How many diving accidents, incidents or near misses that you know about were down to the lack of technical skills or failure of equipment? I am betting not too many. Do these sound familiar?
“I didn’t think that was going to happen”
“We didn’t brief the plan, so I was surprised when he did that”
“We entered the wreck but no-one had talked about that”
“I thought that he had analysed the gas”
Doesn’t happen to you? This attitude is a common human behaviour (fundamental attribution error and ‘distancing through differencing’) where we try to convince ourselves that we are different and these things happen to other people.
Recent (unpublished) research has shown that 44% of SCUBA diving incidents had complacency as a contributory factor, 39% overconfidence, 36% as error in judgement, 33% poor or failure to communicate…these are not technical failures…
Given this, Human in the System has developed, and following the successful pilot class this week (12 & 13 Jan 16), launched a 2-day course which uses theory, practical exercises, case studies and computer-based simulation exercises to develop diver’s skills so that they can reduce the likelihood of an incident from occurring in the first place. The course will improve:
- teamwork by recognising the predictable barriers to team development,
- communications by demonstrating the barriers and enablers to effective communications,
- situational awareness by showing how easy the brain can be sidelined and provide tools to prevent this from happening
- recognition of the effects of stress and fatigue, including identifying stress triggers.
The course is aimed at all divers, but especially those in leadership roles (DMs, Instructors, Instructor Trainers and site staff) or those who have a greater need for effective teamwork such as cave divers or those undertaking mandatory decompression overhead.
Graduates of the world’s first Human Factors in Diving Skills class, 12 & 13 Jan 16
More details, including dates of forthcoming courses, are available at the website www.humanfactors.academy
Cognitas Incident Research & Management 