Safety Culture - diving in the zone
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“Thank [beep] for that! How lucky were we? We better not do that again.
Don’t tell anyone though, we don’t want to look like amateurs...”
Safety Culture
Divers Adrift – Surviving Being Lost at Sea
The more difficult a wreck is to get to, the more rewarding its discovery, but also the more likely it is that you’ll run into trouble during or after your dive. Challenges become hazards quickly, and many offshore adventures are rife with risk factors that make it more likely that you’ll surface from your dive without a boat in sight.
Whether your charter sprung a leak and became a new dive site or drifted off in search of another diver here’s what you need to know to survive.
Gas Management 101
Checking your air a few times during a dive and coming up as the gauge nears zero is not dive planning. Before you hit the water this summer, brush up on the basics of gas management — this will help keep you safe and might even extend your bottom time.
Neurological DCS for Divers
Whether you have the skills and training to care for a diver yourself or you want to be prepared to help until a more experienced caregiver is available, learn the basics of assessing post-dive symptoms.
Articles like this one are no replacement for training, but they are a good way to refresh or build your awareness of the importance of emergency-response skills.
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Avoiding Bad Gas – Tips for Preventing Breathing-Gas Contamination
Sources of contamination include hydrocarbons from compressor lubricants, carbon monoxide (CO) from engine exhaust (or overheated compressor oil) and impurities from the surrounding environment such as methane and carbon dioxide (CO2). Dust particles in breathing gas can also be hazardous, potentially impairing respiratory function or damaging diving equipment. Excessive moisture can cause corrosion in scuba cylinders and other dive gear and may cause regulators to freeze due to adiabatic cooling (heat loss following increased gas volume).
Look After Your People
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Simon Pridmore
In the book Into Thin Air, journalist Jon Krakauer tells the story of five people who died near the summit of Mount Everest in 1996. Two were expedition leaders, one was a professional guide and two were their clients.
Teamwork
If you dive within a team, discuss the characteristics of a high-performing cohesive team described in this article with fellow divers.
There may not be an "I" in team, but there's one in "win", "live", "first" and "dive"!
Rebreather Checklists!
Throughout Rebreather Forum 3 experts from all fields - manufacturing, human interface design, accident analysis, rebreather training and diving - all advocated the use of checklists. The benefits of using this tool were highlighted to ensure that units are correctly built and pre-dive checks completed.
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Just Culture
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Debriefing allows lessons to be learned—successes and failures. Photo by Gareth Lock.
A diver had an oxygen toxicity seizure because an incorrect gas was filled in a cylinder by a dive centre. A baby died because the wrong dose of medication was injected. Who is to blame for the error and how do we try to make sure that these types of incidents aren’t repeated?
Checklists - a tick in the box
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At the Rebreather Forum 3 conference held in Florida in May 2012, a number of presentations were made which advocated the use of checklists as a means to prevent diving incidents from occurring, or at least reducing the likelihood of occurrence.
Safety Culture: What is it and do I have it?
In August 2012, I wrote an article which discussed just culture and what this meant in the context of recreational and technical scuba diving, and using this concept, how we can improve diving safety.