Coastguard rescue BBC. Is WZ a divers taxi?

[Peppermint]

And have they got a multistory decompression chamber at Poole Hospital?

It appears from the programme that a lot of divers get rescued. Is this a fair reflection of the true situation?

 

[AlexL]

No its not a fair reflection. I'm a diver and on any given weekend there are a lot (A LOT) of divers out in the channel. The worst weekend I recall was a beautiful summer Bank holiday weekend a few years ago when about 6 or so divers needed rescuing on the same day - hardly an epidemic and it was reported as absolutely exceptional in the diver magazines. The RNLI publish a lot of stats on diver rescues and the most are actually boat issues , breakdowns etc. So it goes down as a 'diver rescue' when in fact the boat broke down and happened to have divers on board.
I was diving in swanage a few years back, and unfortunately had to go down to chesil beach with a student diver to finish off his open water course, whilst the rest of our club dived a nice wreck followed by a drift dive outside swanage harbour, so I missed all the fun. The dive boat broke down whilst they were all in the water and my wife and 11 other divers surfaced to find an empty horizon and got picked up by the full monty offshore lifeboat about 1/2 hour later! Next day we went down to the pier to go diving again (the boat was fixed) and got loads of (good natured) stick from a 10 year old whos dad was on the lifeboat crew and had to run out on the family lunch the previous day!

 

[Robin]

The short answer is yes. Listen on the VHF any weekend around Poole and you will hear numerous incidents involving divers and the helo flies over our berth to Poole hospital several times per day. In fairness many of the 'incidents' on VHF resolve themselves, for example overdue divers or 'lost' divers are located and the rescue services stood down. Part of the problem seems to be with the strong tides in this area and divers surfacing a long way from the dive boat, especially relevant perhaps to amateurs with their own or club boats who may be less aware of the local tides?

In fairness too to the CG, dive incidents could turn very serious very quickly so IMO they will launch the helo and the lifeboat straight off. My concern is that eventually this kind of service will be picked up on as costly with the inevitable result that we will ALL be asked to pay.

 

[tome]

My wife remarked last season that nearly all the ch16 casualty working she heard seemed to involve divers, so I'd say it's a fair reflection.

 

[StephenSails]

In the summer, BBC south today news programme is constantly reporting on divers getting in to trouble of the Dorset coast.

 

[AIDY]

Would agree... It says it all when I heard a couple of times last year in poole bay a convesation between a dive boat (poole angler) and CG chopper. before giving instructions for the winch man to board he just said shall we do the "The usual".

Nuff said..................

 

[wooslehunter]

I could equally well ask "are the lifeboats a free tow home service for yotties & mobos?"

By the way I'm a diver, yotty & sometime mobo driver so I have no axe to grind.

The MCGA just released it's stats for 2004 so before anyone goes around making acusations, please take a look.

Total occasions of assistance rendered: 2003 = 8,070, 2004 = 8,056
Total number of persons assisted (but not life threatening situations) 2003 = 25118, 2004 = 21600
Total number of person rescued (where life at risk): 2003 = 5689, 2004 = 5276

i.e. only 20-25% of persons assisted are "life at risk".

We all use the sea which is potentially dangerous and we have all had incidents that could have turned nasty. Thankfully, most pass off as just a good bar-room story. A huge amount of incidents are also with hindsight, avoidable. Training, foresight and good seamanship all contribute to a low incident rate.

Even though I've seen many incidents which were just plain stupid, I'll be the last to criticise because the next time it might be me.

 

[Sonnamara]

As far as I can tell the most common problem is with divers becoming separated from the dive boat - I have often watched divers surface in the area off of Brighton - often they are up to 1/2 a mile from the dive boat and even in a slight swell are very difficult to spot. On one occasion we drifted a couple of hundred metres off until we were certain that the dive boat had spotted them. I find it very surprising that more divers don't carry personal EPIRBs.

 

[Robin]

[ QUOTE ]
I could equally well ask "are the lifeboats a free tow home service for yotties & mobos?"

[/ QUOTE ]

Well that is a fair question too. However the RNLI are not funded by the taxpayer as are the rescue helicopters, and the helos don't tow in boats!

I would not want to suggest any change to the way things are done currently by the rescue services, for the very reason that diver incidents could get very serious very quickly so act first question second is sensible IMO. However certainly in our area and probably all along the Channel Coast the numbers of diver incidents seem out of proportion which might suggest that some divers, or some diveboat skippers or DIY divers are not doing something right? I'm not a diver so I don't know, but I have heard PADI(?) people criticising BSAC(?) qualified divers and vice versa - do either of them have a real point to make?

 

[ParaHandy]

there is indeed a thought being mooted by the emergency services to charge for repeated calls on their service where the emergency is primarily due to a failure to provide adequate supervision by those responsible for the care of the casualty ... these are normally trivial cases where, sometimes, the anti is upped by reporting an additional problem such as potential heart difficulties which guarantees their appearance. I doubt (well, I hope so) that diving emergencies would ever be so considered ....

 

[Robin]

I don't like any idea of charging at all, whatever the reason, because that acts as a deterrent to making a call for help, or at least to doing so soon enough. This is my concern I guess over high numbers of diver incidents, that it then raises the whole question of who pays.

 

[AlexL]

[ QUOTE ]
However the RNLI are not funded by the taxpayer as are the rescue helicopters, and the helos don't tow in boats

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah well I dive, but I don't drink and I could object to all my tax spent on ambulances mopping up drunk drivers and pedestrians - but I don't.

BSAC vs PADI bashing has been going on for ever - neither groups have a valid point. Diving in a club (BSAC / PADI / SSA whatever) is safer than not. I'm PADI instructor, BSAC advanced Nitrox diver and our school is PADI, but the club is non-affiliated. Standards of instruction can vary widely -but that is more related to the school and person teaching than the organisation. 70% of all divers on the planet are PADI trained so by definition most of the idiots are PADI trained, as are most of the good divers, but that doesn't mean anything else. As I said before MOST diver rescues are caused by boat mechanical problems - so the reason the CG has to pick up divers is because the boat has broken down. Why is this a diver issue? its a Boating issue. As for doing the usual -well there are hundreds of thousands of active divers in the UK but not many professional dive boats, so many of them will have been through this before -besides the CG halicopters often practice on dive boats, and leisure boats, when they are not busy.

I am a diver and a Yottie, there are good people and F**kwits in both sports, lets not turn this into another elitist, "We're better sea users than anyone else argument"

 

[Robin]

Don\'t shoot the messenger!

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah well I dive, but I don't drink and I could object to all my tax spent on ambulances mopping up drunk drivers and pedestrians - but I don't.

[/ QUOTE ]

I wasn't objecting, but commenting. It is a FACT that helos are taxpayer funded and the RNLI not so (and long may it remaion so). But viewers watching the TV programme may well ask the question.

[ QUOTE ]
As I said before MOST diver rescues are caused by boat mechanical problems - so the reason the CG has to pick up divers is because the boat has broken down

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't see any broken down boats being winched into a helicopter on the TV programme. Anyway I don't agree that most diver rescues are for broken down boats, why should diver's boats break down more than other boats of which there are many many more? Most of the diver incidents we here around this area on VHF are for lost divers, overdue divers or 'bends' and other medical incidents.

[ QUOTE ]
I am a diver and a Yottie, there are good people and F**kwits in both sports, lets not turn this into another elitist, "We're better sea users than anyone else argument"

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not turning this into any kind of argument, though you seem to think so. I am merely commenting on the TV programme and what we see in practice around Poole.

Robin

 

[Jacket]

Like you, I've seen divers surface a long way from their boat, and on a couple of occasions got on the radio to call the dive boat over. I've never understood why divers don't carry some sort of waterproof smoke flare to attract the boat - such a thing should be easy enough to manufacture, and if the smaoke wasn't orange, hopefully setting it off wouldn't result in nearby yachts calling out the lifeboat.

 

[AlexL]

Re: Don\'t shoot the messenger!

Sorry for my confrontational tone - having one of those days. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif, no excuse I know.

Anyhoo I was just recycling some of the RNLI stats. The RNLI (rightly) laid into the diving community a couple of years ago because so many of the problems were basic boat mechanical issues. You are right - they shouldn't break down more often than other boats -and maybe they don't considering the amount of use a dive boat gets. I've been on one dive boat that broke down and on another who towed someone elses RIB back (ran out of fuel!) - which considering the number of UK boat dives i've done (probably only 100 or so) is quite a high incidence rate.
I guess the RNLI deal with the breakdowns and 100% of the CG's involvement is for the other type.
I must say I have noticed an increase in radio traffic for "overdue" divers, "lost" divers in the last couple of years. This may be just assumption but one of the reasons I don't teach diving so much any more is that the HSE have been getting really, really heavy on diving, and my life is too short to spend 100 quid on commercial diving medicals every year, hundreds more on legal insurance, and write a 20 page risk assesment for every dive. This HSE enforcement may be why people are radioing for help when a diver is 5mins overdue, when a couple of years back we would have said "oh its only old fred - he's always bloody late - give him another 5" whearas now whith a Manslaughter conviction awaiting anyone who doesn't cover all the bases the only option is to shout for the CG and then cancel 10 mins later when the diver appears.

 

[AlexL]

ALL uk divers should carry a bright orange surface marker buoy - or safety sausage, if they are not then that is a definate piece of stupidity.

 

[Aardee]

Re: Safety Sausage

Sh*t!!! - A moving lobster pot...oh no...can't be...too clearly marked.

That explains the badly tethered mooring buoy I used last year /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[StugeronSteve]

A very high proprtion of the Solent and Portland VHF emergency traffic seems to involve dive boats.

 

[Das_Boot]

Re: Safety Sausage

I started diving last year. Got vertigo from 3 meter dive (inner ear problem). After seeing the BBC programme seems like a blessing in disguise.

 

[AlexL]

Re: Safety Sausage

That explains the sudden increase in drag on one of my dives last year /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif