Triggers of Dive Accidents

[Ayisha]

Good for all of you instructors that are committed to your students and are making a difference in the proficiency and safety level of divers today. Student divers often become a fairly accurate representation of their teachers, so if it doesn't start from the top-down, where can it start? Thanks for putting in the effort!

 

[KitsDad]

Ken,

I am a new diver so I am still learning. And while I think running out of gas is an enormously mistake, we are human- this prone to stupid/dangerous errors. That said, I live by the old addage, 'hope for the best, prepare for the worst." Bottom line, I am no expert in diving, but I am an expert in SHTF.

To what extent a diver trains, they can expect themsleves to repond accordingly when they (failed to watch gas) or their equipmenmt fails. Train, train, train...if diver's train for catastrophic events(ooa sitation) etc, they will fall upon their training (muscle memory, etc).

I agree with you; a diver who fails once too many times is a danger to themselves, their buddies, and the SCUBA community- they should get their card pulled. But not without remediation and pattern of failure...not fair.

 

[knowone]

Modify your attitude.

 

[bilsant]

Why would we put something in place that might make a distressed diver LESS likely to ask for help or admit they had a problem? I'd much rather assist an OOA diver and correct the problem after the dive than have them risk of doing something dumb and worsening the situation because they don't want to ask for help and face some sort of sanction.

Let's differentiate between safety measure and sanction. A divemaster calling the rest of the day's dives for an OOA is a sensible safety precaution. Pulling a C-card is a sanction.

That being said, I SOLIDLY agree that more emphasis on situational awareness is important. I believe in our current teaching environment, this emphasis - outside of the written curriculum - is what differentiates a teacher from somebody who's just following a lesson plan. I also think running out of air is probably the closest thing to a surefire way to ensure that particular diver will be more conscious of air supply for a long time to come.

I think teaching and demonstrating a 50' free ascent should be part of the OW curriculum. I think use of a pony bottle should be part of AOW training. This would allow a trainee to experience an emergency situation for the first time while under supervision.

Just my thoughts...

 

[novicediver]

"They do it because their situational awareness is poor, and/or their planning is faulty. Planning is EASY to teach; situational awareness takes much more work, but is so little addressed in basic training that it's very sad." - stolen quote from TSandM

I am not an experienced enough diver to comment on diving specific accidents, but I have enough life experience to say that the above quote can account for a statistically significant of accidents in general and I would think applies to diving as well. It isn't so much that people are running out of air that is the problem, it is that people are not adequately aware of the sh*t that can hurt or kill you. Sorry to be so blunt, but we put so much emphasis on the fun aspect of activities, that we don't sufficiently point out that things that can hurt us.

 

[udtfire]

oh I know lets take longer to train someone to dive you know more than two days and build life long divers not an event diver and we will increase safety and the dive industry. the dumb down of divers in this industry is close to criminal.

 

[Limoges Diver]

But don't lose sight that, in the DAN study, 41% of the fatalities were caused by out-of-air. I think that's a phenomenally high incidence, especially when compared to how often it's presumed to occur on a total dive basis.

And even if my conclusions or recommendations are wrong, what I'd really hope we'd start doing as an industry is just to start THINKING about this issue. Because something's definitely out of whack between what wwe teach and how divers dive (and die).

- Ken

Hi Ken,

My take on this has to do with another post I made: 4 different dive shops had 4 different ways of asking how much air you have, and 4 different ways of communicating that! Now they are all PADI-certified dive shops, so why would something as critical as communicating this vital information is left up to each dive shop's own methods? 1 dive shop in Canada, one in St. Thomas, and 2 in Mexico - all different...

 

[flots am]

Hi Ken,

My take on this has to do with another post I made: 4 different dive shops had 4 different ways of asking how much air you have, and 4 different ways of communicating that! Now they are all PADI-certified dive shops, so why would something as critical as communicating this vital information is left up to each dive shop's own methods? 1 dive shop in Canada, one in St. Thomas, and 2 in Mexico - all different...

Asking how much air you have left is not the DM's job. It's the diver's job.

Every diver is supposed to know how much air he has left and act accordingly.

This isn't just a "macho self-reliant" thing either. Plenty of DMs ask "how much air do you have?", get an answer and then don't act appropriately. I've seen more than one diver run out of air shortly after telling the DM he was almost out, and having the DM simply continue the dive.

flots.

 

[Limoges Diver]

Asking how much air you have left is not the DM's job. It's the diver's job.

Every diver is supposed to know how much air he has left and act accordingly.

This isn't just a "macho self-reliant" thing either. Plenty of DMs ask "how much air do you have?", get an answer and then don't act appropriately. I've seen more than one diver run out of air shortly after telling the DM he was almost out, and having the DM simply continue the dive.

flots.

I agree that people should be responsible for their own safety, but beginners need to have their hand held. Also, my point has nothing to do what WHY someone asks for your air pressure, but HOW they asked for it, and how they want to be told. If they confuse 3,000 psi with 300 psi, it's a communication problem that could result in a serious accident/death.

If the DM doesn't act accordingly, then something is wrong: every dive I've gone on, there has been an agreed upon condition. It's usually like "if anyone in our group hits 700 psi, then the dive is over, and we all do our safety stop. Sometimes, if there is a larger group with more than one DM/instructor. They will split the group into 2, and take the ones that are low on air in the first group. Either way, the DM assumes the responsibility for any non-experienced divers int he group - at least, that is how I interpret that. Am I wrong?

That said: if you're the DM, and you ask for an amount of air, you better make the right decisions. As a new diver, I can tell you that during my first dives, I did EVERYTHING the DM tells me to. There is so much going on all at once, that you can't rely upon yourself for making all the right decisions.

 

[boulderjohn]

In each of my last two classes, I had students ask me to confirm what they had been told by their diving friends: there is no need to worry about things like tables and other things like that because the DM will make sure you have a safe dive.

I, of course, disabused them of that notion, but it is clearly a common one.