D.O’s notes on safety

As summer is approaching fast, Diving Officer Gary has outlined some safety considerations for the forthcoming dive season. Remember, all D.O notes and guidelines can be found in the D.O’s Corner on our website.

It’s time to start doing some housekeeping for the forthcoming dive season and to ‘Think Safety’.

Firstly, are you fit to dive? Have we put on a few extra pounds over the winter? You do not want to pull a muscle lifting heavy dive kit or worse.

Is your kit serviced and ready for the season?

Are your skills practised and up to date? I know we have an Ocean Diver Course and a Sports Diver following at the moment, so talk to Paul Phillips find out if there is room for you to get in the pool with your kit (and a buddy) to brush up on those skills.

Check out the BSAC website - the latest statistics for incidents reported in 2010 are posted there for you to download. It makes good reading and opens your eyes to what happens in different scenarios.

Also there is a new manual called ‘Safety & Rescue for Divers’ - if you have some spare pennies why not give it a read?

And finally, to make you all aware - to dive with us this year, I must have a completed and up to date Medical Form in my possession, you must be a member of BSAC (unless diving as a guest with our club which is chargeable on top of fuel fee’s for boat and tow) and you must also be an SSAC member (again unless diving as a guest).

There will be no exceptions to this so if you are unsure about anything, please check with our membership secretary Anne Trigg, whose email address is listed here in our Contact section.

BSAC’s 2010 Diving Incident Report

BSAC’s annual diving incident report is now available to download from the BSAC website. If you’re not sure how to view or download it, we’ve summarised the report below.

 ”As in all previous years (except 2007) the largest category relates to cases of ‘Decompression illness’ (DCI). DCI cases saw a dramatic reduction in 2007 and it was hoped that this marked the beginning of a downward trend. However, 2008 and 2009 saw a return to the average of recent years.

Cases of DCI

“This year the number of recorded cases was 98; lower than the previous two years and in line with a longer term trend of a general reduction from a significant peak in 2002.” (the detail outlined later in the report suggests many cases of DCI were as a result of diver’s being unable to control their buoyancy on ascent or being dragged up by their DSMB).

Boating and Surface incidents

“The second largest category is ‘Boating and Surface’ incidents. This category mainly comprises of problems with boat engines (engine failure and out of fuel) and lost diver(s). This category had seen a very strong downward trend over previous years due to reductions in both types of incident.

“However in 2009 this number rose dramatically to levels not seen for eight years. This year the number of incidents in this category (85) is lower than 2009 but still higher than in recent previous years. This increase is entirely due to an increase in boating problems.”

Lost Divers

“The number of ‘lost diver’ reports is slightly down from previous years and indicates a slow downward trend in the number of this type of incident.”

Ascents

The third category is ‘Ascents’ where divers have made an abnormal ascent but avoided DCI. This category has seen a steady decline in the number of recorded incidents since a peak in 2006. Prior to this date the number of incidents each year had been steadily rising.

“The major initiative that has been underway in recent years to address poor buoyancy control seems to have had a significant effect and this year’s total of 65 incidents is slightly up on last year but still indicative of a general improvement in this area.”

Illness and Injury 

“The fourth category is ‘Illness and injury’ and the bulk of this is thought to be cases of DCI. But these cases are reported through the RNLI and their reports do not specifically record DCI, they often just state ‘Diver illness’.

“For this reason it is not possible to distinguish cases of DCI from other diver ailments. The number of incidents reported in this category each year has remained constant for the last twelve years at around 55 per year.”

Fatalities

“17 fatal incidents occurred in the UK during the 2010 incident year. 8 of these were BSAC members. This is above the average of 15.8 fatalities per year over the previous ten years. However, comparisons of this nature need to be made with caution since a small change to such low numbers can make a big apparent difference to the result.”

These included cases of three cases of divers who died from natural causes (i.e. heart attacks), ten cases involving a separation of some kind or three or more divers diving together, one case of a diver who became tangled with a shot line during ascent, two cases of rapid ascents and probable barotrauma, two cases of divers running out of breathing gas and one case of a solo snorkel diver.

The full report can be downloaded here.

Does your kit need some TLC?

It’s a bit nippy for diving at the mo, unless you’re a) Troy, or b) one of the lucky few booked on our Club Trip to Egypt trip next week.

The winter months are, therefore, the perfect time to thoroughly check your kit and replace any damaged or missing parts.

We all know how the smallest problems can have a much more significant impact, so it’s vitally important to ensure you take good care of your equipment.

The UK Divers website has some fantastic tips on how to rinse and store your gear after use, as well as suggestions for checking your O-rings and ensuring that no particles have got into any valves or seals.

If you’re relatively new to diving and about to invest in some new equipment, they also have a very comprehensive section on what to look out for, which you can see here.

Definitely worth a visit when you get chance!

High in a Hyperbaric

Some of the more intrepid among us recently made the journey up to The Wirral to visit the Hyperbaric Chamber at Murrayfield Hospital’s North West Emergency Recompression Unit.

It was a really useful day – we got to find out all about the effects of diving on the body and the danger signs to look out for.

But the big highlight was that we got to experience the effects of nitrogen narcosis (otherwise known as ‘rapture of the deep’ or ‘the narks’) on a 50m dry dive in the chamber itself.

Under controlled conditions, we were taken to the atmospheric equivalent of 50m before gradually being brought back up again with decompression stops.

Nitrogen narcosis induces similar effects to being drunk, and true enough, when we got the ‘the bottom’ of the dive, we were rolling about laughing at just about everything, fuelled by the fact that we were all talking in hamster voices!

Fun aside though, it was a very educational and useful experience.