BSAC

The role of the NDC Incidents Advisor
Brian Cumming

There are a number of different aspects to the role of NDC Incidents Advisor and these can be summarised into the following broad categories:

• Gathering, collating and reporting on diving incidents
• Advising on emerging trends in diving safety and making recommendations on any changes that may become necessary
• Liaising with Coastguard, Royal National Lifeboat Institute, and the British Hyperbaric Association on issues relating to diving safety
• Maintaining the BSAC booklet - ‘Safe Diving’
• Writing regular articles on topical safety issues l Attending Coroners’ Courts, if required
• Responding to inquiries from the Media on diving safety issues, usually as the result of a diving incident.

The first of these roles occupies much of my time since we generally expect to report on several hundred incidents each year. Each one has to be read and understood, and then entered into the incident database. The database entry attempts to summarise all the key elements associated with the incident and includes a synopsis that describes the main details of the event.

Information for the database is drawn from our own incident report forms that people have completed, from the Coastguard, the RNLI, occasionally from recompression facilities, and also from news reports which are provided by a news clipping service to which the BSAC subscribes. Quite often information comes from more than one of these sources, and one of the challenges is to match up the often scant information.

From data an annual report is produced and published. This report sets out to categorise the incidents into groupings that are similar in nature or causal factors, and to make recommendations, from these findings, on actions that should be taken to improve safety. I provide a regular report to the NDC on the current year’s statistics, and alert the committee to any trends that are detected which affect diving safety. The NDC can then put actions in place to address the issues. Such actions could include the publication of advice to members and coaches, revisions to recommended diving practice, modifications to training programmes, and/or alerting external authorities to actions that they should consider.

The BSAC enjoys a very good working relationship with the rescue and emergency services and one of my pleasant duties is to liaise with the nominated representatives of these groups. These contacts are enthusiastic to support the BSAC in its goal of improving safety, very often they are sports divers themselves, and they are able to bring a very practical and experienced based perspective to the information and advice that they give us.

All of the experience that the BSAC has gained over a great many years, on the subject of diving safety, is distilled into the booklet ‘Safe Diving Practices’. This booklet is available free, from the BSAC, and every diver should have a copy.

Most diving incidents can be found to have transgressed at least one of the recommendations that it contains. If every diver followed these guidelines rigorously, incidents would be cut very dramatically and perhaps a dozen lives would be saved each year.

One of my roles is to maintain this booklet, and to prepare the text for reprint as required, usually at least once every year. Please make sure you have an up to date copy and that you read, understand and follow the recommendations that it contains.

Reading all of the reports that the BSAC receives, as I do, is a sobering experience, and one that I would like to be able to share with all divers. Clearly this is not possible, but, in an attempt to share the hard won experience of those who have had problems, with all divers, I write a regular ‘Diving Safety’ feature for Diver magazine. Most diving incidents can be grouped into a number of common themes, the articles are usually aimed at one of these key themes, and attempt to provide guidance on important factors in the avoidance of a particular problem.

The last of my duties relates to perhaps the most unpleasant side of the diving incidents, and that is those that result in serious injury or death. Usually these incidents become the focus of the legal processes, and the Incidents Advisor may be called upon to provide evidence to a Coroner’s Court.

Very often serious incidents attract the attention of the media., and the Incidents Advisor may be required to respond to their questions. The task in these situations is to provide clear and accurate comment, where appropriate, to be sensitive to the emotions that will be involved, and to ensure that the sport of diving is judged in an accurate and informed light. Clearly diplomacy skills are at a premium in such cases.

In conclusion, I hope that you will agree that the role of the Incidents Advisor is an important one. The information derived from this activity helps in the development of our sport and in the constant improvement of diving safety.

The fuel for this job is data, incident reports, and whilst I would obviously encourage you to avoid problems, I would ask that you provide feedback when things do go wrong. Please do not worry about being pilloried for your mistakes, our goal is not to criticise individuals, and any information provided in a BSAC incident report that could lead to the identification of a specific individual is concealed.