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First steps; IMCA recognised commercial diving medical Dive school in UK, Australia or South Africa Good luck

From a comletely biased point of view - try the Professional Diving Academy in Dunoon as another option!!

so tell me y is having a union a bad things now ???????

John, This is an idea that has been brought up every few years since I joined the diving industry in 1981. It's a great idea in theory but it has always failed in practice because the focus of the organization wanders from it's stated mission. I would support and be a part of a group whose sole purpose is the improvement of diver safety. But this limited scope must be strictly enforced. Anything not directly involved in diver safety must be immediately and completely squelched. If this single rule is adhered to, I would absolutely become a paying member. Mike Chiconsky mchiconsky@gmail.com

John, Your proposal for a divers’ safety organization is long past due and I commend you for leading an effort to bring one to fruition. There needs to be an organization funded by and run by commercial divers. Not a web site dependent on advertisers who can control content or limit discussion. Not an organization controlled by industry, one controlled by the men and women that make their livings at the end of a hose. One devoted to safety and only safety related issues. There was an attempt to set up such an organization fifteen years ago which unfortunately died due to a lack of funding. That organization was established with a goal of creating reasonable, workable, enforceable diving regulations, a graduated tender, diver, supervisor certification program and a reporting center. Then ultimately a corporate certification program, not one that only requires a written agreement to follow the rules but one subject to onsite inspections. Inspection by knowledgeable, trained, experienced dive professionals with access to equipment records, dive logs, personnel assessments and the capability of pulling the certification of the unsafe operator. Much has changed in these past fifteen years. There are now those within the industry that see the wisdom in the creation of a universally safer work place. See the wisdom of removing the marginal operators or ensuring that all meet or exceed the new standard of safety. And now there is the technology making it possible to instantly and affordably exchange ideas, report and track diving operations as well as divers. The issue of funding still remains. Funding to maintain a web site, funding to set up and operate a certification program and inspection program. The challenges still remain the same. Get a voice in the creation of proper regulations, find a funding source and get divers involved in their safety, their future. As always if I can be of assistance feel free to call on me. Peter J Pilkington

Red headed step children at that! Those two reports are sadly lacking in basic information. Very poor effort indeed.

Name em and shame em. OGR is right. Are divers just the Coast Guard and OSHA's unwanted step-children?

I believe that the ADCI & IMCA has passed themselves off to OSHA & the Coast Guard as the answer to Safety Questions. I also believe we can educate OSHA & the Coast Guard to the fact that both the ADCI and IMCA are nothing more then: Cover your butt trade organizations. We need to force both the ADCI and IMCA to publicly support [url="http://www.offshorediver.com/pdf/OGP%20Diving%20Safety%20Workshop%202012.pdf"]The OGP Dive Safety Workshop[/url]

I would not stretch the English Language far enough to attempt to call either one of those pdf files an "inspection report". A brief look at the two of them tells you [b]EXACTLY[/b] what value that these two organizations place on a diver's life. They might as well have just scribbled "he's dead - move on" on a sheet of paper. I think that you should get in touch with the media, John, like Dateline or 20/20 or one of the investigative journalists. It may be that OSHA and Coast Guard can be shamed into doing their job by the media.

A total and scanadalous abnegation of their responsibilities as the government agency tasked with undertaking these investigations! I have always suspected that the UK HSE was complicit in at least downplaying the fallout for diving companies who lost divers. I have witnessed that firsthand in one instance! It seems that the US suffers from the same affliction that Norway and the UK suffered during the 70s and early 80s...basically downright dishonesty and conspiracy beteen the diving contractors and the relevant government agencies tvo evade the truth. From their reports there is one and one lesson only to be learned from their reports on these tragedies, because of their deliberate ommission and dissimulation of the true circumstances...the US Coastguard Service are simply Not Fit for Purpose! It is also an obscene and callously insensitive kick in the teeth to the relatives of the lost divers! Nick Proctor.

[quote name='Guest' timestamp='1317058702'] Here is the best comment I found on the OSHA/Coast Guard Petition:I have more than 30-years of military, experimental and commercial diving experience. Tens of thousands of dives with zero fatalities and very few casualties (2-3). After studying recent commercial diving accident reports I've concluded that the regulations need to be changed. Currently they facilitate haste to perpetuate the money saving practices of the offshore oil and other industries. The regulations - when violated must be enforced with firm but fair punishment to deter repeating mistakes. [/quote] Absolutely correct! The punishments need to be sufficiently rigorous to deter the violators from ever being tempted to repeat their transgressions, as has recently happened in civils in the UK. [i][u][b]The "tolerance" should be "Absolute Zero".[/b][/u][/i] The root cause of the lack of enforcement, often elementary, is the complacency of the regulators and the wilful negligence and greed of many of the culprits. The problem is that by passing safety regimes keeps the violators in business because of the lower level of their costs which pushes the bona fide companies out of business because they cannot afford to compete unless they too proscribe their sefety regimes in practise. In other words too often the industry is working well below the bottom line in Safety as a result.

You should not rely on regulators or any government agency's to keep your workplace safe. The priority for regulators is not safety per se but enforcement of the regulations, no matter how bad those regulations may be. The diving industry Clients, Contractors, Supervisors and Divers must, at the end of the day, be responsible for safety in their own workplace and while good regulations can form a solid foundation if you leave safety to the regulators you will be sorely disappointed. A good starting point is for supervisors to make sure that the dive will be safe in all respects and for divers to refuse the dive if they believe the dive will be unsafe or hazardous.

Here is the best comment I found on the OSHA/Coast Guard Petition: I have more than 30-years of military, experimental and commercial diving experience. Tens of thousands of dives with zero fatalities and very few casualties (2-3). After studying recent commercial diving accident reports I've concluded that the regulations need to be changed. Currently they facilitate haste to perpetuate the money saving practices of the offshore oil and other industries. The regulations - when violated must be enforced with firm but fair punishment to deter repeating mistakes.

What surprise me is the entrenched opposition of the ADCI and IMCA members to safety upgrades! Their employers, members of the OGP, support the upgrades in Safety regimes and they will be the ones who ultimately bear any extra costs incurred. All the diving contractors, eg ADCI and IMCA members, would still be playing on the same level playing field since they will all undoubtedly pass the extra costs on to the Client. [b]SO[/b] why are they so opposed to safety upgrading???? It seems a [b]"no brainer"[/b]to me but maybe I'm missing something!

A very interesting pie indeed. I suspect that Incompetence might overlap many of the other causes of death. Obviously the survey concentrates on fatalities and the workshop will undoubtedly promote a quick and effective incident reporting procedure so that lessons can be learned and similar incidents avoided in the future. However there are the "near misses" which traditionally go unreported to save the blushes of both employers and employees. They would undoubtedly be more numerous than than the fatalities. If that situation continues the opportunity to learn from these incidents will be lost until there is a fatality or severe injury. This is a grey area that I feel the workshop should also deliberate upon! In his book "Requiem for a Diver" Jackie Warner posts at the foot of his annual fatality chart that there were a plethora of incidents resulting in permanent damage to the diver which were never logged or reported.

Good opinion Jack. However, there are a lot of blokes where it takes em ten years to realize that they are useless divers anyway and nobody would want them as a sat supervisor anyway. Never really came across that much nepotism in S.E.A. In the UK maybe, nepotism is all the go though. Who would you rather have on deck, new n green or old n mean[img]http://longstreath.com/community/public/style_emoticons/default/question.png[/img] Maybe the schools should run a course for med lock operators n pot of hot makers, although, as it is, they don't even teach em that[img]http://longstreath.com/community/public/style_emoticons/default/popcorm1.gif[/img]

The Canadian Standards Authority(CSA)standards for diving operations and personal competency are the best and safest diving standards in the world for inshore diving, and are available on the CSA website [url="http://www.csa.ca"]My link[/url].

Here is the direct link to the CSA diving standards. note that you have to pay to download the actual standard [url="http://shop.csa.ca/en/canada/ohs-management-systems/diving-and-pressurized-environments/icat/divingpressurized"]CSA Diving Standars[/url]