Another Diver Mayday

[poter]

It seems that almost every weekend there is mayday for a Diver, why is that?
Yesterday there was a mayday around noon co-ordinated by Solent coastguard, the Diver casualty was obviously in a bad way as the helicopter rescue put a man aboard and then took the victim to Pool, I assume there is a specialist unit there?

But why are there so many, is it just depth & cold, lack of training. what?

poter.

<hr width=100% size=1><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by poter on 20/06/2004 09:14 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[snowleopard]

heard two diver maydays during a recent passage solent-plymouth, both sounding terminal but haven't heart a sailing mayday for years. i think it's simply that diving is a dangerous sport. can't be lack of training as no dive schools/clubs will take untrained divers out without adequate supervision.

only my opinion of course, i don't dive

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[Talbot]

A lot of diver training is carried out in warm water with good visibility and low current, where errors can easily be corrected and are normally not serious. If someone who has learnt under those conditions, tries to dive in UK water with insufficient thermal insulation, strong currents, and vis sometimes nil, and then adds in a deep dive (cause he believes he has all this experience) and something goes wrong, they are then in trouble. If they panic, then they are a casualty before they even reach the surface! If you are diving with a club, there is not normally a problem as experience is normally checked carefully, the problem is increasing because more people are coming back from holiday and rather than join a club, they decide to try it first with a commercial organisation. Some are very good at checking, some are not!

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[LadyInBed]

Reasons are numerous.
Training used to be a slow process within a club, now through pressure from competing diving organisations zero to hero courses are more the norm. Diving technology has like sailing exploded, pushing the limits that the average diver can achieve. Availability of GPS and fish finders makes wrecks that used to be difficult / impossible to find easy to locate and dive. Diving equipment has become much more complex. Mixed gas diving, that used to be the preserve of professional divers, is now available to sports divers. Inland clubs that decamp to the seaside for the weekend and dive come hell or high water (an old problem). As the sport expanded, there are now many more divers in the water at any one time, so it might even be that the accident rate to total dive minutes ratio has actually improved!

Take your pick.


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[AlexL]

The accident 'Rate' in UK diving is not significanty changing to any degree but as more people are diving, more are having accidents. Like most sports there is loads of Bo****ks talked about how UK clubs training well hard milatary style diving is so much better than other 'commercial' organizations and how everything UK based is so much better (i.e if you can dive in the UK you can dive anywhere attitude). None of the stats actually bear this out however. (I am a PADI diving instructor and I have dived and taught people from all training backgrounds and I must say that there is very little difference between people based on training, most is down to attitude) Generally diving with a 'club' is deemed to be safer, wether this club is BSAC, PADI, SSI etc is fairly irrelevent, what is important is the backup provided by a club.
However now I've finished my pet rant about accusations that all these accidents are caused by fair wether divers, the main reason for the maydays is that pretty much any accident , even including a diver being late to surface is a Mayday. If someone has suspected Decompression sickness the standard response includes a Mayday to the CG. I would imagine that most diver maydays have a relatively benign ending and turn out to be false alarms, although very necessary at the time.
Interestingly according to the RNLI and BSAC stats a large number of Diver rescues are actually 'boating' issues - i.e something wrong with the dive boat

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[ParaHandy]

yes ... agree. Diving in UK adds to depth compared with warmer waters elsew.

the maydays i've been hearing (3 on saturday june bank hol) have been uncontrolled ascents from 50mtrs and each time the diver was helicoptered to portsmouth. coming up from 50mtrs fast isn't good for you ... wondered if this was consequence of them closing the Hood as a dive site (portland harbour - 30+mtrs down around there on a w/e was like clapham junction) so the technical dive lot were having to go to less familiar sites ....

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[AlexL]

I'd be suprised if the closing of the hood caused people to Dive a 50m wreck instead. I've dived the Hood a number of times and never got more than 15-16m. There are far more suitable wrecks nearby - the Sky @ 30m, the M2 @ 35m, the Black Hawk @18m and the Kyarra in Swanage at 25m.
Like you say an uncontrolled ascent from 50m is not good for you, but anyone down at 50m is likely to be pretty experienced so the cause could be pretty much anything really.

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[Andrew_Fanner]

Why has the Hood been closed? Too unstable?

<hr width=100% size=1>Two beers please, my friend is paying.

 

[AlexL]

apparently, but I believe there is also some local politiking involved - maybe someone more involved in the Local Diving comunity can shed some light on it

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[duncan]

I would have to agree that the seemingly high number of calls is primarily because any diver issue is pretty much an automatic Mayday, especially for any comercial operation. In the context of being life threatening they are probably the most valid Maydays in the Solent?Poole area during the summer months!

Re the UK - the main issue seems to be the pressure of finding a good dive and matching it to conditions. This inevitably seems to put pressure on leading to marginal situations - especially with regards to tides. IHere I start speculating....... but it seems reasonable that this then leads to seperations then uncontrolled decents?

<hr width=100% size=1>madesco madidum ..../forums/images/icons/smile.gif

 

[Oldhand]

There is a decompression chamber in Poole.

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[longjohnsilver]

The Hood is relatively shallow, about 15 metres, and last time I dived it around 15 years ago it was breaking up so has no doubt been deemed as dangerous.

Having been a victim, if that's the correct word for it, of a bend, I speak with a little knowledge of what the causes may be and the treatment involved. There are various forms of the bends and ascending too fast is only one type of a bend. This will usually happen to a less expeienced diver who maybe panics on their ascent. I believe that most bends happen at relatively shallow depths involving longer times underwater, quite often with a fair amount of exertion. Most are unexplainable as often the dives are well within the tables

The risks in shallow diving are very much reduced by using nitrox, an oxygen enriched fill of air, and also sticking to air tables.

As for each bend being a mayday, not sure I agree entirely with this. Mine certainly wasn't, didn't even know it was a bend at the time, and suspect this is the case for many divers. We all go into self denial! However where it is a clear cut case then a mayday is the correct procedure to follow.

Now as for the modern training regimes churning out incompetent divers, there are arguments both ways, but I do not see how someone can be deemed to be competent after a 4 day training course and 4 open water shallow dives! The whole training scene has just become too commercial and the only real beneficiaries are the equipment manufacturers, the training organisations and the dive schools.

Most people trained in this way dive only occasionally or give up within the first couple of years. As with most things only regular diving activity and thus expeience make a more competent diver, but that in itself increases the chances of a bend. I think the figure of one bend per thousand dives is fairly accurate, and the risk increases with age being overweight! Not much hope for me then!! But I still love being underwater and will continue to dive for as long as I can. I'm planning on at least another 20 years or more.

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[Peppermint]

Re: Another Reason May Be

Pro dive boats are paranoid about late returns and will declare a "Mayday" if a diver is late up. Even if just by a few minutes sometimes. They also shout "Mayday" if someone looks ill or off colour when they've come out of the water.

Diving related illness's hit you quick and it's best to get help if you've any doubts at all.

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[snowleopard]

and today....

we hear on west country news of the body of an unidentified diver found 9M south of plymouth. apparently been out there some time. how could that have happened?

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[longjohnsilver]

Re: and today....

Quite easy, unfortunately not all divers lost underwater are recovered for one reason or another.

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[pyrojames]

There was a double MOB MayDay last Wednesday in teh western Solent. I would guess that I hear about one a fortnight for sailing.



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[snowleopard]

Re: and today....

today's news suggests his buddy is still out there.

think i'll try to stay on the surface.

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[longjohnsilver]

Re: and today....

No, that's what I originally thought, seems this man was lost going out to his boat in Mylor, another person seen in the dinghy.

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[snowleopard]

Re: and today....

you're right, i confused the diver off plymouth with the guy in overalls off the lizard. strange coincidence. have they identified the diver and where he came from yet?

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[longjohnsilver]

Re: and today....

I have no idea and suspect we won't find out, now an old story.

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