brixn - 5/25/2012 6:26 PM
Fitness to dive ?? - Health & Safety in the context of SCUBA diving ??
- All these are obviously the responsibility of the individual diver.
- However, - during 50 years of recreational and professional diving I have more often than I want to remember seen divers - obviously unfit, - i.e., completely out of puff by the time they get into their suit, - or they are obese or both; - apart from being burdened by the hidden but other common lifestyle diseases or latent ditto. Last time I looked I found not one single decompression table designed for obese people of for those with high blood pressure !!
- I have seen professional divers feverishly taking up a fitness program a month or so before their annual medical check; - barely scraping through, - and then only to revert to their previous habits. -
My point is: Relying on divers to take personal responsibility in relation to their own fitness to dive is clearly not sufficient; - thus the responsibility must be shared by the Dive Masters, who without a care let the unfit and high-risk divers into the water, -and dive-shops that blithely rent equipment to people who obviously should not be ’turned loose’ to dive.
- Adding that the recreational industry (PADI and the rest) seem to be petrified at the thought of missing a sale of a pair of gloves at the expense of having divers get involved in a diving specific fitness regime.
Reading the latest DAN statistics about SCUBA diving fatalities tells me two things:
1: It is only a question of WHEN - not IF - a dive-shop owner or Dive Master will be sued for negligence !!
2: It is only a question of WHEN - not IF that governments - certainly in Australia - will regulate accordingly.
Cheers