Diver Missing

Pataman

According to Todays Indo, Saturaday, there is a Dublin based diver missing off Donegal. Anyone anymore info?

ka

Update from Indo....

"Missing diver found safe "

"A 32-YEAR-old diver was found safe last night after a seven-hour sea search off Malin Head, Co Donegal.

The Dublin man, an experienced diver, had been out with a group. All of the group came up from the seabed, including the missing man, but he suddenly disappeared. "


No other info up here.

Ka:-)

Anemone

This bloke was interviewed on RTE Radio 1 (Marian Finucane) this morning. He had been on a 60m dive and was in the water for 7 or 8 hours. He spent a lot of that time swimming and covered quite a few miles (an impressive feat, imho) until he found a pot line to hold onto. Turned out the pot was a few hundred meters from a pier and somebody there with binoculars spotted him waving the buoy around. At one stage things were looking grim for him as fog came down around him and he had to resort to observing wave direction, for navigation. He didn't give much detail on why he got seperated from the boat after surfacing.

Borzoi

Very good interview with the diver. He was a bit vague on how he had become seperated form the group as they waited to get on the boat after diving the Cartheganian.

I think he was in the water for about 9 hours, from a starting point he claimed was about 5 miles off shore, fighting the currernt untill it changed and he could make progress inland. As Anemone he was eventually spotted just 300mtr offshore by watchers from the pier using binoculars,as he waved a lobster pot bouy to get attention.

Repeatedly he made reference to the 5K worth of kit that he jettisoned to make swimming easier, which obviously didn't include any (visual) signal devices.

But the biggest question would have to be about the boat crew and dive master leaving someone in the water. Reading between the lines it seemed to be a bunch of friends rather than a dive centre per se, but I would like to know who they all were.

NordicDiver

5K worth of equipment dropped, hmm inspiration rebreather?

Any one up for search&recovery course in donegal ? Peace?

SMB is an inexpensive lifesaver.

Pataman

Great interview. Are smb's expensive?

Peace

Does anyone have a link or an MP3 of the interview? I checked out the show from today on the RTE website but didn't hear the interview.... admittedly i skipped parts as its 80 minutes long.

ka

Didnt hear the interview....not sure about the group. But swimming ashore prolonged his stay in the water. The original Lat/Long given to the MRCC would have been entered into software which calculates tide/wind/current/drift and gives an approximate search pattern.

This guy swam 8 or 9 miles across tide to a visible land mass. This left the search being coordinated and directed to the predicted location. One of the rules of Sea Survival is to conserve energy and stay put!! Unless you are very capable and in a position to wade ashore. This allows for maximum survival probability and ineed a better chance of being found.

Viz was poor and the search had been stood down at 8pm, he was found at 9pm. Aparently he dropped twin set and associated equipment. Also apparently he did have SMB when he surfaced but had passed it into the boat before he became separated.


Ka:-)

Anemone

Originally posted by ka
This guy swam 8 or 9 miles across tide to a visible land mass. This left the search being coordinated and directed to the predicted location. One of the rules of Sea Survival is to conserve energy and stay put!! Unless you are very capable and in a position to wade ashore. This allows for maximum survival probability and ineed a better chance of being found.

Bit of a dilemma this, from the point of view of a diver stranded a few miles offshore. Even assuming you know about the prediction software, if you're out there with a limited amount of survival time, you would be placing a huge amount of trust in the SAR system, if you decided to stay put. You would have to believe that A) the correct time & position was reported, the software was reliable for the particular area you were in, C) the users of the software knew what they were doing, and D) the available SAR resources were sufficient to properly cover the area indicated by the software, within the survival time. Oh yeah, and I forgot E) that the computer concerned wasn't offline / borked on the day in question.

Contrast this against knowing that your strength & endurance is only going to deteriorate, so if you are going to swim for it, the sooner you start the better. Putting this another way, am I going to bob around for 6 hours while I wait to see if all the SAR pieces fall into place, or am I going to make an effort to save myself while I still have the strength to do so?

I take your point about staying still to conserve heat and energy, but presumably this diver had a drysuit & undersuit on (60m dive!) so it's probably not a big issue in this case. I'm not saying that swimming for it is the right decision in every case, but I think it probably gives a good chance of survival in many situations, all other factors (fitness, distance, clothing, type of coast etc.) being equal.

Pataman

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/morning/marianfinucane/index.html
Mondays show

bigfeller

From what I heard (and I may be wrong) when the diver surfaced he handed in his gear to the boat, but was having a problem with a side mounted bottle (catch wouldn't release)

There was another 2 divers waiting to go, both in drysuits. The day was sweltering and the cox said that he would drop these in and then come back for the original diver. When he came back the other guy was gone.

On the radio interview above the interview begins about 3:50 into the file.

ka

Anemone

Perhaps all divers boaters etc should do a PST (personal survival techniques course). As divers and leisure boaters and users of the sea in general we must have confidence in our system with our MRCC, a trip to Mailin Head CRS will confirm to you the capability and experience of the individuals involved. So not matter how big and strong you may feel the ocean is a bigger place!!

Divers/Boaters have an obligation to themselves and fellow users to be aware of situations and procedures in place while using the sea. Training is essential, we cannot leave it to chance or to someone else.

I recommend that everyone should have basic navigation, radio certification, sea survival and powerboating certification before they set foot near water....since that is unlikely to happen in Ireland....it cannot be too much to ask that those involved in offshore activities should take responsibility for safety.

I take your point, and everyone will react differently in different situations. But as far as I am concerned I have great respect and confidcence in the MRCC and SAR operations in this country. I dive and boat safely and expect others to do the same. It is not difficult to learn about GPS positions and Radio procedures. BTW it is not all computer based - navigation and search patterns were all done on paper charts long before computers existed. This is still accurate :-)

I am sure if Derek is looking in he will add to this.....

Just my 2c, I can see your point. But training and awareness is the way to go.

Ka:-)

Evil Phil

They're some good points ka. I'll have a google but do you know of places that do PST courses?

Apache01

Originally posted by Anemone
Bit of a dilemma this, from the point of view of a diver stranded a few miles offshore. Even assuming you know about the prediction software, if you're out there with a limited amount of survival time, you would be placing a huge amount of trust in the SAR system, if you decided to stay put. You would have to believe that A) the correct time & position was reported, the software was reliable for the particular area you were in, C) the users of the software knew what they were doing, and D) the available SAR resources were sufficient to properly cover the area indicated by the software, within the survival time. Oh yeah, and I forgot E) that the computer concerned wasn't offline / borked on the day in question.

Hi Anemone,

You don't have much confidence in the skills of the Coast Guard, Marine Rescue Coordination Centres or RNLI people.

Let me go through the points you make:

You would have to believe that A) the correct time & position was reported

The divers were diving a wreck in 55 27N about 5 miles north of Malin Head, If the boat skipper got the divers to the wreck, then he must be using some type of reliable navigation system such as GPS and must have known the position of the wreck, so an accurate position of the diver could have being reported unless the dive boat was not fitted with communications equipment such as a VHF. If the vessel did not have a VHF or navigation system or the boat skipper did not know how to use this equipment then this is incompetent and its foolish of people to go to sea in a badly equipped vessel.

the software was reliable for the particular area you were in

The Irish Coast Guard have a highly trained staff in Global Maritime Distress and Safety Systems and Search and Rescue procedures. The software used for SAR in Ireland by Malin Head, Dublin and Valentia coast guards has been written specifically for Irish waters, tide is calculated automatically my the program, wind and other parameters for entered by the user once a missing diver or MOB is reported along with the time, a search area can be reported to the on scene vessels and aircraft in less than a minute as the search continues the search area is updated to reflect changing conditions.

C) the users of the software knew what they were doing
Ask one of the many hundreds of people or divers that end up being rescued each year by the coast guard

D) the available SAR resources were sufficient to properly cover the area indicated by the software, within the survival time

Initially the search area is quite small but as time progresses the search area becomes bigger. Vessels and aircraft use a number of search patterns such as sector search expending square etc. to find survivors. Survival time depends on many factors, but for the diver in question was well kitted out to survive and the SAR resources are more than sufficient for this type of search, unfortunately visibility and the divers own actions produced a negative result until the diver was spotted close inshore many hours later.

E) that the computer concerned wasn't offline / borked on the day in question
The Coast Guard have a number of emergency procedures, If power fails there is an emergency generator, if computer problems arise the search area can be plotted on a chart, if one coast guard station goes down then Dublin or Valentia can Coordinate SAR and traffic for downed stations. All Radio traffic around the coast can be controlled from one station if the other two have problems.

The questions you should be asking instead of bashing the professionals are:

A) What were they doing diving a very tidal area over spring tides
Did they dive at slack water?
C) Did they use a shotline and deco trapeze?
D) Who was watching the divers when they surfaced?
E) Did they file a Dive TR?
F) How long did they wait before calling the MRCC
G) Did they conduct an initial sector search or know how too?

Ka mentioned that training is important and I agree too many people and not only divers go to sea with the attitude It will never happen to me

How wrong and egotistical they are.

Apache

Anemone

Ka,

I fully agree with you about the need for training and the responsible use of proper procedures by water users. I also have no doubt that the vast majority of individuals and groups that make up the SAR system are properly skilled, efficient and well equipped (in fact I'm seriously impressed with the ones I know). However the chain of events I outlined in my last post has a lot of links in it. Any long chain like this (no matter how well it is constructed & supported) is vulnerable to a weak link.

If I found myself in a similar situation to the guy who is the subject of this thread, and I judged that I had a good chance of swimming to a safe shore (taking into account my own capabilities and the conditions), I know that waiting around to see if all the links in the SAR chain are working today would become the second-best option in my mind. I accept that not everybody has the experience to objectively make this decision, and that for those people 'staying put' is good advice. But I don't think that most experienced/active divers fall into this novice category.

To paraphrase a famous pilot's cliche, any dive you get back onshore from, is a good dive . The objective of the excersise in this case was for the guy to survive the incident. I assume he made a judgement that he could swim the distance, and he was right. I know that several hours of SAR time were probably wasted, and that he didn't conform with what many believe to be acceptable 'stay put in an emergency' practice. But that pales into insignificance when you stand it up beside the fact that the guy survived.

Anemone

Apache,

Didn't see your post till after I had posted the reply to Ka. First of all let me make it completely clear that I have the utmost respect for and confidence in the SAR agencies. I am certainly not 'bashing the professionals'. I have been involved with RNLI fundraising for several years, and a number of life boat crew members and a station secretary are respected friends of mine.

The point I am trying to make is that it is a fact of life that any system which relies on the correct operation of several different elements and inputs (even one as professionally organised as the Irish SAR agencies are) is vulnerable to inaccuracy or breakdown. Where such a system applies to a life or death situation, and another viable (and possibly more robust) option presents itself, surely the more robust (ie less vulnerable) option is the one to take.

I presented a number of possible weakness in the chain. I certainly didn't suggest they were present either on the day in question, or generally within the SAR system. The are reasonable possibilities however, and the lost diver making a course-of-action decision would be well advised to keep them in mind.

Thanks for your reply, it made very interesting reading, and only serves to copperfasten my confidence in the Irish SAR services. I agree with your points about the sea being no place for ill-prepared people. I would also be interested to hear answers to the questions you posed at the end of your post, in particular the reason why contact between the diver and the boat was lost after it apparently had been established.

Your point about people going to sea with an it'll never happen to me attitude is of course unfortunately true. Although I'm not sure that divers are the worst culprits here, as they tend to be well trained in the main. This pitfall seems to be part of the human condition, as we see it all the time with drivers on the roads. Perhaps there is scope for more active public sea-safety awareness campaigns. Large signs at slip-ways and harbours, TV adverts, coast guard presence at popular sites etc. Funding might be a problem though. I'm getting a bit off topic here...

I trust I've re-assured you that I'm not attacking the SAR community ?

Anemone

Peace

Originally posted by NordicDiver
5K worth of equipment dropped, hmm inspiration rebreather?

Any one up for search&recovery course in donegal ? Peace?

SMB is an inexpensive lifesaver.

Hey man, you konw i'm up for it....

I don't think its correct for a bunch of us say "nonono he should have sat there and done nothing" so i'm not going to say it. Both courses of action hold equal risk IMO... sit there and wait relying on other people to save you or take action yourself and hope you got the gusto to get out of the water.

Personally i would have sat there in the tide and waited for them to come to me... The first technical course i went on it was drilled into me that 'the boat comes to you, not the other way around'.... its got foundation in the fact that after a deco dive if you are excerting yourself by swimming after a boat you increase your risk of DCS.

Another point is that i'm not sure he was full aware of how the process goes when somone is reported missing at sea..... I know from reading divernet etc etc that the coast guard use tide prediction software (or whatever) to generate a search area... the better a fix/gps & time they are given the more likely they are to find you. Also i know the SAR helicopter has thermal/night vis. . As previously pointed out after all that swimming he wasn't where the search was being directed....

I'm just saying.... personally unless land was very close... i'm sitting there enjoying the ride.

Okay i've rambled a little here but this is something else i'm gonna say. Something went tits up when if he was closed enough to the boat to hand them an SMB and then oh no wait... wheres the boat gone. Alarm bells are ringing....

Also, the guys on a 60m dive with 5k worth of kit on his back.... i'm presuming he has either a strobe or a torch, personally i have both. The strobe is an excellent life saver, they run for extended periods of time (i'm talking more than 8-12hours) and they flash as you konw. This is important because the human eye is attracted to both light and movement. You should try it sometime when you out and about... just watchj a scene and see how you eyes are attracted to movement/flashes of light.. you won't conciously do it but it will happen. So a flashing strobe out at see can be seen from a long way off. Same with the torch... just point and click and the chances are you'll be seen.

I'm still going here... the guy mentioned that most of his gear was dark colored.... now i can't really touch this as almost all of my kit is black EXCEPT for my hood... which is luminous green... anyone who has seen it will remember it ... i can even be spotted doing deco at 6m below the surface! Luminous green with light reflectors on it ffs.... if you can't see it then get Helen Keller away from the controls of that helicopter. Remember folks, its only your head thats sticking out of the water, and if its a cool black scoba pro hood then yeah, your navy seal material but your also almost invisible.... You'll be kicking yourself when its backfiring!

Nuff said...

ka

Evil Phil

BIM www.bim.ie do PST courses in both Cork and Greencastle, as do their Coastal Training Units which travel the coast. Some private operators do the course - Seatec in Westport springs to mind. PM me if you want a mobile number.

Ka:-)

Evil Phil

Thanks ka, I'll wait till I'm home from my holidays.

NordicDiver

I tuned in to RTE, THX for the link.

Great storyteller, when is the book coming out ?
He must be payed by Hollywood to promote this movie : www.openwatermovie.com

This must be standard equipment for divers using Malin Head dive operators and add this you can bring it down to 150 meters safely.

Evil Phil

Open water movie. I suppose with the success of Touching the Void we're going to be flooded with these. Would anybody be interested in doing a PST course some time after October?

GlennaMaddy

I listened to the interview, diver suggests that all divers should be equiped with an EPIRB (PLB).
Before I do that I'm going to;
1. change my hood to something luminous
2. buy a whistle.
3. replace the batteries on my strobe

Apache01

Anemone,

I am re-assured that you are not bashing the SAR services. Its always a difficult one to call, "should I stay or Should I go" and not until the situation actually presents itself can each one of us say how we would react in a similar situation.

You are right Divers are not the worst culprits, but there is an increasing amount of callouts around Malin over the last number of years for missing divers.

I would suggest the following for divers planning to dive this area:

Dive on the slack tide,
Try and avoid diving on spring tides,
SMB's are a must,
Once contact is made with the boat on surfacing stay in contact even if this means clipping on;
Peace has an excellent Dry Suit Hood, these are very good in the water, anything that makes the diver, Bigger, Brighter and Different than the surrounding sea helps Rescue.
The Day and Night Signal Flare with a dive canister is a great piece of kit and cheaper than and EPIRB.
Whistle and Strobe /torch as suggest are valuable
Can't say I know to much about deco diving because I don't do deep diving, 40 meters is my max, but keeping divers together on a stage would be good, safety in numbers.

There should be forum, for divers to report near misses, mariners learn a lot from reading the accident investigation reports, and in the UK dive related accidents seem to be reported widely in the press such as diver. This forum should be anonymous and only used to post reports not comment, analyse or pass judgment simply away of learning from the mistakes others have made and avoiding these ourselves, because none of us no mater how experienced are infallible.

Sorry for rambling on just my 2 cents

Apache

Anemone

Taking up the PST sub-thread, here's an interesting site I found that has extensive information about personal survival in all kinds of situations. In particular have a look at Chapter 16 which covers sea survival. It seems to be written from the perspective of a downed pilot, but has lots of info relevant to divers.

Anemone

Originally posted by Apache
There should be forum, for divers to report near misses, mariners learn a lot from reading the accident investigation reports, and in the UK dive related accidents seem to be reported widely in the press such as diver. This forum should be anonymous and only used to post reports not comment, analyse or pass judgment simply away of learning from the mistakes others have made and avoiding these ourselves, because none of us no mater how experienced are infallible.

A quick Google reveals that there are some sites that include this kind of information, but there doesn't seem to be any site dedicated to it. I run a web server, and would certainly be willing to build and host such a site, without expecting payment of any kind.

I'd be interested to hear the opinions of other divers on this board, if they think it's a good idea, and what form it should take. I agree that it should not allow any comment on posted incident reports, and also I think posts should be subject to review/moderation by the admin(s) before the go live on the site. The reason for the review would be to remove any information the might be defamatory or could identify people / places. The reviewer could also add search categorisation (keywords) to the posting, to help with it's retrieval.

Peace

All that hullabaloo isn't required... they could just allow people to post unregistered in this forumn..

Heathen

yea i heard the interview on monday nite (re - run)
lucky man to survive

Peace

Originally posted by Apache
Anemone,
The Day and Night Signal Flare with a dive canister is a great piece of kit and cheaper than and EPIRB.

Do you have a site that actually sells these products... its looks good to me and would be good to have on the rig just incase... after all noone believes it will every be them until it is.

I did some google'ing but came up with not much... Cost/Places to buy?

Apache01

Anemone,

Cool, it would be worth a try to see how it takes, this link for the MARS site is an example of this system working well in the merchant navy world, learning from experience and mistakes.

The link you posted on sea survival is interesting, although the method of immersing the head in the water during the survival phase is no longer recommended. Most PST courses still teach the HELP (Heat Escape Lessening Position), for a detailed insight into cold-water survival and survival at sea I would recommend "Essentials Of Sea Survival" by Frank Golden and Michael Tipton, the conclusions they draw are very good apart from their refusal to admit that the will to survive can prolong survival time.



Apache

Anemone

Originally posted by Apache
Anemone,

Cool, it would be worth a try to see how it takes, this link for the MARS site is an example of this system working well in the merchant navy world, learning from experience and mistakes.

I think the key to getting it to work in the early stages is contacting every dive club, school, shop, centre and publication we can can think of, to ask that they make thier members aware of it. Later on, as the number of reports on it increase, it will hopefully be more or less self-publicising. If I'm developing the site, I might need volunteers to publicise it.

The MARS site looks quite like the kind of thing I had in mind.

I can see the merit in Peace's suggestion that it would be simpler just to encourage posts to this forum. However I think we stand a better chance of getting your average diver to participate if it has a distinctive domain name of it's own, and is set up to be really simple to use for the non-techie. A novice who comes to Boards to make a dive report is going to have to spend some time figuring out where the scuba board is and how to post. A lot of them might just give up.

I have a few ideas on how it should work, and when I get a bit of free time (in a few weeks after my hols) I'll put my thoughts together and post them here for peer review. In the meantime I'd welcome comments or suggestions here (if that's OK with the mods) from anybody who is interested.

Evil Phil

If you're going to setup such a website then I'd recommend talking to the Coast Gaurd and the RNLI first. They may have something similar in place already. At the very least they'll have standardised reporting proceedures that could and probably should be followed.

Organistions like CMAS and PADI should also be involved in such a project as well as any professional bodies associated with diving.

Also, IMHO, incident reports would have to be followed up. What I mean is somebody would have to speak to them in person so the correct information is gathered. Random reports gathered via a website can be confusing and not very informative.

Anemone

Conferring with the Coast Guard & RNLI on this is definately a good idea. I would also be in favour of asking CFT, CMAS, BSAC & PADI for thier opinions, but I'm not sure I would want them to have any direct involvement in planning or control of the project. It's not that I have anything against them, but I think you could end up with a too-many-cooks situation. A project committee made up from representatives of a range of organisations would probably take forever to reach consensus and the result would probably be a compromise. There's a danger of over-engineering (or at least over-planning) this project. It's a fairly simple concept, and can probably be put together fairly quickly, once the opinions of interested parties have been gathered. I also think there's merit in keeping it organisation-neutral. We don't want CFT divers saying "that's a PADI thing, it's not for me" or vice-versa.

Your point about following up reports to get any missing information is a good idea. If this thing is to be run on a non-profit basis, getting the time to do that (if there's a large volume of reports) might be an issue. But I guess we could cross that bridge if we come to it. Allowing people to post anonymously is key to getting them to participate in this, so I think filling-in follow-up contact details should be optional. The problem with this is that a lot of people will choose to remain anonymous, and there will be no contact details available for follow-up. The only way I can think of getting around this is to promise posters that any contact details they give will be kept confidential. It would be difficult to make this an absolute promise though, as it might be possible for third parties to legally compel us to reveal contact details that we have.

Apache01

Completely agree that the board must be anonymous, and that involving too many organisations leads to difficulties, I would like to see this board completely organisation free, us apaches only have one chief for this very reason, to many chiefs and not enough Indians and nothing gets done.

IMHO I think we should just make the thing up and then inform the various dive organisations that it exists weather they endorse it or not will up to them. But I would envision divers using the board as a way of learning no mater who they were trained by, the last thing I want is for the age old CMAS, BSAC, PADI argument to flare up, hence why only posts describing incidents should be allowed, this will not be an open forum to discuss, just to post.

If it is any help I can obtain some statistics from the Coast Guard and RNLI about diver related incidents in Ireland, It may also be worth checking with the chamber in Galway for any numbers they could provide. These figurers could be quoted in an open invitation to all divers in all organisations and dive clubs around the country to take part.

I don't think following up divers for more information is a good idea unless a moderator is appointed that reviews each post discusses the incidents with the writer on a confidential basis and then when satisfied, posts the report on the board, but this is a lot of work and responsibility.

Peace I am trying to find some suppliers and costs for the day and night signal not sure if flares can be posted, will post findings soon.

Apache

Apache01

Hi,

just trawling through the RNLI site and came across this news clip on missing divers

Apache

dublinbay

First casualty of war is.......the truth. How many of you are bad divers? Careless divers? Dangerous divers? Inconsiderate divers? etc etc??? None, didnt think so:)
Lets ask all the divers in Ireland the same questions:) Guess the answer.............
Dive incident reports from the diver involved , imho, are not 100% accurate. Dive incident reports from the cox/d.o./skipper again imho, are not 100% accurate.
Every diver I have met without exception, deep down thinks he/she has it sussed.
Its usually someone else at fault or ****ty kit that shouldnt have salt deposits on it even tho I dont bother to rinse it in fresh water

While I think your idea is a very good one, it will be open to misuse. Leave it to the Pro`s the RNLI/ COASTGUARD to correlate info. I`m sure if asked they will gladly pass it on:

Evil Phil

Originally posted by dublinbay
While I think your idea is a very good one, it will be open to misuse. Leave it to the Pro`s the RNLI/ COASTGUARD to correlate info. I`m sure if asked they will gladly pass it on:

I agree with Jack here and it follows on from my point above. Unless this is being done with these people then I have doubts as to how effective it will be. Tbh, I would only report incidents to these bodies. The website won't work unless they're involved. Who would analyse the data if not them?

Anemone

I think that incident reports which are not fully truthful or which contain subjective analysis of why the incident happened are going to happen with any reporting system, not just with the one I am proposing. Reports which are not 100% objective & truthful are still valuable. Lessons can still be learnt from them. I am hoping that a combination of anonymity, dive organisation neutrality and an understanding that the reporting system is there to improve diver safety for all, will encourage posters to be fairly truthful in their incident reports. I know it won’t guarantee this, but it should help.

Regarding leaving it to the RNLI, Coastguard etc. to carry out this function, I don't see much evidence that they are doing this, and certainly not in a diver-focused way. I'm not criticising them for this, because I guess they don't see it as their role, which is fair enough. They may collect some information about the circumstances of each incident, but I don't think they gather detailed diving related info. While they may provide some periodic summary data about incidents, I don't think they make the details of incidents available to the public. What I am proposing to do is provide the raw and (somewhat) unvarnished details of each incident, so that any interested party can carry out their own analysis, or draw their own conclusions. I think the proposed system could well be useful to RNLI, Coastguard etc. as a store of information that they can make analytical use of.

To reiterate what I said earlier, I am in favour of getting the input of these bodies when setting up the system, and I would give serious consideration to any suggestions or requests they make. I'd be delighted if they want to get involved, but I see no reason to leave it to them to implement a diving-specific system when they have a much broader mandate.

Phil, you mentioned that you would only report incidents to these bodies. Do you mind if I ask why?

Evil Phil

Because I don't see any value in reporting to any organisation outside of those involved in diving/rescue. A knowledge-base like this one won't work outside of those organisations because the information gathered will be shaky at best and the analysis will be inaccurate and contradictory. The analysis on this thread of a diver going missing is a prime example of that. Nobody has mentioned who will be doing the analysis and what they'll hope to achieve exactly. Nobody has mentioned funding either. Unless you receive funding it will never be more than an amateur effort: well meant but inadequate.

To achieve this, IMO, you'd need so regisiter a charity to provide funding, get the RNLI/Coastgaurd and various dive bodies to work on it with you and dedicate some permanent staff to it. Staff with the right qualifications and experience. Thats a hell of an undertaking to get yourself off the ground.

Anemone

I'm not proposing that any analysis be carried out on the incident reports, on the site in question. It would simply be a list of incidents (categorised under various headings for easy retrieval) with the full text of each report available for anybody to read. Before being made available on the site, submitted reports would be reviewed and possibly edited. The only reason for this kind of review and edit process would be to re-word anything which might identify the people or places involved, and to weed out anything that might expose the site operator to legal liability. No analysis or comment would be added to the reports by the reviewer, and the public would have no means on the site to discuss / comment / analyse the reports.

All I'm trying to do here is provide a place where detailed incident reports can be made available to the diving community (& general public). Others can analyse the reports if they wish, but that's outside the scope of the proposed site.

Given that there would be no analysis going on, and I wouldn't expect more than 2 or 3 incidents a week for review (maybe I'm naive), I can't see the need for permanent staff. I mean, what would they be required to do?

On the subject of funding. I work as a web developer and I own & run a web server which provides hosting to my clients. I'm willing to give my time freely to develop the site (not a huge job) and provide it with free hosting, and to review the reports. If anybody else on this board wants to share the load of reviewing reports and/or publicising it with dive organisations and groups, that would be great. Unless it gets very busy, I can't see the need for big funding.

Some of the information in the reports may be 'shaky', but still somewhat useful IMHO. So far as I can see, nobody else is making it available in a publically accessible central archive, despite the fact that the general consensus (amongst dive orgs) seems to be that incident reports are useful things to have. If making this information generally available saves one life or prevents a serious injury, isn't it worth doing?

Apache01

Phil,

Here are a few questions for you:

Have you ever reported an incident to the RNLI or Coast Guard?
Have you ever read the annual reports published by the RNLI or Coast Guard?

These organisations provide a vital service to everyone connected to the sea and inland waterways, but they do not analyse why incidents happen, this is the role of the Marine Casualty Investigations Board and the Health and Safety Authority . It is interesting to note that diving related incidents are investigated by the HSA and not the MCIB.

The reports published by the RNLI and Coast Guard relate to statistics detailing the number of callouts for various vessels and casualties but the information provided is non-specific.

We are not suggesting an investigating board or any type of analysis of incidents and I think incident is the key word here. Accidents are investigated by the professionals as Dublinbay suggests.

There are lots of incidents that happen on dives that divers can share and while typing the report also reflect on their actions at the time. These include reel tangles, SMB inflation, gear failures, reg freeflows, lost buddies, these things happen to many if not all divers from time to time and although they are resolved safely they are never reported to anyone.

A board were these types of incidents can be posted and reflected upon would IMHO be a valuable learning tool. Also knowing that once posted you are not going to get bashed by the chosen few divers who know it all and never had anything go wrong would be a reassuring comfort.

Apache

Evil Phil

Have you ever reported an incident to the RNLI or Coast Guard?
No
Have you ever read the annual reports published by the RNLI or Coast Guard?
Again no

And I don't think I'm the only one. Although I don't see the relevance of the questions, I'm not passing myself off as having any knowledge of search and rescue techniques or those responsible for carrying them out, I stating why I don't think this site would be a great success. It seems I stand slightly corrected. Please re-read my posts and replace with the relevant names and you'll get my point.

Perhaps I've read to much into this, I thought the idea was to gather information and use it to help improve diver safety. If its simply an online log of incidents then yes, it might be helpful in that you can read about how somebody dealt with a certain issue on a dive. If its a system where people can comment on an incident log then its not something I'd have any interest in because, as apache said, it will be simply be reduced to pontification from a few divers.

silverside

In the UK all serious diving incidents must be reported to BSAC (British Sub Aqua Club), the event descriptions are then printed in the Diver Magazine so that lessons can be learnt by all.

Does this not happen in Ireland also?

Anemone

Originally posted by silverside
In the UK all serious diving incidents must be reported to BSAC ...

That's not a statutory requirement, is it? I mean, British PADI or SSAC divers don't have to report incidents to BSAC do they?

Borzoi

Without going in to the 'reporting incidents' debate, this has raised a few issues with regards to diver safety and what to do/not to do. While the courses (though I only know PADI) are very thorough about safety, what to do on the surface if lost stranded and the level of kit required for offshore diving don't seem to be addressed sufficiently.

The original story and subsequent observations, has certainly made me rethink what to do and what to carry.

Apache01

I don't see the relevance of the questions

Sorry Phil,

My point is that there is very little information available on diver related incidents and accidents in Ireland and although the RNLI and the Coast Guard do publish non-specific details relating to the number of callouts they have had over a particular year, many incidents go unreported. A reporting board could allow these incidents to be published and learned from. It could also offer advice on how to report and who to report accidents and incidents to.

Sorry if this thread has gone too far, diving is becoming a very popular sport in Ireland and the issue of safety should always be impressed upon those taking up the sport, the reporting log would remind divers that incidents occur more frequently than thought and may also help combat complacency which can all too easily set in, better reading about someone else’s bad experience and then thinking about how to avoid a similar situation. I have noticed a few divers posting here rethinking their kit and precautions to take when diving in a tidal area. I think the system has proven its point already when these posts are read.

Apache

Peace

As was mentioned previously Divernet post news items that are often in regard to diver incidents... missing, dead, bends etc etc...

If you are setting up a board which only deals with diver incidents its going to be pretty quiet as the only reason someone would have to go up there would be if something had happened to them.... www.thedecostop.com is a message board site solely dedicated to diving and it has a seperate board for what you are talking about. Granted its built by Americans and therefore, wherter they intended it or not, very American (if you know what i mean). Lots of DIR divers spouting on about how everyone else is doing it like a stroke and going to die soon...I digress...

Honestly, its taken this board over a year to develop into having 5/6 regular posters with about 10 people who lurk about reading and not post (yes i've seen you all )... and this board is on a boards site with i dunno how many users...LOTS.

I'm not saying do it or don't do it.... and if i had a dive incident (which i wanted to share) i'd probably post up here first... but thats just beacause i'm a regular user.

Anemone

Peace, thanks for the interesting US link. You might be right. We may get very few incident reports on the proposed system. But its probably worth trying anyway, just to see if it turns out to be useful. I guess we can do our best to publicise it with clubs, magazines and dive organisations, and see what happens from there.

Evil Phil

There is a Yahoo group for Irish Diving. I can't remember the name and can't access my personal email from work so I'll give it to you this evening, unless somebody else has it. Try them as well.

NordicDiver

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dir-ireland

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dis-ireland

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/irishdiving

dublinbay

OK guys, CFT get regular incident reports and have an appointed officer to sift thru and report on said incidents..............having said that, how do you accept
1; the incident report is accurate?
2; if not accurate, how do we learn from same?
3; if not accurate, why bother posting/reporting?
2 yrs back, 5 divers and a coxn had a dive. Group of 2 and a group of 3. Group with 2 deployed DSMB ,got tangled and had a rapid ascent to surface. Group of 3 were back on boat. Group of 2 put on 02 as precaution. All ok so far?
When 02 cylinder was noted to be changed on boat the following week, one of the divers in G2 was asked why it was so....he replied ***** and **** had a rapid ascent" Hmmmmmm This was put to the coxn but without mentioning names. Coxn replied "yeah there was a rapid ascent, **** and *** shot to the surface" The 2 divers ,one an instructor and the other a rescue diver, lied 100% about what happened and tried to blame OTHER divers who had assisted and administered 02 to them!!!!!
WHY??????? Because in this macho world of diving no- one makes mistakes ! Its like the air thing: I dive twin 7`s cause I dont use air .............So what happens when your buddy has an OOA at 30m -40m and the stress levels go thru the roof and your twin 7`s are drained in 3 mins flat and your world turns into a cluster****?
Yes, your idea is VERY good, IF ppl report honestly. Its not going to happen.......

Apache01

Originally posted by Peace
I did some google'ing but came up with not much... Cost/Places to buy?

<snip/>

Sorry but its advertising and if we let you do it we have to let everybody do it. I'll send you a pm about this.

E.P.

www.diveology.com