Utah Commercial Diving Accident

[DeepSeaDan]

I have to say, that I have really learned alot by reading this thread. I was always under the impression that commercial diving was Hard hat territory only. The reason for this, is that a commercial outfit visits my shop regularely, and what they dive is shallow 20 foot canals and pump stations in the everglades. They told me that OSHA requirements mandate that they dive Hard hats. Now is that a Federal or State / Regional requirement? Is it possibly an insurance issue by the contracting company or the Outfit's carrier?

They needed another diver a couple weeks ago, but COULD NOT hire a SCUBA tained individual.

Could the requirements be different in Florida?

Thanks for any answers guys...

Hopefully Aquamaster will answer the specifics of your question as I am unfamiliar with the finer points of U.S. diving regs. I can tell you that all of the companys I worked for over the years did not employ scuba - period. They'd ship out jobs with the appropriate surface supplied spread for the task ( there were 3 modes: surface air, surface gas & saturation ). I would not have worked for them if it wasn't so. I suspect all commercial divers working in the U.S. must be certified by a recognized commercial diving school ( I did a 2 year program at F.I.T. in Jensen Beach. That campus is gone now but it sure was fun while it lasted! ).

Best,
DSD

 

[DA Aquamaster]

We would dive below the same dam in the tailrace for fun, but if you got to close the back flow could get interesting and suck you toward the dam so the general rule was to start at least 100 yards downstream.

Divers would often dive above the dam near the intakes as well and if you got closer than a couple hundred yards or so from the intakes on a high flow day, you could tell as the silt, etc would be moving in the direction of the intakes. Spooky, and more than enough to encourage you to dive somewhere else.

All of my commercial work over the last 20 years has been inland diving. The reality is that the jobs are small and sporadic and often short notice so it is a sideline for just about everyone I know who does it. Most of the work is search and recovery, marina maintence, intake or headgate inspection and repair. Other than low viz/zero viz, potential entanglement hazards, cold water and the occasional ice dive, it is not real challenging diving with (obviously) no deco or diving beyond recreational limits.

I suspect insurance requirements play a more restrictive role than OSHA regs for commercial operators who have divers working for them in an employee relationship. More perceived risk equal higher premiums and if you have to pass the higher insurance cost onto the customer it does not take long for it to be cheaper to just to skip scuba based services.

State and local regs could also come into play, but that is probably only an issue in states where commerical diving is a significant industry with a lobby, vested interests, etc. It is possible that union rules could be a factor in some areas and situations as well.

There is of course also the possibility that commerical operators in a given area may promote the "OSHA forbids scuba" argument to improve the cash flow and create an excuse to bid jobs at a much higher rate. The going rate for one or two scuba divers would be a lot less lucrative on a given job than the rates for a helmet diver and assocaited surface support if you have all the employees sitting around bored anyway.

Also, the economic reality is that the farther inland you get, the less available commercial hard hat diving operations tend to be and the more expensive the travel and shipping arrangements are to get them there. So scuba is a more common option as it is often the only cost effective option for smaller jobs.

But...my thoughts are that I would not be real hot to go dive a shallow 20 ft deep canal or pump station in the everglades on scuba either. The viz no doubt sucks and there be 'gators there. It's probably way overstating the risk, but alligators do seem to try to eat a jogger on rare occassions and I'd prefer to have a tether and com so that the tender can scream with me and maybe try to pull me up if one decides that maybe divers are edible too. I'd much prefer to limit my risk of being eaten while alone and unattended to swarms of killer rock bass and bluegill or maybe an irritable musky.

 

[Mike Edmonston]

We would dive below the same dam in the tailrace for fun, but if you got to close the back flow could get interesting and suck you toward the dam so the general rule was to start at least 100 yards downstream.

Divers would often dive above the dam near the intakes as well and if you got closer than a couple hundred yards or so from the intakes on a high flow day, you could tell as the silt, etc would be moving in the direction of the intakes. Spooky, and more than enough to encourage you to dive somewhere else.

All of my commercial work over the last 20 years has been inland diving. The reality is that the jobs are small and sporadic and often short notice so it is a sideline for just about everyone I know who does it. Most of the work is search and recovery, marina maintence, intake or headgate inspection and repair. Other than low viz/zero viz, potential entanglement hazards, cold water and the occasional ice dive, it is not real challenging diving with (obviously) no deco or diving beyond recreational limits.

I suspect insurance requirements play a more restrictive role than OSHA regs for commercial operators who have divers working for them in an employee relationship. More perceived risk equal higher premiums and if you have to pass the higher insurance cost onto the customer it does not take long for it to be cheaper to just to skip scuba based services.

State and local regs could also come into play, but that is probably only an issue in states where commerical diving is a significant industry with a lobby, vested interests, etc. It is possible that union rules could be a factor in some areas and situations as well.

There is of course also the possibility that commerical operators in a given area may promote the "OSHA forbids scuba" argument to improve the cash flow and create an excuse to bid jobs at a much higher rate. The going rate for one or two scuba divers would be a lot less lucrative on a given job than the rates for a helmet diver and assocaited surface support if you have all the employees sitting around bored anyway.

Also, the economic reality is that the farther inland you get, the less available commercial hard hat diving operations tend to be and the more expensive the travel and shipping arrangements are to get them there. So scuba is a more common option as it is often the only cost effective option for smaller jobs.

But...my thoughts are that I would not be real hot to go dive a shallow 20 ft deep canal or pump station in the everglades on scuba either. The viz no doubt sucks and there be 'gators there. It's probably way overstating the risk, but alligators do seem to try to eat a jogger on rare occassions and I'd prefer to have a tether and com so that the tender can scream with me and maybe try to pull me up if one decides that maybe divers are edible too. I'd much prefer to limit my risk of being eaten while alone and unattended to swarms of killer rock bass and bluegill or maybe an irritable musky.

That was a great, and entertaining answer

By the way, everglade bluegills are a hell of alot worse than any gator...

But they can be fun, in fact, I have been known to zip tie a small bait to a friend's manifold while diving some florida lakes.

Bait : $5

Time to zip tie: 10 seconds

Watching your buddy relentlessly beat off swarms of Bluegills, while wondering what the hell's going on... PRICELESS

 

[DA Aquamaster]

That is way funny...I'm going to have to give that a try.

 

[PaulSmithTek]

Gotta love the Delta-P factor!

 

[muddiver]

I think I see where the disagreemen lies in this conversation. No disrespect, but I see DA Aquamaster's definition of "commercial diving" as: I got paid to dive. Where I am coming from is that there is no place in Civil Engineering Diving (i.e. heavy construction or serious industrial) for SCUBA.

I throw this definition out there because I differ in opinion from the majority of hardhat divers in that I see SCUBA as a really good tool for inspection, search and light recovery. The U.S. Navy uses SCUBA for a lot of their diving work and it can be done in a very safe manner. But, that does not open the door to use SCUBA, let alone a recreationnaly certified diver, for any and all under water work.

That aside, it seems to me (just personal opinion here) a lot of people look at a task underwater and focus on the task and forget that there are other aspects of accessing the work site. Like what do you do when you are 20' down a ladder in a water filled tank or cistern and you get sucked up aginst a 4" or 6" outlet that nobody mentioned is there?

 

[z3r0c00l]

So many instances of working divers (commercial, body recovery) getting stuck in very shallow water and drowning. One poor soul actually got tangled in his orbit line in zero viz and swam up to within a few feet of the surface only to drown there when his tank dropped. There is a great argument for SS air, and also for constant communications that scuba might also not include. But a guy diving to recover an anchor in Florida? You may call that commercial, but I don't think that calls for a standard dress or SS.

So many use putt-putt Hooka systems rather than robust SS air, I have to say scuba starts to sound good in that case.

 

[pipedope]

The original story doesn't give enough info to even make a good guess as to what happened.

It is always a bad day when someone dies trying to make a living.

As to the 'rules', there are lots of twists and turns in them and many ways to rig for most any given job.
The bottom line is plan the job for safely getting the job done.

Equipment choice depends on what is needed or desired for the job, what is available, time pressures to complete the job, etc.

I did a lot of working dives in Florida and it was rare for to work deeper than 20' and most was less than 10'.
Gators were usually not a problem unless people were feeding or harassing them.
You still want to know how they act and what they like so as to avoid suprise encounters.


In the it is a matter of properly trained and experienced people using proper procedures in appropriate gear to safely complete the job and have ways to handle unexpected situations.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

I think I see where the disagreemen lies in this conversation. No disrespect, but I see DA Aquamaster's definition of "commercial diving" as: I got paid to dive. Where I am coming from is that there is no place in Civil Engineering Diving (i.e. heavy construction or serious industrial) for SCUBA.

I throw this definition out there because I differ in opinion from the majority of hardhat divers in that I see SCUBA as a really good tool for inspection, search and light recovery. The U.S. Navy uses SCUBA for a lot of their diving work and it can be done in a very safe manner. But, that does not open the door to use SCUBA, let alone a recreationnaly certified diver, for any and all under water work.

That aside, it seems to me (just personal opinion here) a lot of people look at a task underwater and focus on the task and forget that there are other aspects of accessing the work site. Like what do you do when you are 20' down a ladder in a water filled tank or cistern and you get sucked up aginst a 4" or 6" outlet that nobody mentioned is there?

Your last example is clearly covered by the regs as it a confined space. It is again however an issue of common sense. Personally, I am not real comfortable entering, for example, an intake in 8 ft of water if the possibility exists to become trapped. Communication would be a minimum and surface supplied gas woudl be very nice to have. However a FFM with coms, a gas block, and a bailout bottle would be adequate for a surface supplied job that clearly still does not require a helmet.

I also agree there is difference in definition of commercial diving, and that this type of inland commercial diving is not equivalent in cost or complexity to, for example, a saturation dive in the north sea. Deeper costs more and brings with it it's own class system and bragging rights, but none of that has any bearing on the OSHA regs regarding what is and is not allowed on scuba.

 

[Nukekyra]

This is an OOOOOLD post, I know. But as I research and help compile data on diving fatalities, I like follow up. This diver was indeed, using SCUBA. And I include a link to the law document telling a little more of the story.
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federa...yndce/3:2009cv01215/78339/32/0.pdf?1274981730