Triggers of Dive Accidents

[danvolker]

.......

Would it be better simply NOT to teach OOA options? And to simply say, "If you run out of air, there's an excellent chance you're going to die, so don't do it." (Or maybe teach OOA options as an advanced skill.) Shouldn't we be putting the Fear of God in them about running out of air? Because we're certainly not doing it now.

The other issue with OOA is that there's no penalty for running out of air, other than killing yourself. And how many people REALLY think that whatever they're doing is going to result in their death? Right now, people run out of air and can keep diving. Assuming they don't kill themselves, there's no penalty for it other than a little embarassment in front of other divers.

Maybe we need to change that school of thought. At Reef Seekers (my dive company) we've had a very simple rule on our charters: Run out of air, and you're done diving for the day. Period. No exceptions. Our thought is that you got lucky once, and we don't want to tempt fate twice. In 30 years, we've had exactly one person run out of air (and they lived).

At the DAN workshop, I was asked what I thought the penalty ought to be. I said I thought it was simple: Run out of air, and we revoke your certification card. Want it back? Then you're required to do some remedial training that emphasizes not running out of air. Run out of air twice? Find another sport.

Running out of air, based on the stats, seems phenomenally dangerous. It's certainly not something any of us would recommend yet it's something that, as an industry, we tolerate. Yet it's also something that clearly kills people. And that in turn, has got to have an effect on our insurance rates. Think about it: If we could eliminate 37% of the fatalities tomorrow, wouldn't that also result in fewer lawsuits which should also result in lower insurance rates?

That's about it in a very long nutshell. Thoughts???

- Ken

Ken,
I think the stats are being interpreted incorrectly. It is far more likely, that the message here is severely inadequate training for OOA scenarios. And by this, I also mean that if a student can not display a calm state and proceed optimally in a simulated OOA scenario, then they need to be FAILED untill they can accomplish this drill perfectly.
After diving in South Florida on charter boats since the 80's, I can tell you I have seen many divers with next to no ability to handle OOA, due to extreme FEAR issues, and lack of the proper reflex....Whether the agencies should have classified these people as "NEVER-EVERS", or just flunked them until they could do what the "functional" divers could do, gets more to the point of how this thread should be moving in.

Take another population of divers, like the divers of the WKPP, where buddy breathing is as relaxed a proceedure as breathing on land, and where an OOA scenario from your stats ( using each trigger form of OOA event--how the deaths occurred) would be likely to change to a ZERO death result.... Training being the big diffrerence, including the immediate failure and removal of persons deemed un-trainable...the NEVER-EVERS.

REgards,
DanV

 

[DelrayDM]

MONITORING AIR IS THE START AND FINISH OF DIVING.
Equipment no matter how basic is just a means of using it.

Exactly !

MONITORING AIR !!!!!!!!!!! Perhaps we need to emphasize that the difference between apnea diving and scuba diving is all in the last letter of the acronymn S.C.U.B.A. == apparatus. An apparatus that must be OPERATED and failure to OPERATE that apparatus can result in death.

Run out of air and you can either go to your buddies octo (if you can actually find your "buddy")

 

[Garrobo]

Not being a really smart guy or able to analyse like a college boy I find it hard to see the mindset behind the recommendation that if you run out of air and are still alive that the certifying agency revoke your cert till you get further instructions or that OOA options only be taught in an advanced course (another cash cow for the cert agencies) or that it is detrimental to teach or at least discuss your options for survival if you run out of air since NOT running out of air is probably the most important aspect of diving. You could probably live through most other disasters but not being able to breathe while under water is an absolute no-no. Personally, I think that not enough attention is paid to advising new divers their options if they DO run out of air and that it is foolish to ignore the problem because of some outlandish opinion that is it is better to not teach a diver how to survive if the occassion arises. But that is the mind of the analytical academic at work. Most of them don't live in the real world.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

What is to stop them from running down the pony bottle too? That is ridiculous! It gives them a second chance to survive if they run down the main tank.

I once met a fellow whose approach to gas management was to continue the dive until his main tank went empty ... then switch to his pony and begin his return to shore.

This fellow was primarily a solo diver ... and proved himself incapable of doing a free ascent to the surface without assistance.

I ended up saving his ass once ... haven't seen him since.

Lastly, the current recreational training that relies upon your buddy to save you is very weak. If a diver is TOO STUPID to check his own air supply, what makes us think he is going to check his buddy's supply? If a diver is SO STUPID to run out of air at depth, is it not a ridiculous ASSUMPTION that his buddy (if he is still there) will not also have run his tank so low that he is unable to share air during the ascent? This type of safety system is completely impractical for the type of diver(s) who tend to run out of air.

Here's a compelling flaw in the "my buddy will save me" approach ... if you've managed to run yourself completely out of air, how much air do you think your buddy's likely to have left to share?



... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Garth]

My last dive trip the captain said first off: "don't run out of air... If you do you will not be diving the second dive... If you come back to the boat without gas you won't be diving again that day."

One person ran out of gas on his safety stop and the captain did not allow that Diver to dive second dive. Second dive two people surfaced with less than 100PSI, one out of air. This is pathetic.
The two people with about 100PSI stated "they were able to breath on the ladder of the boat" as if that was all that mattered.

 

[Garth]

I once met a fellow whose approach to gas management was to continue the dive until his main tank went empty ... then switch to his pony and begin his return to shore.

This fellow was primarily a solo diver ... and proved himself incapable of doing a free ascent to the surface without assistance.

I ended up saving his ass once ... haven't seen him since.


Here's a compelling flaw in the "my buddy will save me" approach ... if you've managed to run yourself completely out of air, how much air do you think your buddy's likely to have left to share?



... Bob (Grateful Diver)

This is so true.

 

[AggieDiver]

Good thread Ken!

I see two problems here. The first is one that many here have already kind of danced around and talked about a bit...that being that OOA is not really the true cause of the fatality. Inability to recover from OOA by one of the means available is the true cause of the fatality...whether it is panic, diving solo, diving too far from a buddy, unwillingness to attempt a CESA, etc. The OOA is an obstacle, not a killshot. It is the inability to calmly exercise your training and overcome that obstacle that leads to the fatality. In that case, the installation of additional fear during training will likely only exacerbate the panic associated with the situation. From my own experience, I received training in how to handle a vomiting diver during my rescue diver class. Knowing that it was possible to puke underwater allowed me to be calm and do so safely when I became sick at 80' down in Belize. If I had instead been told that I might die if I tried, I likely would have reacted much differently underwater and might have had a negative outcome.

The second thought provoked by your post was how similar your question about "whether training for OOA made people more likely to do it" was to the arguments over abstinence only sex ed. I haven't seen any convincing argument from the stats provided to say that people who got more training in OOA situations were more likely to end up in an OOA situation. I don't argue that it might not be the case, but I think not teaching people how to handle such a situation is very similar to sending a hormone laden teenager into the target rich environment we call high school unequipped without knowledge of how to safely do what inevitably comes naturally to hormone laden teenagers in close proximity to one another.

 

[danvolker]

I don't really see the confusion on this issue.....

You have 2 divers, buddied. They are "trained" to dive in each other's peripherol vision, and to monitor each other's air supply. If one runs out of air, it is as much his fault as the other's.

They are trained NOT to do "Follow the Leader" diving, where a trailing, struggling buddy can get left behind, can be pushed to low on air trying to keep up, and where little communication occurs throughout the dive.

They are TRAINED to share air in an emergency situation, and would do this PROACTIVELY to prevent an OOA event if one gets LOW on air...this leaving air for him near the surface, for the last few feet before getting on the boat.

This is so simple, it is shocking to me that the agencies do not all embrace this.

Regards,
DanV

 

[Saudi-Diver]

Many years ago I was on a dive boat out of Sharm part of the dive brief the DM gave us was to let him know when one of us reached 100 bar, then we would start our ascent to our safety stop, the max depth was about 25m. I was with a buddy that had been assigned to me because I was on my own. I briefed her about my hand signals and said I was a wee bit anal about air reserves so I would be checking periodically. Well we had a good dive she was a really attentive buddy. We had slipped back a little from the main Dive group and were following the DMs brief. I remember hitting about 100 bar and thinking wow this group has amazing air consumption! So I caught the DMs attention and signaled to him my remaining Air. He then did a check on the groups air and the majority were well bellow the 100 bar he asked them to report in at. This was supposedly a Advanced Open water group of divers. I was a little shocked about the casual attitude of the divers to the DMs brief. I suppose an example of a "trust me resort dive".

 

[soltari675]

I have to say I am lucky. During my certification, my instructor stressed gas consumption and never running out very hard. It is common for all of our divers at our shop to constantly check their gas and even their buddy's. Most of us use the Galileo Luna computers so we can even see our buddy psi on our computers. I think our certification took a little longer than some other places, but it was worth it since we focused on every skill several times, gas, buoyancy, skills, etc. After reading some of these threads, I think I will thank them again tomorrow during the halloween thing.