When An Incident Is Only That

[KevinNM]

The Army uses the word accident, the Navy and Air Force uses the word mishap when classifying events that result in deaths, injuries or damaged/destroyed equipment.

Naval Aircraft Mishap Severity Classes
https://safety.army.mil/Portals/0/D.../Army_Accident_Classification_pre12272013.pdf

 

[boulderjohn]

The issue is not the exact words being used; the issue is the overall idea that there is a difference between something going wrong and being acted upon appropriately and safely as trained and something going wrong and resulting in injury or death because training was not followed.

 

[fsardone]

The issue is not the exact words being used; the issue is the overall idea that there is a difference between something going wrong and being acted upon appropriately and safely as trained and something going wrong and resulting in injury or death because training was not followed.

True, but even if we go down and everybody else stays topside or goes up flying, there is no need to use accepted words backward !
Words matter, IMHO.

 

[boulderjohn]

True, but even if we go down and everybody else stays topside or goes up flying, there is no need to use accepted words backward !
Words matter, IMHO.

Accepted by whom? Different organizations accept those words differently.

 

[fsardone]

@boulderjohn
I do not wish to derail the thread but if you do a search on google with "emergency vs incident" you might notice that the definition is coherent with what I said in:
-health and safety
-aviation
-business
and a few others.
See for example:
emergencies crises and disasters

Also even if hardly authoritative a good definition is here
Emergency - Wikipedia
Very often the problem is to distinguish between an Accident and an Incident and therefore the Mishap definition of the military. But once again I do not want to

If there is the need to reinvent the wheel be my guest, accident analysis has been developed and perfected in the aerospace industry where checklist have been introduced and now are being adopted in many other industries. I think best practices have been developed there and they keep being perfected there so that is where I source the language from.
For the way things are done see:
ASRS - Aviation Safety Reporting System
ASRS CALLBACK - Aviation Safety Reporting System

Kind regards

 

[RayfromTX]

@boulderjohn
I do not wish to derail the thread but if you do a search on google with "emergency vs incident" you might notice that the definition is coherent with what I said in:
-health and safety
-aviation
-business
and a few others.
See for example:
emergencies crises and disasters

Also even if hardly authoritative a good definition is here
Emergency - Wikipedia
Very often the problem is to distinguish between an Accident and an Incident and therefore the Mishap definition of the military. But once again I do not want to

If there is the need to reinvent the wheel be my guest, accident analysis has been developed and perfected in the aerospace industry where checklist have been introduced and now are being adopted in many other industries. I think best practices have been developed there and they keep being perfected there so that is where I source the language from.
For the way things are done see:
ASRS - Aviation Safety Reporting System
ASRS CALLBACK - Aviation Safety Reporting System

Kind regards

If you are going to argue a case of semantics your link should not support the opposing view.

From your link
"Examples of incidents could amount to a car accident, a theft or an assault; in fact there are many types of event that could be described as ‘an incident’. Incidents “are not solely concerned with major accidents involving fire, death and explosion” (Elliott, Swartz & Herbane, 2010) an incident could equally be a case of industrial espionage, the discovery of underhand business tactics or the breakdown of a major part of a company’s infrastructure. In their book, Business Continuity Management a Crisis Management Approach, Elliott et al cite P&O’s maiden voyage of their ship ‘the Aurora’ as an example of an incident that was dealt with, in the most part, successfully. The ship sailed out of port with nearly 2,000 passengers on board only to return 24 hours later due to breaking down (Elliott et al, 2010). The ship developing a fault was the trigger incident that could very well have developed into a public relations disaster for the company if not for a very quick response by senior management and a high compensation bill. If P&O had not had plans in place their response may not have been quite so quick. They had an emergency response plan in place to respond to the incident with their public relations team ready and waiting to offer “a full refund and the offer of a free cruise, the package cost P&O £6m but succeeded in controlling any negative publicity for the company” (Elliott et al, 2010). Reputation is extremely important to a business; had they delayed their response their losses could have been a lot greater."

It seems clear to me that this paragraph is defining incident as the event that is out of the ordinary and potentially life threatening and the response to it determines whether it becomes a disaster or a crisis. It really is a case of semantics and I doubt that you will change what is a common use of the word. I understand it to mean the same thing John does but it really isn't relevant to the positive discussion that has been generated by this thread.

If you are bothered by this usage and would like to modify people's understanding of the words incident, accident and emergency perhaps a thread about that would generate a more coherent discussion of that separate issue. If you decide to do so I will follow the thread as it might be interesting to learn how language in this area is interpreted differently in the many different English speaking countries.

 

[victorzamora]

When you realize your reg is not working, you don't have your lungs full, and you can't just keep breathing on it. That's a major difference. How long can you hold your breath with full lungs? 30seconds? 1 minute? Now try with empty lungs. Add to that that you'll probably have a "oh ****" moment, and suddenly going through removing a BC can seem a lot less viable.
YMMV...

I think what's being suggested as a solution is being misinterpreted. The way to proceed is not to remove the BCD, place it in front of you, manipulate the valve, then don the BCD again. The way I was taught was to do it was to loosen the waist belt, which would allow the tank to come up which would allow me to reach it. The maneuver is to loosen the bcd and then reach behind you, not remove it completely.

It's a simple thing, honestly...and something I did even if I COULD reach the valve in BM. One hand reached to loosen the waist band and the other was reaching for the valve.

The best thing, of course, is for the tank to be fully open before you splash....but this thread wouldn't exist if that were an easy solution.