by Sebastian Näslund
Idea 1:
Why not grade the Aida judges after how many performances they have judged - not the amount of events they taken part in - since events can vary enourmously in size.
The amount of E judging promotes your growth into D, C, B,A judge.
Idea 2:
Do young healthy freedivers realy need to have a medical check every year? In some countries commercial divers <40yrs only have to do medical check up every 5 yrs.
Idea 3:
Due to the improvement of AB safety - a final AP could be delivered very close to top. This will improve safety and competition drama.
Safety standards for freedive competitions
a proposition for some changes in Aida guidelines
Risk is always there in freediving, but real accidents in need of medical attention seldom happen. But if they happen they will be severe - so severe that the victim probably needs to get to hospital ASAP.
Safety freedivers themselves should and are usually able to do BTT and HLR (even though the later is unheard of more or less). Judges and safetydivers are sometimes comfortable with handling oxygenaparatus.
What resources should be present should be based on statistics: how often do incidents in need of medical competence occur, what kind of incidents are these (what level of competence is needed on site).
The weakest link in safety in a freedive competition today are not the medical personel. There are other things that could be improved:
1) Better safetydivers.
2) More reliable antiballast systems.
3) Better lanyards (bottom plates).
4) Good depthsounders monitoring dives.
5) Faster evacuation.
The main safety device is the judgment of the athlete himself. After that it is mainly about the all over set up - the conciosness of small details in the proceedures on how we conduct competitions. The most important person when it comes to safety issues is the person who can say: "we cancel today" or "I will not let you dive that deep". A physician without knowledge of apnea are usually not able to give good advice on a freedivers abilty to dive. Without experience and knowledge the answer will be a safe and easy: no.
Depth is not necessarily linked to the need of better safetystandard, but risk increase with the meters and the time and the amount of dives being made. Novices are just as (or more) likely to suffer BO´s or LMC. Some competitions may have as many as 10% of LMC and BO incidents. Unfortunately Aida has for years missed the opportunity to gather statistics on this.
Suggested competence at freedive competitions
| Competence |
Pool
|
Depth-30
|
Depth 31-65
|
Depth 66+
|
Special*
|
| BTT |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| CPR |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Oxygen |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Safety freediver |
level 1
|
level 1
|
level 2
|
level 2/3
|
level 3
|
| EMT |
Yes/*opt
|
*Opt
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Intubation |
Yes
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Defibrillator |
Opt
|
-
|
-
|
opt
|
Yes
|
| Hyperbar Doctor |
-
|
-
|
-
|
opt
|
Yes
|
| Scuba/tri standby |
-
|
opt
|
opt
|
opt
|
Yes
|
| Scuba/trimix |
-
|
opt
|
opt
|
opt
|
opt
|
* No EMT. This opens up for less advanced competitions with performance limits. With not as high standards on medic safety as normal. There is still BTT and HLR and oxygen competence.
*Special refering to world records, advanced national records, world championships and big international championships.
| Equipment |
Pool
|
Depth
-30 |
Depth
31-65 |
Depth 66+
|
Special*
|
| Oxygen |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Phone |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Evacuation vehicle |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| First aid kit |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Board/stretcher |
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Intubation |
Yes
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Defibrillators |
opt
|
-
|
-
|
opt
|
Yes
|
| Oxymeter |
-
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Anti ballast |
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Safety plattform max 50cm above waterlevel |
-
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Extra lanyards |
-
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Hyperbar chamber in the vicinity |
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Depth sounder surveilance |
-
|
-
|
opt
|
Yes
|
Yes
|
| Visual surveilance (video) |
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
Yes
|
| Scuba/trimix stand by |
-
|
opt
|
opt
|
opt
|
Yes
|
| Scuba/trimix at depth |
-
|
opt
|
opt
|
opt
|
opt
|
| Liftbags |
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
opt
|
About freediving competitions
Competition freediving has been around for more than 10 years internationally, in Sweden since 2000. A freediving comp is not a high risk venture of any sort - it has no resemblance to spectacular record attempts so vividly described in media whenever someone does something irresponsible and gets hurt.
Swimming down and up with ones own propulsion in the presence of judges and experienced freedivers and backed-up by a counterbalance system with lanyards (for retrieval of the athlete) is generally no more risky than a solo-spearfish excursion (which off course has its risk if not precautions are taken).
Actually the counter-ballast system (the last resort in emergency) has never been deployed in a competition.
In a freediving competition there are always experienced freedivers around that has dealt with the foreseen and "controlled" accidents that sometimes occur:
1) LMC - Loss of motor control
2) Shorter and longer blackouts that occur at the surface after dive. Due to loss of oxygen partial pressure
3) Blackouts the last 10-15 meters up to the surface, as in number 2
Other accidents that could happen:
4) Lungsqueeze or thoraxsqueeze (blood or bloodplasma spitting).
5) More serious barotrauma.
6) Longer Laryngospasm.
7) Non diving related injuries (cuts and wounds e t c)
Other extreme possibilities:
8) Air embolism.
9) Heart failures.
10) Triggering of unknown sicknesses.
11) DCS
There are no scuba hyper-bar related issues with freediving (apart from extreme world record attempts and thelike) nor any near drowning scenarios (so far) since the laryngospasm kicks in during a Shallow water blackout. Our concerns are mainly temporary hypoxia and athletes getting squeezed (generally blood vessels breaking in the thorax) which could involve second drowning scenarios .
Our own expertise always involves CPR skills and oxy-box treatment. These risk evaluations we base on thousands of competition dives.
Giving Oxygen
In case of a blackout and/or squeeze oxygen will speed up recovery and reduce damage, specially in the case of lungsqueeze and/or deep blackouts where the victim has been unconcious for a long time. Oxygen will reduce bloodflow and diminsh effects of squeeze and bleeding. The victim should not lie down, but sit with the back supported (half lying down). Legs should if possible be slightly higher than the floor.
The medical personel
To be honest so far a physician has never (?) saved or helped a freediver in any advanced way. The judges, organizers, freeedivers themselves have or could have been able to judge if its a hospital case or not. But since we dont know if physicians will be needed - we have them there just in case. There are several differences in medical personel asked for at a competition:
1) EMT - emergency medical technician (like ambulance personel), nurses, medic students on their last practical year.
2) Physicians, hyperbar doctors, anaestecia doctors, sportsmedicine doctors.
The organization could also need the physicians expertize on:
1) Advicing divers on taking medicines and their effect on diving.
2) The anti-doping laws.
Demands on Anti-ballast
As we now see competitions with AB (and maybe soon DRUM) as only retrieval system - more demands should be placed on the smooth running of these mechanical systems.
- The AB must be tried before every competition day with a full retrieval from 50% of max competition depth.
- The AB drop zone must be minimum 5 meters or at least 8% of maxdepth away from competition line.
- The AB dropweight should be hanging separatly attached to the dropline with a carabiner (in this way the system stays balanced in normal proceedure).
- The AB drop weight (incl permanent weight on the dropline) must be at least 200% of the competition bottomweight.
- The AB bottom plate must not be wider than 20 cm.
- There must be a stopknot 80 cm above bottomplate.
More about safety (safety freedivers and anti-ballast systems) - here