. Old Rules