MIKE’S RULES : 9 PRINCIPLES FOR SAFER DIVING

March 1st, 2009 by Mike Ange

Since 2001, I have been investigating dive accidents and analyzing them for the keys to safer diving. In the pages of the old Scuba Diving magazine, in public speaking engagements and in my book “Diver Down: Real World Scuba Accidents and How to Avoid Them,” I’ve shared countless cases with divers of all skill levels. I am pleased to be continuing this work here for the members of Seaduction.com—the exclusive new online home for Mike Ange’s Lessons for Life. Click here (link to the LFL page) for the latest case study, and check back often as I’ll be updating the site regularly with new accident investigations. And thanks to the interactivity of the site, I can field your questions and share additional insights above and beyond each article.

For this first article in the new training section of Seaduction.com, I wanted to step back and share the one big truth and nine general principles that I’ve learned from analyzing scores of accident cases and from teaching more than 3,000 students for the past decade.

First, the big truth: Panic kills. It is amazing what the average human being can survive as long as he maintains the ability to think clearly and take rational steps to assure his survival. Panic, by definition, is the loss of rational thought processes and the record is clear. A diver in a state of panic is far more likely to end up injured or dead.

So what causes panic? Case studies show that no one thing causes panic. In almost every circumstance, it’s a series of small, stressful events that add up and push a diver over the edge. Here’s a typical example: A diver steps off of the boat into a current stronger than he anticipates. He struggles to compensate for the current, which accelerates his rate of breathing and creates physical exertion. While in this already taxed state, he turns his head to the side and the current dislodges his mask, causing it to flood. While clearing the mask, he looses momentum with the current and his physiological stress is compounded by psychological stress. Now, the diver is hyperventilating as he reaches the mooring line. As he reaches the line, he gets entangled in a loop of mono-filament and in the struggle to free himself steps over the edge into panic.

The more important question is, “How do we prevent panic?”  The answer to this question is easy: Preparation. The more prepared a diver is, the less likely he is to be pushed to the edge of his comfort zone and encounter unmanageable psychological stress. Which leads us to the nine diving principles I like to call…

Mike’s Rules for Diving:

1. Murphy (of Murphy’s Law fame: “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”) is alive and well.  He lives in the unsuspecting diver’s gear bag where he waits patiently to kill you. But, Murphy is an opportunist and he needs an opening to accomplish his dangerous work. His openings include things like poorly maintained gear and a lack of current or proper training.  So, my first rule is:  avoid Murphy’s Law by following diving’s established rules.
2. No one plans to die on a dive. Most divers pop happily from dive to dive never thinking about potential accidents or how they might deal with them. As a result, they never practice emergency drills and other contingency skills. My second rule is: Prepare to survive by planning for contingencies and practice implementing those plans before you need them.
3. Rule number three is widely known to tech divers as Odom’s Rule: The dive never gets better unless you fix it. Minor problems will escalate if you ignore them. Take the time to correct minor issues like leaking o-rings, leaking masks or inadequate training before they escalate into a stress event. If you can’t fix them, abort the dive.
4. Briefings are for everyone. Dive guides have valuable local knowledge that can make your dive safer and more enjoyable.  Use this information—you paid for it after all. Violation of this rule, statistically, leads to more accidents than any other.
5. My next rule is that your equipment should be safe and redundant, but not ridiculous. In the era of technical diving, it seems that many recreational divers have a goal to see how many dangling things they can attach to themselves and still swim through the water. You need adequate safety gear of course — an octopus, a surface marker buoy and an audible signaling device are always recommended (see below) — but everything else should stay in the gear bag unless you need it for the dive.
6. It is good to be seen and heard – especially when you are drifting 20 miles off shore in five-foot seas. Always carry a brightly colored surface marker buoy or safety sausage and a sonic alert device. If diving at night, carry a back up flashlight or a strobe.
7. Bad days are predictable and therefore preventable if you prepare to survive. If you follow the rules we have discussed previously and think about them as you watch people assemble their gear on the boat or evaluate your own dive plan, you will inevitably see opportunities to intervene to prevent an accident before it ever gets into the water.
8. The most common equipment failure in diving is the human brain. This failure generally occurs from failing to appreciate the potential gravity of a situation. We live in a society that propounds a lack of personal responsibility and, unfortunately, this serves to decrease our safety.  Take responsibility for yourself.  Which leads me to the next rule for diving….
9. You are responsible for you. No one else can breathe for you, think for you, or save your life as effectively as you can. Unfortunately, we live in a society that propounds a lack of personal responsibility and, unfortunately, this serves to decrease our safety as divers. Take responsibility for yourself and your diving safety as if your life depends on it—because it does.