The Danger of Distraction

DAN MEDICAL

The Danger of Distraction

Underwater photographers can sometimes get carried away – and that’s how incidents start. Case study by PETER BUZZACOTT

0219 dan medical distracted

the diver was a 48-year-old woman who was open-water certified 20 years ago, but had not dived since then. She had recently taken a second open-water diving course.

She was 5ft 6in tall, weighed more than 16 stone and had a body mass index of 36. She had recently lost more than 3 stone and was still in the process of losing weight, though she was not dieting during this seven-day liveaboard trip in Australia.

THE INCIDENT

On the second day of diving, the diver reported “getting carried away while taking pictures”. She stopped looking at her gauges, and realised at 30m depth that she had only 70 bar of breathing gas left.

Her dive-buddy was motioning for her to ascend, so she began a purposeful slow ascent. She reported feeling worried and determined that she should not shoot to the surface.

At 14m, she looked around and initially was unable to locate her buddy. She watched her air-supply dwindle. Finally, she reached 6m with about 20 bar left. She opted to make a safety stop, and watched her gauge intently the whole time.

As soon as she finished, she motioned for her buddy to ascend the mooring-line. She went up in a slow, controlled manner, but stated that her mind was racing and that she felt relief as her depth-gauge approached zero.

On the surface she inflated her BC, looked at her gauge and saw that her tank was completely empty.

As she recalled: “It was a 30m dive, and I was very embarrassed. My dive-buddy was holding it back, but I could tell he was upset with me. I never told him how close I came to running out of air, but I apologised profusely, telling him I would never do that again.

“I spoke with another diver, a former instructor, and told him what had happened. He told me he had made the same mistake once – got carried away with what he was doing and forgot to watch his gauges. I was thinking: “Wow, and you’re a dive instructor!”

“I was shocked at how easily you can lose sight of your depth. I mentally vowed to stay with my buddy on future dives and to watch my gauges.”

Appeared in DIVER February 2019

ANALYSIS

This diver was lucky that she realised how low her tank pressure was when she did. Much longer at that depth and she would likely have run out of air before she made it back to the surface.

At DAN, we receive fatality reports every year about divers who weren’t so lucky. Running out of air doesn’t automatically lead to death, but coupled with panic and a rapid ascent, which might be more common among inexperienced divers, the consequences can be grave.

An Australian study followed 1000 recreational scuba-dives and determined that, compared with divers who surfaced with plenty of air remaining, divers who surfaced low on air were more than 20 times more likely to be surprised by how little air they had left.

In other words, like the diver involved in this incident, they were simply not paying attention to their gauges.

Recently I took up underwater photography again after a long break. In the past few years I’d been diving a lot, but without a camera.

The first thing I rediscovered was how utterly distracting a camera can be when you find something you want to photograph. It is very easy to forget to keep an eye on your depth or air, and this is one reason why DAN resolutely suggests that recreational divers dive with a buddy.

In this incident, a buddy signalled the diver before she ran out of air, and accompanied her to the surface, able to render assistance if needed.

This diver had a close call, learned a valuable lesson and lived to dive another day. Staying calm during her ascent, staying near her buddy and inflating her BC at the surface were all essential elements in her incident being harmless.

CONCLUSION

Another aspect of this case is particularly relevant to modern divers. In the earlier days of underwater photography, when divers used rolls of 24- or 36-shot film, waterproof cameras were quite an investment, and it was far more common then for divers to be very experienced before buying their first camera.

Today, however, as this diver showed, even newly certified divers pick up the now relatively inexpensive hobby of underwater photography – before they have developed keen situational awareness through many dives.

This relative inexperience and the distraction a camera offers make for an unsafe combination under water.

So newer divers who want to take their cameras under water are advised to discuss the dive-plan with their buddies before entering the water, and to consider carefully the added risk of distraction.

DAN Europe is a not-for-profit worldwide organisation that provides emergency medical advice and assistance for underwater diving injuries. It also promotes diving safety through research, education, products and services

How Do You Attach a Jon Line? @BrentHollett #askmark #scuba

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