Why do all of these diving accidents keep happening?

As children, most of us were taught that we learn by our mistakes. Discipline for small children is quite simple: when they do wrong they are disciplined, when they do right they are not. Children soon learn to do what is right. In school, our examination papers are given back to us after they are marked so that we can see exactly what we did wrong; learn the proper answer and the method to get that answer. As humans mature, they take this learning by mistakes process with them through life and apply it (quite often subconsciously) to every aspect of their life, from relationships with other humans, to sports such as football and hockey, then on into their careers as adults. Most people in this world learn by their own mistakes, the smarter people learn by the mistakes of others.

In order to complete the Transcontinental Railway in Canada, a bridge was required to be built across the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec. During construction in 1900 the bridge collapsed, killing 75 construction workers. Later when they were rebuilding the same bridge, the center span collapsed killing 10 more. The subsequent investigation found mistakes in calculations and poor choices in materials. To this day every civil engineer in the United States and Canada is given an iron ring to wear to remind them of these bridge collapses, and what can happen when mistakes and poor material choices are made. This is the earliest example I have found of trying to use the lessons learned from an incident to avoid future tragedy.

During project safety meetings offshore, we are often told of incidents on other jobsites involving injury or death, followed by a lessons learned session, where we can apply the knowledge gained to our own site and hopefully avoid a repeat of the same (or a similar) incident. This lessons learned process is utilized by almost all of the major oil companies, and actively encouraged by both IMCA and IOGP. That is not to say that every accident on an IMCA or IOGP project sees full disclosure; but at least they encourage disclosure of the facts: the events leading up to the incident, what exactly happened in the incident, and what exactly the consequences were for those involved in the incident.

The oil companies, IMCA, and IOGP deserve credit for their efforts to reduce workplace accidents. But with divers also working on construction projects, salvage jobs, power plants, shipyards, wind farms and other alternative energy projects, why do we not see the incident reports with lessons learned resulting from the incidents that keep occurring on these projects? Why do government regulatory agencies not provide details of incidents involving death or injury to divers? How can we be expected to learn from our mistakes when the information is not passed along? What hope is there of stopping this deadly cycle of repeating the mistakes of the past if we do not educate others?

The only way that we can stop this cycle of the same accidents happening the same way year after year is by learning from our mistakes and not repeating them. And the only way that we are going to learn from our mistakes is if we can convince all of the players (governments, contractors and clients) that it is in their best interest to pass on all of the information from each and every incident.

Unless a proper investigation is performed, we will never know the true facts surrounding any incident, and therefore we will never learn the lessons we should from that incident. A proper accident investigation requires knowledge of all of the machinery, equipment and tools used when the incident occurred, all of the environmental conditions prevailing when the incident occurred, the training and physical fitness of the personnel involved in the incident, and all of the mitigation and recovery methods available during and after the incident.

Most countries today have dedicated organizations for investigating incidents involving aircraft. Canada and the United States both call theirs the 'Transportation Safety Board'. The TSB does not use railroad experts to investigate aircraft incidents; they use aircraft experts. Likewise, when they are investigating railroad incidents, they do not use aircraft experts. The reason for this is that the forces at play in aircraft incidents as opposed to railway incidents are vastly different, and understanding what lead to or what happened during any given incident requires an investigator with knowledge of the forces involved.

Knowing this, why would government regulatory bodies ever think that an expert in surface construction, jobsite safety, or engineering would be even remotely qualified to investigate an incident occurring in the underwater environment, regardless of the circumstances? Why would they think that an emergency room physician or standard pathologist could comment on the medical aspects of a diving incident?

The only way that a diving-related workplace accident can be properly investigated is if it is investigated by people who are well experienced in working underwater. Until this is realized, we will never have proper investigations of the accidents, we will not learn the lessons we should and we will not prevent these accidents from recurring in the future.

Regulations are like guardrails on the edge of the roadway that help to keep you from driving into the ditch; regulations will never guarantee a safe workplace. Workplace safety requires a firm commitment by both the employer and the employees to develop and maintain a safety culture. That, along with the guidance of proper regulation and enforcement, will help to guarantee a safe workplace.

Poor regulations are sometimes worse than no regulations at all. Sadly there are contractors (and clients) out there that would think nothing of risking an employees life to get the job done. This is where good regulations really will help, provided that there is proper enforcement of those regulations, and proper penalties in place when the regulations are ignored. But even with proper regulations, we need proper enforcement, proper investigation of accidents, and we need to share the lessons learned after accidents, incidents, and near-misses. Then we will have the complete package that will ensure a safer workplace going forward, and stop this never ending cycle of repeated incidents.

Safety regulations will never guarantee a safe workplace. A safe workplace requires a safety culture, proper regulation and enforcement, proper accident investigation, and learning from our past mistakes.