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Diving Instructors: Roles, Responsibilities & Risk Assessments
Diving Instructors: Roles, Responsibilities & Risk Assessments
Sometimes, it seems, the bleedin' obvious still needs to be stated. The Health & Safety Executive has issued a new DVD which it wants all diving instructors to see. It no longer wants to hear anyone claiming not to have understood their responsibilities after a serious incident has occurred.
???? None of the information here should come as news to any qualified instructor yet, as the tally of HSE prosecutions mounts, it seems that the message is still not always getting through.
???? Perhaps one problem is that the steps that need to be taken in planning dives and assessing the risks do seem so straightforward. Once an instructor starts doing these things on autopilot, there is always a danger of being overtaken by unexpected events.
???? This is well-illustrated by one of the computer-simulated scenarios here, involving an instructor who planned and briefed for a sheltered-water dive and then took his inexperienced charges on a tiring swim out into the open sea, only to lose one of them. How could it have happened? All too easily, as this shows.
???? The DVD includes another graphic simulation of a fatal incident you may remember, and also uses to good effect mini-dramatisations, live-action reconstructions and examples of genuine briefings on hardboats and at inland sites to make its points.
???? But it's the linking thread, the sober reflections of the mother of young diver-victim Julia Brandrith, which rams home the message. Whatever you think of the HSE's emphasis on paperwork, the only effective response for an instructor is to do whatever is required: identify the hazards, consider the risks and take suitable precautions.
???? And, although this DVD does not stress the point, take care to prove that you have done all these things - for your own protection.
Steve Weinman
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Diving Instructors: Roles, Responsibilities & Risk Assessments (HSE, 08701 545500, www.hse.gov.uk). DVD, 39min, free on application
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