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SPRING 2014
and avoid accidents. Diving officers, like other safety
professionals, are in the position that if they do their jobs
well, they help ensure that nothing, or rather nothing
untoward, happens. All the critical assessment, planning,
training, monitoring and anticipation establishes an
umbrella of protection. A good diving program will have
a culture of thoughtfulness, low stress and safe operations
with great institutional support. Each of these aspects is
necessary for a program to flourish over time.
EVALUATION
The evaluation of scientific diver competency can be an
interesting challenge. Working scientists are busy, often
disliking mandates to disrupt their activities for pool or
classroom sessions. More importantly, such sessions are
unlikely to represent the normal working conditions of
the dive team. Artificial conditions are less effective at
testing divers’ true capabilities, and the diving officer
misses the opportunity to see the specifics of operations
that are impossible to assess in summary documentation
or highly constrained scenarios. The most effective
strategy of a good diving officer, and probably the most
enjoyable approach, is to join research teams in the field.
Field evaluations can be effective when offered as
a convenience to the dive team. One method is for
the diving officer to volunteer to assist with normal
operations on the day for the small price of having the
team participate in skill evaluations at the end.
2
The
diving officer assists with regular activities to keep the day
productive while quietly evaluating normal operations of
the team. This provides insights into crew performance
and the needs of the scientific work. As an additional
benefit, the time can also refresh some skills that the
diving officer does not use on a daily basis, a useful
element since the one providing oversight can sometimes
be independent of the same protection. Running drills
and emergency simulations at the end of the working day
provides a better sense of performance with a normal
degree of fatigue. Less-than-stellar performance under
realistic conditions is more likely to capture the attention
of a diver or dive team — it is more difficult to ignore
problems evident in a normal day than a simulated one.
The completion of field evaluation days is often
extremely satisfying. The cost, particularly for diving
officers working in environmental health and safety offices
with staff from multiple disciplines, is that it is hard for
colleagues to resist a niggling (or greater) sense that these
are boondoggle days. The best way to combat that is
to have at least one other safety officer with some dive
training to participate in one of the field evaluations. My
favorite day of this type was when a fit — but minimally
experienced with diving — safety officer who had agreed
to be cross-trained declared in a staff meeting that the
“boondoggle” day constituted the hardest work he had
experienced in his career as a safety officer. It would, of
course, have become much easier as he gained experience,
but when part of the office time you have to justify is in
the ocean it is sometimes best to promote a few illusions.
A good way to investigate potential careers in diving
health and safety is to join an existing scientific diving
program. While this may be easiest for students at
institutions with programs, nonstudents may also be able
to join, often initially as volunteer divers. This can be the
gateway, providing experience and training and, if the fit is
good, more opportunity. Those who enjoy the challenge of
holding all of the pieces together to maintain a safe diving
program could find a very satisfying career path.
AD
REFERENCES
1. Dardeau MR, Pollock NW, McDonald CM, Lang MA. The
incidence of decompression illness in 10 years of scientific
diving. Diving Hyperb Med. 2012; 42(4): 195-200.
2. Ma AC, Pollock NW. Physical fitness of scientific divers:
standards and shortcomings. In: Pollock NW, Godfrey JM,
eds. Diving for Science 2007. Proceedings of the American
Academy of Underwater Sciences 26th Symposium. Dauphin
Isl, AL: AAUS, 2007: 33-43.
From left: A student uses a suction sampler. Standardized photoquadrat
methods are used in the quantification of ecosystem change. Hand coring
by scientific divers has been shown to give highly accurate samples for a
range of research disciplines.
The UK NERC National Facility for Scientific Diving (x2)
ERIC HEUPEL
