457 Equipment incident reports.

Abstract

Diving is an equipment orientated sport and identification and elimination of problems associated with the use of that equipment is an important part of diving safety. There were 457 incidents involving equipment in the first 1,000 incidents reported to the Diving Incident Monitoring Study (DIMS). One hundred and thirty six of these incidents resulted in morbidity, therefore, 30% of the equipment problems caused harm. They constituted 28% of the total morbidity reported. A meticulous pre-dive check, the use of back-up equipment, additions and alterations to equipment design and manufacturing materials, regular servicing, post-dive maintenance, recalibration of all gauges and adherence to strict standard diving safety practice will minimise equipment problems.