SAFETY Situational Awareness – by Dan Orr, President, Dan Orr Consulting
Situational awareness is the ability to perceive, understand, and effec- tively respond to what is happening around us. From a scuba diving per- spective, it involves comprehending dynamic circumstances around us that may affect us during a diving
protocols and procedures can be deadly. An important element of situational awareness is under- standing the need to take responsibility for one's own safety. Divers, even the most safety conscious and observant of us, simply cannot see everything and cannot stop every potential unsafe practice or behavior. Therefore, every diver needs to understand that they are primarily responsible for their own safety. This philosophy should be also shared by their diving companions. Another important facet of situational awareness is learning to trust your "gut feeling" or intuition. Many times, a person’s subconscious can make us aware of subtle signs of danger or unsafe practices that we may not be consciously aware of. Trusting your gut and avoiding a potentially dangerous situation may cause some inconvenience, but ignoring such feelings can lead to serious trouble. Situational awareness generally involves a conscious effort to pay attention to surrounding events and gut feelings, even while you may be busy and distracted during pre-dive preparation or the diving ac- tivity itself. At such times even obvious errors or dangerous situations can go unnoticed, so individuals need to learn to be observant even while doing other things. It is important to stress that situational awareness does not mean being paranoid or obsessively concerned about safety, which will certainly detract from the enjoyment and exhilara- tion of the diving experience. The basic level of situational awareness that should be practiced most of the time is relaxed awareness, a state of mind that can be maintained indefinitely without all the stress and fatigue associated with focused aware- ness. Relaxed awareness allows you to enjoy scuba diving while rewarding you with an effective level of personal safety. When people are in a potentially dangerous situation (which, in reality, can be on any dive), they should maintain a state of relaxed awareness. Then, if they spot something out of the ordinary,
experience, gathering relevant information, analyzing it, and making informed decisions to prepare for or successfully ad- dress any potential risks, hazards, or events that might affect our safety or the safety of those we dive with. In sports, such as scuba diving, where safety is a paramount consideration, proficiency in technical/mechanical diving skills is obviously necessary. Technical skills, however, on their own are not completely sufficient to make every diving experience safe and enjoyable. Non-technical skills, such as situational awareness, are just as important as scuba diving’s technical knowledge and skills.
It is important to note that situational awareness involves a diver being aware of their surroundings, identifying po- tential threats, and keeping a lookout for potentially dan-
gerous circumstances. This situational awareness actually begins during the pre-dive preparation phase. Situational awareness is not only important for recognizing direct threats to your safety and the safety of those you dive with, it also serves to identify potentially dangerous circumstances before the dive, if possi- ble. The primary element in establishing situational awareness is first to recognize that threats or dangerous situations do exist. Even though we agree that scuba diving is a safe sport, we do understand that it takes place underwater, a very unforgiving environment. If we ignore or deny that fact, we make our chances of quickly recognizing an existing or emerging prob- lem and avoiding or correcting it highly unlikely. We must admit that bad things can happen even to the most experienced of us. Apathy, denial, complacency or violating standard safety
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