The biggest safety problem in diving?

[texdiveguy]

Among those causes, what do you guys think is the most common injury/cause of injury?

#1 Barotrauma .... several key causes for this common injury in diving.

 

[Randy43068]

1) Lack of proper training
2) bad attitude about number 1

 

[stadler_cj]

#1 Barotrauma .... several key causes for this common injury in diving.

With technical divers, is this primarily caused by the pressure changes of ascent and descent, or are there more explosive forces at work?

Prevention might be difficult, unless, in the case of sonar or a sound wave, there were a way to detect the front of the wave and immediately mitigate the damage by somehow "shielding" the ear and other vulnerable sites of potential injury.

Of course, you could always measure air volume in the lungs (by measuring inhaled/exhaled air at the regulator) and then ambient pressure changes. Then show an alert in an in-mask display.

 

[Teamcasa]

My opinion:

for equipment:

1. abuse by user;
2. lack of service;
3. not used properly (i.e. using a non-cold water certified reg on an ice dive);


for divers:

1. complacency (i.e. diving beyond their training and limits);
2. ignorance ( i.e. getting into a situation such as hitting fire coral or surfacing in boat traffic);
3. not physicall fit for diving (i.e. heart problems);
4. using wrong or insufficient gear (i.e. small smb on a distant, choppy dive site);
4. dork (most the above - bad buddy and a danger to all around)

non-divers:

1. boaters ( not recognizing dive flags)
2. legislators (not enforcing boater safety and education - regarding SCUBA divers)

dive shops:

1. inexperienced staff ( make bad or dangerous repairs or servicing on dive gear)
2. selling their products, even if it isn't proper or correct.

Other than the slam on DORKS, (IE divers that dive because it is fun! Dork Divers Network)

I agree with the above but need to add one more important point -
Arrogance/Over Confidence.

This will make a good diver do things he/she believes are safe when in fact are not.

 

[leapfrog]

Leapfrog: Good question.

At Iowa, we're looking for problems to solve. We have a lot of unused technical capability, so we're going after military funding to put it to work. The more I can understand about the challenges to divers, the more insightful I'll be on projects.

Regarding rebreather diving; does a standard SCUBA setup (open-circuit) give you a higher level of oxygen when you need it? In other words, can you do more physical work (a higher burning of calories-per-minute - a higher rate of metabolism) using an open-circuit SCUBA setup?

Well, Chris, I would hardly rate myself as an expert on the topic and I am sure that others on SB can jump in and give us a hand.

Having said that, I would say NO, open circuit SCUBA is not at all suited for physical work. You start to run out of air real quick. Of course you can do technical work and depth work with open circuits but the lower you go the quicker you need to get 02 out of the equation because of toxicity. You also have to start taking nitrogen out because of narcosis. So these guys use trimix and have to use a load of bottles and make deco stops. That is precisely why commercial and Navy salvage divers use surface supplied air instead of an autonomous circuit and it also makes the case for closed circuit rebreathers (they can be used with a whole range of gas mixes, depending on the work to be done and semi closed rebreathers. Rebreathers do not give you air on demand but a constant flow. Therefore, within certain constraints, they allow the diver to do more strenuous work and for a longer period of time than open circuit. The level of oxygen is decided by the mix and in very simple terms the mix is dependant on the depth. This doesn't mean that with surface supplied air or rebreathers there are no deco stops. It just means you don't have to worry so much about your gas supply. I am trying to keep this very simple but as other posts will show it is rather more complex.

You would have to expalin to me more what you are driving at to see why "the military" would fund you to investigate what. You need to talk to the guys down at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City, FL. One of the units stationed there is the Navy Experimental Diving Unit and I think they just about cover everything between them and the rest of the units trained there except SPECWAR which is run by the NSWG commands.

 

[stadler_cj]

You would have to expalin to me more what you are driving at to see why "the military" would fund you to investigate what.

Here's the thing: we use our Cognitive Avionics Toolset (CATS) to monitor pilot cognitive state in jet pilots. By all accounts, it would translate very well to dive systems. I'm here to get educated in two ways:

1. I need to find out what problems you guys are experiencing, so we have hints on how to frame our system when proposing it to the Navy.

2. I'm ignorant, in general. I have a lot to learn about diving, and my paramedic training didn't give me much context into diving.

The reason I'm asking such general questions is that our system's utility is limited only by the sensors that are available, and I don't want to miss anything that you guys might want to say, even if you don't think it's directly related to our system.

You need to talk to the guys down at the Naval Diving and Salvage Training Center in Panama City, FL. One of the units stationed there is the Navy Experimental Diving Unit and I think they just about cover everything between them and the rest of the units trained there except SPECWAR which is run by the NSWG commands.

Good suggestion. In fact, I'm in contact with a few guys there. Thing is, they don't really fund research - they do the research requested by other units (as far as I understand). But yeah, I expect they'll be able to assist us in getting in touch with the right people at the Navy.

Thanks for the good comments.

 

[jupitermermaid]

Anxiety and panic can also create dangerous situations, even in divers who otherwise have good skills.

 

[leapfrog]

Anxiety and panic can also create dangerous situations, even in divers who otherwise have good skills.

Can't argue with that one! Anxiety and panic always create dangerous situations in any walk of life! The point of having good skills, both diving and in anything else we do, is so that we are not anxious and do not panic because we can handle the situation. So now it all hangs on: "Who is going to answer the red 'phone when it is ringing in the White House at 3 am"... the answer to that may create anxiety and panic...

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Geez...I hate to put a damper on the tone here, but the biggest safety risk divers face on any given dive day is the car ride to and from the dive site/dock. Statistically diving is a pretty safe sport until you get to the more demanding technical level where stupidty will kill you quicker with less margin for error - and even then the car ride is still probably more dangerous.

 

[stadler_cj]

Geez...I hate to put a damper on the tone here, but the biggest safety risk divers face on any given dive day is the car ride to and from the dive site/dock.

You're gonna laugh, but we have a Lexus outfitted with our CATS system to monitor operator cognitive state. So...we're working on that, too.

Where there's an operator who needs to be physiologically monitored in real time, there's a use for CATS.

If you guys are interested, check out:
OPL website: OPL - Center for Computer Aided Design
CATS: Center for Computer Aided Design
Link to Discovery Channel videos: Videos - Center for Computer Aided Design