Triggers of Dive Accidents

[Ken Kurtis]

Lets see, 900 cases, of that 350 were used to determine that 41% were triggered by OOA. By my calculation that is more like 16% with 61% of triggers unknown, unless you are allowed to cherry pick the data.

I would disagree that it's cherry-picking the data. The guys at DAN are really good about only including data where they're got reliable information. Given that the reports come to them from a myriad of sources, while perhaps they could speculate as to the trigger, those chose a standard where they can have a high degree of confidence in the numbers/data.

For all we know, the 550 cases without data would also show 41% OOA. Or maybe 0% OOA. Or maybe 100% OOA. We just don't know. And rather than skew the data one way or another just so you can include all the cases, it seems better just to deal with what you know to be true.

And it's not like 350 cases over a 10-year period is an insignifcant number. It should still have some statistical relevance.

I'm not saying this is not a significant problem but, sensationalizing the findings like a third rate news broadcast does not help credibility.

Nor does trivializing them.

- Ken

 

[Ken Kurtis]

What is to stop them from running down the pony bottle too? That is ridiculous!

Maybe it's just a CA thing, but I've seen people diving with a 13cf pony who use their pony as a bottom-time extender. They run their main down to 300psi or so, switch to the ponyand exhaust it (or close to it), and then switch back to the 300psi in their main for their ascent. Never said it was smart but am simply saying it happens.

As for the idea of pulling people's certification card for running low 2 times.... that is ridiculously impractical... I thought you were making a joke.

No, I'm actually quite serious about that. Think of it this way: I don't think anyone on this thread is advocating that running out of ai ris a good thing. i think we're all in agreement that it's a bad and dangerous thing.

Haven't we seen people on ScubaBoard talk about "bad" instructors and wonder why their agency doesn't pull their instructor cert? How is this any different?

If you have someone who runs out of air, let alone runs out of air frequently, why - as a diving community - would we tolerate bad/dangerous behavior? It puts the diver at risk, puts other divers at risk, drives up insurance rates, causes emotional turmoil for those involved in the accident, etc., etc. There's simply no upside to a diver dying.

We certainly have no qualms about telling someone that their experience level doesn't qualify them for a specific dive (say, ther Andrea Doria) and have them skip that dive. How is saying that their diving skills are so bad they shouldn't be diving, period, until their skills improve not the same tyype of thing?

And don't lose sight of the fact that I have spent the last 5+ years involved as an expert witness in a case where the diver made (IMHO) numerous errors and bad decisions that created the very situation over which he sued yet he was awarded $1.68 million dollars. And, as an industry, we'll pay for that one way or the other.

So the idea that bad divers are an inconvenience and can be tolerated is something that just doesn't jive with me.

- Ken

 

[Ken Kurtis]

I'm just going through all the posts but I do want to say one thing . . .

FANTATSIC DISCUSSION!!!

I think everyone's doing a great job of articulating what they're thinking or what issues should be examined and just wanted to say thanks to all. I think stuff like this - actually thinking about what we do and why - is what makes us better divers and instructors.

- Ken

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Ken, I don't know how the industry can solve this since the consumer demand is for simpler, and quicker, training.

Interestingly, this same thing was mentioned at the DAN Fatalities Workshop. My response was, "So what? Who says the tail has to wag the dog? Since when do non-certified consumers know more than active long-time diving proferssionals? What they want and what they need are sometimes two different things."

I'm sure we all have stories about divers who have done "quickie" classes only to feel at the conclusion that they're not as well-prepared or comfortable to be on their own as they had hoped.

But the amazing thing to me is that in 30 years of teaching diving, I've never had a single student complain to me at the end of a class, "You taught me too much . . ."



- Ken

 

[Ken Kurtis]

If the diver had been properly trained for OOA emergencies and believed it was no big deal, there would not have been a panicked ascent to the surface.

Cart before the horse I believe. If the diver had been trianed NOT to run OOA under any cirumstances, the rest is moot.

I still think the over-riding emphasis has to be on not running out of air, not how to better respond to it when you (inevitably) do.

The flaw I see in your logic is that you're still not eliminating the problem (out-of-air), you're simply advocating a better solution to the problem.

The thing that would be very interesting to find out (and to my knowledge this data simply does not exist) would be:

1. How many people run out of air, total, in a year.
2. How many survive?
3. Of those that survive, how did they survive (which would give some indication of which OOA options had the best success rate).
4. Of those that died, what OOA option did they try?

I have no idea how we'd collect the info (I've already mentioned this to some of the DAN folks) but it would really give us a complete picture of what's happening, good and bad.

- Ken

 

[flots am]

I have another take that requires donning full body armor. Statistics cannot prove or disprove, but I believe that the actual cause of most of those deaths was not out of air, it was panic resulting from inadequate personal ability to deal with being out of air.

Absolutely. There are any number of threads here that involve someone running OOA, panicking and possibly bolting for the surface.

With extremely few exceptions all these incidents could have been turned into interesting dinner conversation if both buddies had followed the emergency procedures taught in OW training.

OOA can be handled as:

• "OH SH**!!!!!" <bolt for the surface, maybe breathe or not> or
• Get buddy's attention, ask for an air-share; do a nice slow ascent and a safety stop.

Oddly enough, the first one is a real coin toss as to the outcome, while the second one can be a complete snooze with enough practice.

flots.

 

[boulderjohn]

Cart before the horse I believe. If the diver had been trianed NOT to run OOA under any cirumstances, the rest is moot.

I still think the over-riding emphasis has to be on not running out of air, not how to better respond to it when you (inevitably) do.

The flaw I see in your logic is that you're still not eliminating the problem (out-of-air), you're simply advocating a better solution to the problem.

I only spoke to the response to being OOA; I did not suggest that being OOA was not a problem in itself. Of course we should teach people not to get OOA, but once they are in that situation, they should also have the knowledge that this is a problem they can solve without a panicked, breath-holding bolt to the surface, and they should have the skill to execute it. I don't see refusing to train them for this emergency as a solution, which is tantamount to giving them the death sentence for their first infraction.

One would probably have to dig deeply into the archives of the I2I forum to find it, but I talked about problems I saw in the way we train students in this regard years ago.

 

[boulderjohn]

Ken, I don't know how the industry can solve this since the consumer demand is for simpler, and quicker, training. But, I do believe that we, the teachers, could do a better job by focusing on those things which are, in fact, important and ignore those things which, in reality, aren't that relevant. I thought the DAN stats highlighted that we are teaching some of the wrong things -- I still believe that. I wish, under the system I have decided to use, I could spend more time and energy on preventing an accident that is most likely to happen -- going OOA and/or losing buoyancy control.

I think this is solvable. Ready for another project?

 

[Peter Guy]

spoolin wrote

I assume that the reason DCS is emphasized in OW training, and gas management is given the arguably too-simple treatment it gets, is because for recreational diving DCS is likely to hurt you, quite possibly badly, while indifferent gas management is likely to have very little consequence at all - assuming no panic or unsafe ascent.

But it appears your assumption is just flat out wrong -- at least IF the DAN stats are anywhere near accurate.

I admit I don't know much about DCS, why it occurs for example, but I do know that there does appear to be a very significant link between time and depth. And what do we know about the Basic Open Water Diver -- she doesn't (or at least isn't supposed to) go very deep nor can she stay there very long.

If the BOWD stays anywhere near the limits of her training, she'll max out at 60 feet or so and even on air she will have a long time to look around -- PER THE NDLs. But, if she is in the tropics, she'll probably be breathing off an 80 (that's what, 12 L in the rest of the world?) with a SAC of 0.6 (and if male, 0.8). Now IF she has followed her training, she has done the basic calculation (here I'm using the PADI RDP) and found she can stay down for 55 minutes so that is her plan -- afterall, the shop is giving me a tank and shouldn't I be allowed to dive for the whole time? Ooops, at a SAC of 0.6 (which is being very generous for a new diver) she runs out of air at 42 minutes while her boyfriend runs out at 32 minutes.

So tell me, which is more important to plan, your NDL or your Air supply?

----------------------
John, SURE!!! But are we going to have an agency if Lesser has his way?

 

[AggieDiver]

Cart before the horse I believe. If the diver had been trianed NOT to run OOA under any cirumstances, the rest is moot.

I still think the over-riding emphasis has to be on not running out of air, not how to better respond to it when you (inevitably) do.

The flaw I see in your logic is that you're still not eliminating the problem (out-of-air), you're simply advocating a better solution to the problem.

Ken, I disagree here. There are ways to run OOA that have nothing to do with training (i.e. equipment failure) and that are beyond the control of the diver. If you focus your training on not running OOA, then if you do end up OOA (for whatever reason), you will be unequipped to handle the situation. It is the same as the abstinence only sex ed example I used. If you focus all of the teaching on telling kids not to have sex, then if that fails and they do end up having sex, they are on their own and all your teaching was for naught. At least in the case of abstinence, the kids ultimately have an initial choice of whether to have sex. In the event of an equipment caused OOA, the diver has no choice in the matter and can't use their gas management skills to make it not happen...he or she is stuck having to deal with the situation as it is instead of how it was planned it to be. On the other hand, if you teach how to deal with the situation calmly and without panic, it doesn't matter how they wound up there, they are equipped to escape with their life.

The thing that would be very interesting to find out (and to my knowledge this data simply does not exist) would be:

1. How many people run out of air, total, in a year.
2. How many survive?
3. Of those that survive, how did they survive (which would give some indication of which OOA options had the best success rate).
4. Of those that died, what OOA option did they try?

I have no idea how we'd collect the info (I've already mentioned this to some of the DAN folks) but it would really give us a complete picture of what's happening, good and bad.

- Ken

I agree completely. The thing that is missing are the stats on how often divers survive being OOA. If there are a small number of OOA situations and they usually lead to fatalities (unlikely IMHO), then it would suggest a need to train to avoid OOA situations entirely. If there are a large number of OOA situations and very few lead to fatalities (very likely IMHO), then it would lead to the conclusion that being OOA isn't as dangerous as not knowing how to react safely to it and would suggest that training how to deal with OOA is the way to go to limit the relatively few fatal situations.