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:: Thursday, July 29, 2004 ::

Commercial divers find safety Canadian Occupational Safety magazine
The problem with a three-person crew is that it is fundamentally flawed. If something happens to your diver and you have to jump the stand-by diver, your tender (often the least experienced crew-member) is left to manage two umbilicals in what is effectively one of the worst-case diving scenarios.

It's a situation that has proved deadly in the past, according to Dave Geddes, program coordinator of Seneca College's commercial diving school. He recalls one incident a dozen years ago in the Welland canal where both the diver and the stand-by diver were caught in a pressure differential by a gate (when the water being drawn out of a structure such as a lock creates a dangerous drain-like suction that can trap and hold a diver). The situation resulted in a double fatality.

No one debates that four is safer than three, but rather which number should be the standard, with allowable deviations from there. Elsey is a proponent of the three-plus-one solution, wherein three qualified divers make up the team and a fourth person onsite is determined able and competent to help or contact help should an emergency arise.

Geddes doesn't buy it. 'In an emergency, you've got a tender who may or may not have any experience who's now tending two divers, one of whom is in trouble. And you're talking about having a construction guy or an engineer help out in an emergency situation?' he asks rhetorically.

posted 6:15 AM :: reference link :: 0 comments ::

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