Safety, Top Priority!!

Freediving has been considered an extreme sport but it has a better safety record than many broadly accepted sports. Sydney Freedivers takes a proactive attitude towards safety with written safety protocols on many of its activities as well as detailed training of the members.

There are two basic maxims that are taught and adhered to:

1) All dives and static breathholds in the water are watched by either safety divers or a competent dive buddy.

2) When in doubt, pull the diver up.

Club Training

The Safety Officer Chris Harding and 6 other members were trained in Advanced 1st Aid/CPR/Oxygen Administration as part of the Sydney Freedivers Safety  Program. This has resulted in all Sydney Freedivers training sessions having present at least one but sometimes 4 or 5 first Aid/CPR trained divers.

Drilling 02 adimnistration

Although the subject of safety is a very serious subject an element of fun can always be found during training.

Ant had more air in his lungs than the dummy but he couldn't get it to pop.

At the end of the day we did the "muck up" photo. Is that an Australian only tradition?

Sydney Freedivers Advanced First Aid/CPR and Oxygen Adminstrators

Proactive Training

Club members are drilled in to handle the situations that they could encounter, for example members are  drilled in handling a diver in distress with the goal of every diver becoming an effective and safe dive partner.

Not all safety situations are life threatening in fact the most frequent injurys occuring on divers are ear/ equalization related. In order to alleviate this the club ran an Equalization Workshop getting divers understanding the pressures and problems that occur and drilling them on the methods with the best results.

Working on the Frenzal Method

Drilling BTV method (hands free) by gradual descent

Drilling Frenzal Method with negative lung fills

Safety from the Start

Freediving is new to the great majority in Australia and its future depends on beginning and maintaining the sport with very high safety standards.

Within the first two months of the club existing long term local freediver Andy Ross and a top New Zealand freediver Ant Williams teamed up and did a training seminar for the club on Freediving Safety with stress on pool training.  This training seminar cemented in strong safety standards for the club that have been maintained since.  An example from this is the club maxim: No swim/dive goes unwatched.  Even short 25m warm up swims are automatically watched by the training partners and surface protocol is required on completion of each exercise.  Sydney Freedivers would like to thank Ant Williams and Andy Ross for the following "commitments to safety".

Sydney Freedivers Commitments to Safety

The following are the agreed upon safety commitements for those doing freediving pool training. The purpose is to safeguard the safety of all divers. Please adhere to these and ask others to do the same.

1.  All pool training is conducted with a competent buddy.

2.  We conduct every session with a one up/one down safety protocol.

3.  The "one up" has a primary safety role to watch his partner's entire swim.

(Not breathe-up focused)

4.  If in doubt of a diver's state we pull them up immediately.

5.  We use the surface protocol after every swim.

6. We announce the distance or duration of each swim before we start it.

7.  All big swims are conducted with direct supervision of the freediver.

(walking or swimming along side of the freediver.)

8.  We look beyond our lane to ensure safety.

9.  Any hypoxic incident results in the end of diving/training for that diver for the day.

10.  We regularly practice our safety drills knowing that they will be used.

Additional guidelines:

11.  We support each other and work within our personal limits.

12.  We choose a training partner with a similar skill level and goals.

13.  We plan our training sessions and work to that plan.

14. We confirm our session plan with our buddy before we get in the pool.

As in all risk management guidelines this is not an unchanging document and is revisable as need arises.

Club Training Videos

Sydney Freedivers runs regular training at its monthly meetings covering many subjects but safety training is the priority subject. Many of these sessions are filmed as was the above seminar. This safety briefing is now passed on to  new members in dvd form.

Early in 2007, Erez Beatus, a leading freediver and freediving instructor from Israel briefed divers on the subject of Sambas and Blackouts. This briefing was filmed and is also required viewing for all Sydney Freedivers.

For more information please contact our This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it