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
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.
Defensive Diving, Part 2
“Dive the same way as you drive. Watch the ocean as you watch the road.”
In Part I of this two-part series (see issue 100), I made a correlation between scuba diving and driving a car, particularly in the context of learning how to anticipate and assess dangerous situations, make well-informed sensible decisions and stay safe—things that motorists tend to group together under the catch-all phrase of defensive driving.
Defensive Diving, Part 1
Defensive diving is like defensive driving ... in principle
When we learn to scuba dive, we are given a little knowledge and taught some basic skills. We take a theory test and demonstrate that we can perform the skills and that’s it, we get a licence.
A Brick Can Do That!
In scuba diving, going down and staying down are not the difficult bits (a brick can do that). Coming up again is the part that requires skill.
On 11 May 1996, five people died near the summit of Mount Everest. Two were expedition leaders, one was a professional guide and two were their clients. The events were first recounted in the book Into Thin Air written by journalist Jon Krakauer, who was up there on the mountain that day.
The Lone Wolf
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Simon Pridmore
The scene for this story is a liveaboard in Southeast Asia, which, on most of its itineraries, would offer guests four dives a day and imposed a 60-minute maximum dive time for each dive. Divers were also asked to stay together on a dive, and follow their guide. There were 12 divers and three guides, so each guide would usually be leading four divers.
Risk and Uncertainty
Novel situations increase the likelihood of error clearing nets isn't a simple task. Photo by Gareth Lock.
Why numbers don’t mean much when it comes to your behaviours!
Diver Error Highlights the Lethality within the System
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Debriefing allows lessons to be learned—successes and failures. Photo by Gareth Lock.
Diving is not without risk—there is always a chance of death. There is always a latent or potential lethality within the “system”—where system is defined as the equipment, people and the physical, social or cultural environment. We cannot make diving 100 percent safe despite what anyone tells you. We can make things safer, but we cannot make diving safe.
What Does It Take to be a "Good Diver"? Part II
Technical diver in Lake Baikal, Russia. Photo by Andrey Bizyukin.
You are chatting with a diving friend and the conversation turns to mutual acquaintances. “Do you know Bob and Carol?” your friend asks. “Oh yes, good divers!” you reply. We will usually refer to someone as a good diver when they are not around. We will rarely say it to their face. And it is something that we all rather hope people say about us behind our backs.
The Concept of Failure Points
Failure points is a very important concept in the technical diving world, which is highly relevant to every form and level of scuba diving, but it is rarely addressed and often neglected.
Risk-Taking in Diving: Is it Worth it?
Diving is a sport which has an inherent risk of death or serious injury due to the aquatic environment in which the activity takes place. These risks are not just limited to drowning or decompression sickness, but many other issues like entanglement, injuries from the flora and fauna, or trauma.