Friday, March 29, 2024
Scuba DivingAccidents Happen

Accidents Happen

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Every diver at some stage does something that they regret later and feel foolish about, sometimes nobody will ever find out how dangerous or how lucky you have been. On other occasions the results of our actions can impact on our dive buddies and endanger their lives.

Every week we read about how some diver escaped through good luck, due to the mercy of the sea changing it mind and on rare occasions we scan the headline diver missing hoping it is someone we do not know.

A few years ago, on a Saturday afternoon I listened to a radio news bulletin and heard that a close friend and work colleague had died that morning on a deep technical dive, the post mortem never came up with definitive cause of death. A couple of months later another friend disappeared, he happened to be the best friend of the first diver. I accepted that my friends had died doing something they both loved and were passionate bout, the hardest thing was trying to figure out what lessons I could learn from these tragic accidents.

Both were very accomplished technical divers, who were fit and conditions were normal for the dives they were both doing. So what went wrong, what lessons were there for me to learn. It took some time to accept that in both cases these deaths were accidents, nothing more nothing less.

However. On far too many occasions in diving related accidents there are preventable causes, examples were divers go beyond their level of training, use incorrect or faulty equipment the list is never ending. These accidents can be avoided.

So before any dive. Remember to stop and assess how you are feeling in relation to the planned dive, nobody has ever injured themselves by deciding to abort a dive, but many have lived to regret their lack of courage to make a sensible decision.

Diving is a fun and safe sport. Let’s keep it that way.

Malcolm James
Malcolm James
Malcolm is the former Scuba Editor of DeeperBlue.com. He is a cameraman with Fox News.

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