Diving accidents

iangrant

iangrant

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It seems to me that every weekend the poor old coastguard helo gets dragged out to a diver in trouble. Again this weekend India Juliet was scrambled in the Solent to another call.
Where will they take the casualties when Haslar closes is the other question?

Oh and all the bl**dy radio checks that jumped in while casualty working - unbelievable.


Ian
 
Its a dangerous sport and (in my experience and opinion) most divers are very responsible, safety conscious and highly trained.

I read somewhere that there are ten's of thousands of divers in the water on a Bank Holiday weekend so its not suprisisng that now and again some unfortunate person has a problem.
 
i thocht it was poole they took them to (got a barometric chamber there?) ... onyways, the diving casualty rate, as compared with previous years, is dire. wonder what's going on ... BSAC seem to be suggesting quite simple errors but I'm not sure.

re radio checks: same happens all day and every day. it is f*cking stupid
 
i have never yet seen a dive boat display a legal Alpha flag. The requirement is for a flag flown or flag facsimile 1m high, in such a way as visible all round - i.e big stick holding 3 plywood/ally painted "alpha" flags each 1 metre high.

I seem to remeber we had an erudite RYA senior exmainer bounce here a while back compnaining about boats coming too near where he was diving. Turns out he was yet another diver responsible for yet another deserted dinghy that anyone in a powerboat would nip over to investigate...only to discover a tinpot toytown signalling flag laid out over a sponson and ooops...
 
Friend of mine was on that dive and has yet to speak to the person involved, if they say its ok I'll post what happened on here. The casualty is basically ok though.
 
Diving is a potentially dangerous sport and its the nature of the beast that you cannot really wait to see how a situation pans out. If a diver is overdue, or has had a rapid ascent then you need help Now . 9 times out of 10 its Ok but you can't wait for the guy to die and then say, ok this is serious, how about we phone the coastguard!
With the risk of getting a bit political the HSE have come down heavily on diving in the last few years (I am a part time diving instructor, but don't practice any more, mainly due to the HSE's regulatory requirements) and it is now very much necessary to treat every little incident as a fully emergency, or the HSE will get very, very nasty (they have succesfully prosecuted some diving instructors on criminal charges).
Besides at the end of the day, that is what the CG is there for and whilst many would thing many divers irrisponsible, like any persuit some are and some aren't
 
I am very sorry - I really didn't mean to be crass, I do of course hope that the casualty is ok.

But is it me or are there always so many callouts. I think the TV programme on the Coastguard was mostly divers being winched off to Hospital too.


Ian
 
Good to hear Alec.

I think we have had elements of this discussion on here before and 'concluded' that professional skippers have little if any lattitude on what they have to call in.

With the tides as they were last weekend it was probably one of the busiest times there will be in the year.

Couldn't agree more with tcm that the flag issue has become ridiculous - first thing that tells me 'dive boat' rather than fishing or soaking up rays increasingly seems to be a divers float tube, and even then I have to look around to spot the boat!

Radio checks - fact of life and they won't have been able to hear the 'local' conversation in most cases! We get so much one way traffic in Poole it's almost sad. However as I have yet to see large posters in any Marina highlighting the issue (inc Ch67 for Solent) and asking users to do their checks through the marina office instead - there remain many practical things that can be done. Full marks to the CG for their continued cool responses "......in future please use channel 67 for radio checks with Solent CG."
 
Ian

We were out over the weekend as you will know, the chap who was on our boat is a very experienced diver, started back in the 70's. He also heard the incident on our radio and passed the comments, that today, qualifiying hours are jammed into to short a period, in other words, not enough experience is built up before the dives get real serious. It sounded to me like the schools were pushing courses similar to the YM fastrack sytem. Dangerous on the sea surface, deadly beneath it.

I would agree with you, every year more and more maydays go out from dive boats.
 
When I was a diving instructor, between 1970 and the mid eighties, we knew, and taught, that the flag 'Alpha' meant that there was a diver down, keep clear and proceed at slow speed. We did not know that it had to be a rigid replica, 1 meter high and visible all round. We were not expected to know the IRPCS. In fact I had never heard of them. Maybe somewhere here is the cause / answer to the problem. JRT (HWMBO)
 
I've often thought the same. It does seem that there are a lot of call outs, but I don't know if the figures bear it out.
Still, it's good to hear that, usually, the casualty is OK.
 
Becky, I have no axe to grind here but your post took me rather by surprise. No one expects divers to be experts in seamanship but this is ridiculous!

You say you knew that Alpha had to be displayed, but surely it is clear that "displayed" implies "in a manner that others can see it"? Merely drapiing an Alpha flag over a sponson or hanging it limply off a pole in still air is clearly, plainly and obviously not going to work, is it? I don't know about metre size and so on but a rigid Alpha is so blindingly self evident that I am astonished anyone does otherwise.

What on earth did you think would advertise your presence to others if you made no effort for
it to be visible in the first place?
 
Glad to hear there are a few more informed people around that are not quick to complain.

Just to add a little ballance, did anyone hear tha "Mayday" yesterday evening from a boat just outside Langstone? Boat was not in danger. Crew were fine. Skipper was able to anchor & the problem was a broken gearbox. All info above came from the skipper's conversation with coastie who had tasked Pompy Lifeboat to yet another "tow home" and inappropriate use of a Mayday.

Here's some more ballance. I believe a boat off Gurnard called coastie with a fouled prop requesting divers yesterday. Coastie can call on a dive rescue team of volunteers attached to one of the local independant lifeboats. The team is made up of commercial, military AND SPORTS divers.

Boat incidents are far more common than dive but the reality is that some people seem to notice only the divers.

Let's face it, there are good guys and plonkers in every sport. So speaks a raggie, some time stinky & diver who'd only moan at the moaners. So before you moan again, think of the last time you only just got away with "not quite running out of fuel", "getting yourself off the putty" etc etc.
 
[ QUOTE ]
. So before you moan again, think of the last time you only just got away with "not quite running out of fuel", "getting yourself off the putty" etc etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure if that was directed at me or not, but as you replied to my post, it certainly feels as if it was. In which case I must cry "Foul". I wasn't moaning about divers, just agreeing that it seems that there are lot of call outs. I did however make it clear that I don't know what the figures are; it may just be an impression. If it wasn't directed at me then forget my injured feelings!

Does anyone know what the real facts about this are?
 
With respect to the Alpha flag it does concern me that the dive boats will wear the flag at all times - not all of them, but some.

But then again how many anchor balls do we see over the weekends ? Probably as many as the motoring cones that aren't on display... /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
 
Diving accidents need assistance quickly, helo is fastest means, expensive, yes. What about all the wasted resources on the idiot at Salcombe?
 
Joe, I don't think any one implied you were having a go at divers. I think the point (at least the point I was trying to make is) that as a sailor or motorboater you can get yourself out of trouble, or 'almost' have a problem, or have a minor problem and solve it, all without calling mayday. As a dive boat skipper every problem is 'potentially' very serious so must be called in. Also the legal duty of care put on the skippers pretty much insists that everything is called in.
How many maydays do you think there would be if you had to call in everytime every yahct ran aground, or had an engine problem, just in case it developed to something more serious?
 
Hi Joe,

Appologies if you thought I was having a go at you. I was not. I put my bit in primarily about the first post in the thread which certainly seemed to me as having a go at divers & jumping to conclusions.


To All,
If anyone is interested the BSAC we site has incident reports available on-line dating back to 1997.

In the 2004 report, there were 400 reported incidents including 25 fatalities. 6 of the fatalities were BSAC members. I think there are over 50,000 BSAC members. Not all incidents would have involved the emergency services.

What would be interesting is to see the stats from coastie on how many incidents that required their help were dive related. I'd guess not many.

Sure diving is a potentially dangerous sport and if incidents are not jumped on immediately, they can turn nasty very quickly but let's not have a go without some kind of evidence.
 
Dave

Unless I am missing the point, I don't think the divers are at all 'to blame'. Diving is surely a dangerous sport. But the most dangerous part is probably driving to the dive boat rather than the dive itself.

As a diving instuctor yourself, you must realise the importance of good tuition. The point I was making earlier, is the question, are some of the diving schools becoming to commercialy driven at the cost of safety?
 
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