[GLOC]

I think what Howard is saying is that it is much better to prevent an accident/incident than deal with the outcome. If you can conduct the dive as you were trained (I am sure Si would agree that this wasn't one of his best dives) then you are a long way to making sure that the incident doesn't occur in the first place (as both TerryH and BigSi both pointed out, working up the dives).

That was part of the reason that I asked Jay to host that sub-forum, so that people could learn from other's mistakes. A far safer way to learn them (for you, maybe not them, unfortunately).

This weekend I was with Howard in Germany doing some stuff in a quarry (yawn, I know), but it was the first time I have been in the water with an SLR and a scooter for some time and I was pretty well maxed out. Fortunately it was a shallow dive (30m!) with no deco overhead. I am doing some big dives (for me) in 3 weeks time and I need to make sure I am comfortable being task loaded.

There will be plenty of lessons learned from Si's post, he will have learned lots of them, but other people need to make sure that the lessons stay in their head and don't just pass them by. It is everyone's responsibility (like it or not) to make sure that whoever you dive with is upto it. If someone has a major incident whilst they are diving on your boat and you could have done something to stop it and you didn't, how do you think you are going to feel. If you feel nothing, then you are a selfish git and I would never want to be anywhere near you. If you say something and they ignore you, that is a different matter. To a certain extent, your responsibility has ended. Say nothing....

God, this has turned out longer than planned! Diving is dangerous because we don't have gills. We make it safer by following rules, guidelines and what our instructors have taught us. Please dive safe.