Review by Chris Hinkle

This book has something for everybody. If you are new to scuba, you will embrace this book and curse your open water certification organization for not making it mandatory reading. If you are a seasoned professional or technical diver, your experience and wisdom of the sport will be reflected in its pages. And if you’re somewhere past your open water, headed into advanced (or possibly your first resort dive), you will inhale volumes of professional safety insight with each case study.

The book begins with a chapter entitled “Scuba 101,” which presents itself as an excellent primer to the sport of scuba diving. To a new student, this chapter alone is worth the price of admission. The reader is treated to a decent length read on terminology, training agencies, the various levels of A to Z scuba training, cave and wreck diving, explanations on nitrox and trimix, what decompression diving is, exposure protection considerations, BCDs, tanks, regulators, personal dive gear, dive tables, dive computers… truly a wonderful exposure to what scuba diving is, where its at, and where its headed.

Beyond this, the book is broken down into individual case studies… real diving emergencies (with names changed to protect the innocent) illustrating how individuals handled their respective situations. Each chapter is a different story. Each story is comprised of four main components.

1. A hook paragraph, offering a glimpse of the emergency in full progression, with an invariable cliff hanger ending. This is a very compelling writing style. The full gravity of the each situation spear heads that chapter. Since self preservation is an instinct, you keep reading. Smart.

2. The full length story. What I liked… they talk about the divers involved and their backgrounds, levels of training, and mindsets (attitudes) before their accidents. This makes it very real when you read it. I went in thinking, “this can’t happen to me.” I came out thinking, “yes, it can happen to me.”

3. A summation section entitled “Strategies for Survival,” in the form of bulleted points containing an expert constructive critique on what could be done differently in each situation.

4. Technical Focus Boxes (covered in more depth below)
I really can’t say enough good things about this book. The case studies were very digestible in size, the writing is done well, and the structure is smart. You can read only the main body of each case study and glean the most important safety morals dealing with that section. However, if you want more technical information, the author has provided it in the form of focus boxes… brief, but very informative, boxed sections of text, photos, and diagrams dealing with more technically-oriented subject matter relevant to their respective case study. This speeds up the reading considerably, allowing the diver to better tailor her learning needs.

What I disliked about the book: While the stories were many and covered a wide variety of situations, the book left me wanting more… A larger format, more stories, more illustrations, color photographs, fewer filler photographs/more relevant photographs.

What I liked about the book: I truly enjoyed the formatting… light reading that fits well with today’s hectic schedules. I appreciated the range of the book. From budding beginner to pioneering rebreather, I see this book as an indispensable safety manual for any dive library.
[ratings]

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