Talk:List of diving hazards and precautions

Orca

As described in the section on orca, killer whales have never been known to attack divers or other humans, and therefore should not be listed as a danger to divers. They seem to show intense interest in divers, however, and often interact with them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.153.35.207 (talk) 08:56, 26 October 2004

Groupers dangerous?

Many marine animals can bite if molested but are cannot be considered dangerous on this count. People are not a food sources for Groupers. We have very large Groupers but I have never heard of an incident of unprovoked aggression. If Groupers are to be added back in please cite ref. Ex nihil (talk) 05:43, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

• The issue of grouper attack on humans/divers is not a joke. There have been a few instances, and at least one fatality that I am aware of, from attack by large groupers/jewfish. I did not write this, nor have I looked for any references yet (though I have seen them in the recent past). Let's keep it for now, and you or I or someone else will hopefully add the reference link soon. I will add it to my list of things to do....DiverDave (talk) 04:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

• • OK, so I have not been able to find the grouper attack that resulted in a human fatality, but I have located 4 sources describing 3 separate cases of grouper-versus-diver attacks. I agree with Ex nihil that with few exceptions, marine animals do not attack humans without prior provocation. I have personally been attacked by a female Titan Triggerfish, which is known to be an aggressive fish. But virtually all triggerfish attacks I am aware of (including my own) have been in response to a diver unknowingly trespassing into the vicinity of the nest of a female Titan triggerfish. In other words, this is a case of self-defense.DiverDave (talk) 00:36, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

• • • I propose deleting this item shortly as there seems to be no supporting evidence since 2009. I dive continuously around the Pacific among huge Groupers and I have never heard of anybody ever being aggressed by one. Yes, I certainly steer clear of Trigger fish nests, Trigger fish are standard dive brief warnings in the tropics and bites are common and can be painful, Groupers never. Ex nihil ^(talk) 03:27, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

• • • • A thing does not have to be aggressive to be dangerous. • • • Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 08:33, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Helmet squeeze

Can't find a good source to verify that this isn't a myth. Being somewhat extraordinary, getting compacted inside a hard helmet should be documented somewhere if it's real. --Andreas Ravn (talk) 22:34, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

In the book "Investigating Recreational and Commercial Diving Accidents, by Steven M. Barsky and Tom Neuman, M.D., FACP, FACPM. 2003. ISBN #: 0-9674305-3-4 it recounts an incident in the mid 1980s of a diver in the Gulf of Mexico getting "squeezed" (pages 90-91) causing him to stop breathing and sufferung massive hemorrhage of the blood vessels of the eyes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.123.192.196 (talk) 00:12, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I find it hard to work out a mechanism whereby a diver's body could be compressed into a hard helmet. If a valve failed and allowed air to escape from the helmet so that the pressure dropped inside the helmet, then the outside water pressure would tend to push water back through the failed valve and equalise. I agree that a lower pressure inside the helmet (perhaps through loss of air supply while the diver is descending) could cause haemorrhage, particularly to the eyes. Nevertheless I would think the story of a diver's body being "compacted inside the helmet" can safely be consigned to mythology. --RexxS (talk) 01:49, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The show Mythbusters recently ran a segment about the helmet squeeze phenomenon, complete with a human analogue ("Meat Man") dressed in a hard-helmeted diving suit and subjected to this scenario. The circumstances for helmet squeeze would be a situation where the compressor or the air hose failed at the surface, and the no-return valve in the helmet failed or wasn't present, thus causing the pressure inside the suit to equalize with the surface pressure, leaving no pressure to resist the crushing deep sea pressure. In the show, Meat-Man was indeed gruesomely extruded, at least partially, into his helmet, and the helmet itself was crushed like a soda can. Another scenario I've heard about that brings about a violent helmet-squeeze is when a diver falls a significant distance underwater, but the surface crew fails to stop the fall with the umbilical or equalize the pressure.Meldroc (talk) 17:59, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes the YouTube video was fun (although we can't link it because it's a copyright violation). However, it does not represent the "A valve in the helmet failing" scenario suggested by the article. You need two things to get the catastophe: failure of the air supply and a means by which the air inside the helmet is removed without letting water in. --RexxS (talk) 21:11, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

This could justify modifying the cause in the article to be correct. The valve in question is basically a check valve, called the non-return valve, which prevents the suit from releasing air and depressurizing if the air compressor on the surface failed, or the hose ruptured. Since the air supply comes from the surface, if the compressor isn't keeping the air pressure in the hose going down to the suit equalized to the pressure at the diver's depth, the pressure inside the suit will equalize with the pressure at the surface. It's the pressure differential that leads to helmet squeeze. Anyways, in order for a person to be sucked into his helmet, it requires both the air pressure to fail at the surface, and the non-return valve to also fail (which apparently happened occasionally due to lack of maintenance. Also, early suits didn't have non-return valves...) Also, rewriting the cause might also mention the accident scenario where a diver falls off a shipwreck or underwater cliff, say 50-100 feet, and the people at the surface weren't doing their job (this would involve them failing to take up the slack in the umbilical and stopping the fall, or the compressor failing to pump enough air down to the suit during a sudden fall to account for the sudden increase in pressure.) IIRC, that also caused divers to be sucked into their helmets.Meldroc (talk) 01:52, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed 100%. There has to be twin failures (assuming any helmet used now would have the non-return valve). It could do with re-writing and expanding to explain how this might happen. --RexxS (talk) 23:15, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

If anyone has access to a copy of Bill Brysons "A Short History of Nearly Everything". In chapter 16 "A Lonely Planet" paragraph 7 it referes to "the squeeze". Ill paste the paragraph in its entirety.

"Plenty else can go wrong, however. In the days of diving suits—the sort that were connected to the surface by long hoses—divers sometimes experienced a dreaded phenomenon known as “the squeeze.” This occurred when the surface pumps failed, leading to a catastrophic loss of pressure in the suit. The air would leave the suit with such violence that the hapless diver would be, all too literally, sucked up into the helmet and hosepipe. When hauled to the surface, “all that is left in the suit are his bones and some rags of flesh,” the biologist J. B. S. Haldane wrote in 1947, adding for the benefit of doubters, “This has happened.”" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.175.32.89 (talk) 19:01, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

• How does linking to a Youtube video make it a copyvio?, any more than linking to any other external site. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 21:20, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

WP:ELNEVER states:

"For policy or technical reasons, editors are restricted from linking to the following, without exception: Material that violates the copyrights of others per contributors' rights and obligations should not be linked. Linking to websites that display copyrighted works is acceptable as long as the website has licensed the work. Knowingly directing others to material that violates copyright may be considered contributory copyright infringement. If you know that an external website is carrying a work in violation of the creator's copyright, do not link to that copy of the work. Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors. This is particularly relevant when linking to sites such as YouTube, where due care should be taken to avoid linking to material that violates its creator's copyright."

That YouTube video is clearly copyright (see History for the url) - the description on the page says:

"This video belongs to Discovery Network, I DO NOT OWN THIS, NO COPYRIGHT INTENDED"

We are simply forbidden to link to material that we know is a violation of someone's copyright. --RexxS (talk) 23:15, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Clean up

This article is a disaster and almost entirely OR and opinion. I wanted to clean it up but it seems I'd have to remove just about everything. Beach drifter (talk) 01:58, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

It's usually best to find as many reliable sources as possible, read them, and then start a re-write of the sections from what they say, citing them as you go along. When that's done, the lead can be re-done as a summary of the sections. You may find that could work for you, and I'd encourage any efforts to improve the article. --RexxS (talk) 18:26, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Beach Drifter. I will try to get round to cleaning up the worst offences soon, but don't let this stop anyone else from starting cleanup. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:21, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I have made a start, but there is still a long way to go, and there are pretty near no citations worth mentioning yet. I have tried to remove the worst of the factual errors, and change the layout to something more informative and coherent. I will be back sometime, but it wasnt a fun job, so it may not be very soon. Anyone who wants to have a go at filling in the gaps and continuing the cleanup, please go ahead, it may inspire me to do some more work here. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 15:31, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Table or regular sections?

I would like comment on whether the table format is appropriate for this article. I am inclined to think that ordinary section and subsection format would both look better, and take up less white space. Example of normal formatting for a listed hazard:

Environmental hazards

Hypothermia

Consequences: Reduced core temperature, shivering, loss of strength, reduced level of conscuousness, loss of consciousness and eventually death.

Causes and mechanism: Losing body heat to the water. Water carries heat away far better than air. Cold water is very effective at removing body heat.

Avoidance and prevention: In cool or cold water, insulate against excessive heat loss by wearing an adequate diving suit for the conditions. The head is a major area of heat loss as it is well perfused and must be kept warm to remain conscious, so vasoconstriction is less marked than other body regions which can still function and survive when chilled.

Next item

Etc.

Actually, when I come to think of it, maybe the title should just be Diving hazards. Comments invited. I will make changes if there is a consensus, or if no-one objects within a month. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 10:12, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Certainly agree that a name change would be apt. Is "diving" too wide though? Should we say (for example) 'scuba diving hazards' or 'sport diving hazards' (to differentiate from the high board, and to a degree from freediving)? --Legis (talk - contribs) 13:02, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

A table is actually a two-dimensional list, so it is appropriate where we have a number of items all of which have the same properties that we enumerate. From that point of view, the table format fits this topic as each hazard has an associated cause, consequence, and prevention. You can, of course, use the format you suggest which is a repeated one-dimensional list. It would decrease the amount of whitespace on a narrow-screen monitor, but would show a lot more whitespace on widescreens, as many lines would not be as long as the width of the window. You would also dramatically increase the length of the page, as many lines in the table format would become four lines in a section/paragraph format, as well as repeating the "cause", "consequence", and "prevention" text in each section.

I'm not sure that a reformatting would actually improve the article, so perhaps you might want to see how one of the tables would look by making a page in userspace and trying the section/para style there first.

You'll also need to avoid writing in the second person, which includes imperatives such as "insulate against excessive heat loss by ..." as the encyclopedic tone does not give instructions.

The real problem with this article is still a massive lack of sources, which has led to it being a collection of personal anecdote and unsubstantiated claims. What if somebody comes along and says "I don't believe that the head is a major area of heat loss, and I'm going to change that"? You and I are both quite certain it is true, but we're not reliable sources and I would have to search hard to find a source that supported the statement. Of the nine references, four are to support the statement that "there have been cases of very large groupers trying to swallow humans", and 99% of the article is unsourced. To be honest, without starting from a series of sources that outline diving hazards, anything else we do to this article is tantamount to re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. --RexxS (talk) 15:38, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

@Legis: Good point, but I don't want to limit it to recreational diving as most of the hazards are similar to those for professional diving. "Hazards of underwater diving" should be specific enough. To distinguish from free diving, it would be necessary to use something like "Hazards of diving with breathing apparatus". ( I think it unlikely that anyone will confuse this with jumping off high platforms into the water, though there are recognised hazards connected to high entries for scuba and ssd.) Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:18, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

@RexxS: Your comments on the suitability of tables are appreciated, I will leave the article in this format for now, as it looks like the advantages of changing will be marginal if they exist, and unlikely to be worth the effort. The biggest gain would probably be ease of editing.

The problem of sourcing is one I will get to as second priority. First priority has been getting the table to look a bit more rational and get rid of the worst vagueness and inaccuracy, so I have a better idea of what to reference. I will spend a few days referencing, and then leave it to see what gets challenged, and deal with it as and when it happens. Feel free to challenge any item that you think needs specific referencing, and as always, add references if you have them to hand.

Much of the second person stuff is left over from the original, which was riddled with it. I am working on it gradually as second to third priority, usually as I notice it or when it particularly annoys me. You are always welcome to change any that you find particularly objectionable.

If you know of any good references listing diving hazards, please let me know, I am working from personal experience, and though I expect to be able to find sources for most if not all of the hazards listed, they will probably be scattered through a largish number of publications, and be somewhat tedious to collect. Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 06:18, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

• "which includes imperatives such as "insulate against excessive heat loss by ...": making it 3rd-person by prefixing e.g. "the diver should" would serve only to clutter the table without adding more meaning. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 07:34, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Ultrasound

'Citation needed' notices on this section have been unaddressed since 2012. I have added new ones for material added 12 Feb 2014. Since the whole section is unsourced for some time I will delete the section shortly unless supported. Quick research suggests it is dubious at best but you may know better. Ex nihil ^(talk) 03:20, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

There is a real impact here but it would take time to dig into that literature for the best resources. I will try to reach out to some friends at NSMRL for a reply. In the mean time, I'll also look to see what is useful from these:

• Steevens CC, Russell KL, Knafelc ME, Smith PF, Hopkins EW, Clark JB (1999). "Noise-induced neurologic disturbances in divers exposed to intense water-borne sound: two case reports". Undersea Hyperb Med. 26 (4): 261–5. PMID 10642074. Retrieved 2014-02-12.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Rehn, KW; Riggs, PK (2002). "Non-Lethal Swimmer Neutralization Study". US Navy Technical Report ADA406644. Applied Research Laboratories; University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 2014-02-12.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Fothergill DM, Sims JR, Curley MD (2001). "Recreational scuba divers' aversion to low-frequency underwater sound". Undersea Hyperb Med. 28 (1): 9–18. PMID 11732884. Retrieved 2014-02-12.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

I'll get back to it as soon as I hear from them. Thanks! --Gene Hobbs (talk) 04:40, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

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Suggested improvements

@Pbsouthwood: in response to your query on my talk page, here's a few thoughts of mine. Diving is a highly technical area. I'm not an expert, so I'll limit my comments to generic observations about article structure and organization. I looked at

• Diving safety
• Human factors in diving safety
• Diving disorders
• List of diving hazards and precautions
• List of signs and symptoms of diving disorders

My first thought is that there's extensive overlap between these. While there's certainly room for multiple articles about diving, it seems like 5 articles with this much overlap is excessive. Looking at List of signs and symptoms of diving disorders, I think the entire lede could be deleted. It's a general overview of the physiology of diving, which is covered elsewhere. I also looked at Human factors in diving safety. It has extensive copyright problems. See the earwig report. I'll take a closer look at it when I'm done with this, but my hunch at the moment is that it may be a candidate for WP:G12. But, to get to the core question at hand, List of diving hazards and precautions, this is very much an WP:ADVICE WP:NOTADVICE article. Most of it is a table of hazards and how to avoid them. The "how to avoid them" part is classic WP:NOTHOWTO. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:38, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

OK, false alarm on the G12. Looks like we were the original source and they copied from us. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:45, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

@RoySmith: Bearing in mind that List of signs and symptoms of diving disorders is a Featured List and has undergone scrutiny from the community, what would you replace the lead with if the present one were deleted? WP:SALLEAD applies. --RexxS (talk) 20:15, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

I did not notice the FL icon. I'm just going to stop here before I dig myself a deeper hole. -- RoySmith (talk) 21:23, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

RoySmith, Thanks for the effort, anyway. I will look into your comments, and hope there is something that results in an improvement somewhere. Glad to hear the earwig was a false alarm as I am always happy to see our work being reused productively. I assume your shortcut link to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration was a typo for WP:NOTADVICE, Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 07:20, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

PS: You have drawn my attention to the large content overlap in signs and symptoms between the List of diving hazards and precautions and other articles. As it is not about the details of the consequences, I plan to trim a lot of the signs and symptoms out. Getting rid of the precautions to avoid and prevent the consequences is a little more problematic as they are squarely mentioned in the title. However I will think about this too, and will try to fix the cases where they appear to be written in an advisory tone. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 07:47, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Occasionally, you'll see people talking about wikipedia voice, which means writing something so it sounds like the encyclopedia is giving advice. The general solution there is to make sure you attribute any advice-like statements. So, instead of, Cylinders should be filled by competent people, you might say, The Intergalactic Diving Cabal recommends that cylinders should be filled by competent people, with an in-line reference. That style works well when used occasionally in running text, but would be awkward in the large tables in this article. Some of the table entries have specific citations, but many don't. Making sure every table entry was appropriately referenced would be useful. You might also want to check all the references to make sure the links are still good. For example, when I click on the "US Navy Diving Manual, 6th revision" link under Sources, I get to a generic Naval Sea Systems Command home page. Updating those with specific links, and adding them to archive.org would be useful. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:22, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Can be done, it just never seemed urgent. particularly with things like cylinders being filled by competent people, which is logical, almost universally accepted in theory, and enforced by law in several countries for occupational health and safety and commercial transaction situations. US Navy diving manual R6 is a book, and now superseded by 7th revision, so not on the Navy site any more, but was still available off the net last time I looked. I will see what I can do. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 19:43, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood: Would this, or more specifically, this be the right source for the USN diving manual? -- RoySmith (talk) 21:19, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

@RoySmith:, That would be the one. There are several sites where you can dowmload the document as it is PD and one of the best known/most referenced documents on diving that exists. I have a copy on my drive, so tend to use it in preference to downloading again, so also tend to repeat the original reference details. The site you found does not look familiar, but the document is the same. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 13:16, 9 April 2020 (UTC)