SH275: The death of a child in diver training. There are no ‘silver bullet’ solutions

Counter-Errorism in Diving: Applying Human Factors to Diving · May 2, 2026 · 30m

This episode looks at the tragic death of 12-year-old D.H. during a scuba training dive and explains it not as one person’s mistake, but as a failure of the whole system around her. Using court documents and a safety science approach, the analysis shows how many “normal” things came together — rushed training, poor visibility, tired staff, missing safety equipment, weak rules, money pressure, and lack of oversight — to create a situation where there was no real safety margin left. The key message is that this was not a random accident or a single bad decision, but the result of a system that…