Grow up.

 

You dont have to have done anything wrong to die diving, some people get the bends for no reason at all, just that they are susceptible to it and you don't find out until it happens.

However this incident involved 4 divers accending too fast for whatever reason.
Whether it be faulty equipment, the diver got freaked, inexperience or whatever, **** sometimes still happens.
All the training in the world is there to try and plan for it but you can only do so much.

A bit like driving a car, we have seatbelts, crumple zones, airbags, safety cells and are taught how do drive with a modicum of sense, the rest howwever is up to us and we still manage to kill ourselves doing it.
What you going to do... ban cars !

If people wish to drive or dive and they kill em selves they that's thier choice, they accepted and took the risk involved.


Andy

Now I'm forking late for work and I'll have to speed to get there.

 

Ok but two points......

In this incident one diver got into trouble (obviously serious). Why did four divers then risk their own safety by making an unsafe assent (as reported in press)? Isn't that like someone dashing into a burning house to save someone without having any protection themselves?

Why does Stoney have such a poor record? Average one death per year, in 2003 fined £47,500 for 'admitting to failing to ensure that divers on a recreational course were not exposed to risks to their health and safety....'

Im not trying to scaremonger. I'm new to diving and Im trying to get a picture of just where is and where isn't safe to dive. Yesterday me and my diving mate did a thorough trawl of google to see if this situation is a fair reflection of the diving world. It appears not. Take EDC, the company I learnt to dive with in Turkey. They have several diving centres and have been going for years. Bearing in mind they are teaching absolute beginners and Health and Safety in Turkey/Eygpt isnt what it could be.....not one single report of an accident or death (and my mate speaks Turkish so she trawled the Turkish press).

Of course you could take the line that the other 59,999 people who will dive there this year will live so who cares

 

There is a element of danger in diving that training and experience can never take away, as Fuzz says the bends can hit anyone at anytime for no apparent reason, the key is how well you handle the situation and if luck is on your side. Yesterday luck was not on the side of the unfortunate diver. :sad:

You are taught from the outset with diving that it is a dangerous hobby and there are risks involved. The deeper you go the more these risks increase, we all know these risks and make the choice to dive. It is no good anyone complaining then if things do go wrong.

This doesn't take away from the fact that a fellow diver died yesterday and there will be a very distraught family out there.

RIP

Chop

 

brumdaisy, read this article, you will see a quote in there from Stoney Cove saying the divers who were involved in this incident were not under the instruction of them. They were with a dive school from Derbyshire, we should be asking questions of them not Stoney.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0...227147,00.html

At Stoney you can just turn up and dive with relevant qualifications etc and not be under the intruction of anyone from Stoney Cove.

In my opinion no blame is attached to them at all.

chop

Ps - When I was there a diver freaked at 30m and ascended straight to the surface, the rescue effort was superb, Stoney Cove dive boat was out quickly and he was treated on the rescue platform.

 

it's going to happen. you rely on machinery that operates in a harsh and corrosive environment to breathe. As well as this you rely on a third party (most of the time) to fill your tank with gases. And you have to maintain your kit or trust that the rental kit is maintained too.

lots of variables.

the first days diving for me and my g/f, we are so strict on buddy discipline. we don't let each other further than a couple of meters in case anything goes wrong.

1 death in how ever many divers*number of dives=pretty good!

probably safer than crossing the road in central london

 

There are 60 000 divers a year at stoney Cove on average, and they have had 25 deaths there in 26 years.

I don't think 25 deaths for one and a half million divers is too bad a figure to be fair to the guys at Stoney.

I agree it does not take away the pain and grief for the people who have died, but as happens so often in life you only hear the bad things, if we truly knew about every person who died on the roads not one of us would drive.

Dan.

 

Stoney Cove is regarded one of the best inland diving sites in the whole of Europe, It's not surprising therefore that when a search is done on google you'll get a high percentage of alarmist reports back..

Try a search on Dorothea Quarry in Wales. !!
The deepest quarry in the UK and NO dive operation or safety scheme in place at all.
Pro rata the amount of divers in each of the two venues, Dorothea kills more people than Stoney will ever do.
Having seen Stoney "in action" in an emergency situation I can safely say I'd rather be there than anywhere else if the **** were to hit the fan.

Despite what you read, many many people regard Stoney as a safe place to dive.

The only thing I can surmise as to what happend is they held onto him during the asscent, a buddy he maybe but self preservation comes before your buddy in a situation like that and you just have to let him go and wave bye bye.
But that's all that is..

One of the reasons I tend not to dive with a buddy anymore, although it's hard when the skipper insists on it.


Andy

 

i take it you've got spare air then?

 

I don't see the problem with solo diving as long as you have plenty of redundancy with your equipment, from independant air supplies down to a spare mask.

 

Would divers that drive a Subaru be better in the bends?

 

I've seen some shocking things done by "qualified" divers at Stoney. Imagine someone who drives a banger with no MOT, it's falling apart and an utter death trap - then imagine the care they take of their diving equipment (which is their only means of life support). I'm surprised there aren't more deaths to be honest - not the fault of Stoney Cove though.

I wandered down to the "bus stop" entry point as two old blokes were about to step in. I'd been watching them kitting up from about 30 feet away, and noted they hadn't done any checks. As they were about to step in, i tapped one bloke on the shoulder and asked if he was about to go in. When he replied "yeah of course" I asked whether he usually dived with his drysuit totally unzipped. If he'd stepped in he'd have flooded his suit immediately, his BCD wasn't inflated so he'd have sunk to the 6m shelf like a stone - in water which was 3 degrees C in February. Very likely he'd have gone into shock from the cold and drowned.

He thanked me and I zipped his suit up for him, but he didin't appear to have any idea how serious it could have been.

I've also dived with random people there, and seen stuff like people not realising they've kitted up with an empty tank, gone in with a redundant air supply that's switched off and they can't reach the valve, people going to 36m in 3 degree water when the last dive they did was in 10m wearing shorts in the med. Etc etc etc.

My old BSAC instructor got bent in Scapa doing a 55m deco dive on air, using a single 12L cylinder and BSAC88 deco tables , no backup supply and no margin for error at all.

I stopped diving with BSAC in the UK as I found so much of their rules/regs were so iffy and outdated. I joined GUE and dived with a DIR club who had there $hit together so much better it was unreal. Diving with them was actually fun because you could actually trust everyone and rely on them 100%.

 

Btw brumdaisy, here's the archived incident reports that BSAC compiles every year. All incidents which happened to BSAC club divers, remember lots of divers are PADI etc and don't dive under the BSAC structure - so this is just a proportion of the number of incidents every year.

Try not to get too depressed reading these, but it's good to see some honest reports of what happens each year.

http://www.bsac.org/techserv/incguide/incidents.htm

I'd wager that Stoney actually has quite a good record considering the number of divers that use the facility, and if you had an accident there you'd have far greater chance of getting help than if you were on a dive boat somewhere off the south coast.

 

cheers to everyone who has posted today, its nice to see some people on here are capable of having a bit of a debate and share opinions without getting their claws out

Iwan, your post is pretty much the things that i have heared stories about. It seems that there are quite a few divers out there who, regardless of their 'qualifications' shouldn't be allowed to dive under their own steam...

Im not a fan of the nanny state principle but is it not possible that Stoney should take some responsibility for ensuring that divers are equipped (mentally and physically!) to dive? Suppose not considering the numbers... I just dont fancy having some incompetent clown diving next to me, or being caught up in their antics....

 

 

Manifolded twin 12's, side slung 7 (usually 50%) dual wing and a spare mask.
oh and besides the main PC on my wrist then I have a basic bottom timer and a watch.
Dive the rule of thirds as well. descent and dive on the first third, ascent and deco on the second, leaving the last third for fan meeting excrement situations.
Or just occasionally overstaying your bottom time due to being transfixed on a friendly octopus.

I think that's enough redundancy for me. If that aint enough I deserve to die.



But how could you possibly regulate it.
It's all very well telling lesser qualified divers to stay away from the deeper sections, whether they adhere to your instructions or not is another matter.
On the buddy scenario, we were always taught to speak up if we were not happy to dive with a particular person, and yes I do know a few people that really should find another hobby... but what can you do.


Andy