SH288: The 'Obvious Thing' Nobody Noticed
About this episode
This episode discusses the overlooked hazards in diving that led to the tragic case of Linnea Mills, emphasizing the importance of instructor awareness and preparation.
This episode explores the fatal case of 18-year-old Linnea Mills to show how visible hazards can go unnoticed when an instructor lacks the mental capacity to recognise them. Linnea was overweighted, unable to inflate her drysuit, and using equipment that couldn’t provide enough lift—risks that seem obvious in hindsight but were missed due to a combination of inexperience, time pressure, unfamiliar gear, and commercial expectations. Using models like ECOM and COCOM, the episode explains how an instructor’s attention can be consumed by immediate tasks, leaving no capacity to monitor the bigger picture or reassess whether a dive should proceed. This isn’t about blaming an individual, but understanding how systems, workload, and limited experience can overwhelm decision-making. The key lesson is that effective instructors don’t just rely on skill, but on preparation—setting clear plans, checks, and limits before the dive—to protect their ability to recognise problems when it matters most. Original blog: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/the-obvious-thing-nobody-noticed Links: Part 1: https://www.thehumandiver.com/post/the-picture-went-dark The Linnea Mills case…
People in this episode
Host: Gareth Lock
Topics covered
- human factors
- diving safety
- decision-making
- instructor training
- hazard recognition
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: The Human Diver
More episodes of Counter-Errorism in Diving: Applying Human Factors to Diving
- SH297: CRM, ISO 8804, and Scientific Diving: Opportunities and Existing Materials
- SH296: When 'I'm Fine' Isn't True: Speaking Up and Ending the Dive
- SH295: Four Ways We Talk About 'Human Factors' in Diving
- SH294: Clickbait, trolls and comments. How dive incident posts can teach us — if we let them
- SH293: Why does nothing change? Why do the same failures keep happening?
- SH292: Learning or Blaming: The Choice the Diving Industry Needs to Make. Part 3 of 3.
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