All Episodes
Episodes
SH159: The best is the enemy of the good
In this episode, a newly qualified Human Factors in Diving Instructor shares their journey of grappling with impostor syndrome and the challenges of teaching human factors to divers. Despite over a decade of diving...
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SH158: Predictive Profiling & diving: “what deviates, deserves attention!”
This episode dives into the critical importance of recognizing deviations from the norm in diving, a concept rooted in situational awareness. Inspired by the 1972 attack at Lod Airport, Bart den Ouden draws parallels...
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SH157: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly!
In this episode, we explore the pitfalls of blindly trusting technology through two cautionary tales—one about a GPS mishap in snowy Quebec and another about divers relying solely on their computers. Automation offers...
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SH156: CCR pre-dive checks and checklists are not always enough to prevent an equipment-based accident!
In this episode, we explore how safety in diving is not just about avoiding accidents but about building systems that can fail safely. Drawing on a real-life incident shared by Phil Short, we examine how a small...
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SH155: How safe is your diving?
In this episode, we dive into the concept of psychological safety and its critical role in diving and team performance. Psychological safety, defined as a shared belief that it's safe to take interpersonal risks,...
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SH154: The Importance of Decision Making in Setting Goals: Ensuring “The Juice is worth the Squeeze”
In this episode, we explore the double-edged nature of goal setting—how it drives achievement but can also lead to risky decisions when pressure and commitment override safety and judgment. Using examples from...
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SH153: Why ‘They should have’, ‘...could have’ or ‘I would have..’ do not improve diving safety
In this episode, we explore the concept of counterfactual reasoning—our tendency to imagine how incidents could have been avoided by different actions—and why it falls short in improving safety. While this type of...
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SH152: The Bend is Uninteresting...The Related Decisions Are Much More So
In this episode, we explore a personal account of a Gareth’s experience with decompression sickness (DCS) and the critical decision-making process that followed. The story dives into the internal monologue, biases,...
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SH151: When the holes line up...
In this episode, we explore Professor James Reason's Swiss Cheese Model, which helps explain how incidents occur when multiple safety barriers fail at different levels within a system. We discuss how organizational,...
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SH150: Are you a good enough diver?
In this episode, we dive into the concept of "good enough" in diving and how it relates to decision-making, risk, and safety. We explore why terms like "safe" and "good" are subjective and often influenced by context,...
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SH149: 'Choices': Guaranteed small loss or a probable larger loss, injury or fatality?
In this episode, we explore how decision-making under uncertainty plays a crucial role in scuba diving, drawing insights from Prospect Theory and real-life scenarios. We discuss how psychological factors, like loss...
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SH148: Risk of diving fatality is 1:200 000. However, you cannot be a fraction of dead…!
In this episode, we explore how risk is perceived and managed in diving, where emotions, biases, and mental shortcuts often outweigh logic and statistics. Diving fatalities are statistically rare, but those numbers...
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