The Deepest Breath and Lessons for OSH

The somewhat obscure extreme sport of freediving wasn’t where I expected to get my latest dose of inspiration for an OSH-related article, but the documentary The Deepest Breath on Netflix provided precisely that.

It’s hard to discuss a program without giving too much away, so perhaps before you read on, you’ll invest the time to watch the documentary. If not, I’ll do my best not to put spoilers in!

The documentary follows the progress of a young free diver Alessia Zecchini,

who inspired by Natalia Molchanova, essentially dedicates her life to freediving. For those who don’t know, freediving is essentially an extreme sport where out in the open ocean a human see’s how far down they can descend and ascend on a single breath. And they go deep! Over 100 meters deep in fact. No tanks of air, just the air in their lungs, a specialist wetsuit, goggles, a nose clip and a mono fin.

Now the risks are extreme; they are dealing with oxygen depletion, pressure squeezing their lungs to the size of a fist, and there is a high risk of losing consciousness on the way back up. At these depths, it is pretty much pitch black and silent. The free divers speak of absolute freedom, the peace of being completely isolated from all sensory stimuli. From watching the documentary, the most dangerous part of the dive is the final 10m or so. (I mean the whole thing is bonkers risky but you’ll see when you watch the number of free divers that get to trouble in the final moments of their dive).

The documentary also introduces you to Stephen Keenan.

After spending some time exploring the world and going to what seems to be some of the most exciting and challenging locations on the planet, settles in Dahab and opens a freediving school. Stephen is a safety diver. Now, the challenge with freediving is that a regular scuba diver isn’t much help (I’m sure my friend Gareth Lock will be able to contribute with a much more scientific and accurate rationale for why) because they cannot ascend fast enough, so whilst they can keep a watchful eye out, they can’t bring a free diver in trouble to the surface quickly enough. Therefore, the safety divers are also free divers. They descend to agreed depts, 30m, 20m and 10m and ascend with the free diver, and only intervene at signs of difficulty.

This is where the OSH lessons really kick in. Stephen makes a name for himself as one of, if not the world's best safety diver in the sport of freediving. What becomes very apparent is not only Stephen’s love of the sport but also his respect for the risks involved and the meticulous planning to ensure that each free diver competing can continue to do so. It’s one of those situations where if you were to risk assesses and only go on paper, you’d never sign the activity off. Still, with the right knowledge, experience and meticulous preparation, you can control the risks to a level that enables as safe participation as is possible.

It reminds me of the stories of the master swordsman Nakayama Hakudo, said to practice drawing his sword 2000 times a day. Recognised in his time as the world’s best and greatest swordsman. He’s gotten to be so from the constant repetition of drawing his sword, because practice over a long time turns to second nature. ?

Despite all of the expertise, there are occasions where things do not go according to plan, and where split decisions have to be made. In these moments, the skills, knowledge and training of the individuals involved allow them to make decisions based on the immediacy of the situation and act in the most appropriate way. This is how we want to empower and enable the workforce. After all we don’t rise to the occasion we fall to the level of our training.

The documentary's end, which I’m trying so hard not to spoil, reinforces another key element relevant to the OSH profession: rigidity. When you practice doing something a certain way and consistently repeat this practice, this becomes the way you expect things to go. You become reliant on the tools you know work and potentially ignore the development of other tools that may become useful as the situation or circumstances change around you. Robert Green described the opposite of this as formlessness, in essence, that growth mindset to push yourself out of your comfort zone to develop a greater range of tools to have at your disposal, to look outside of your own field and gather inspiration from others.

It’s easy in OSH to get used to what works, to what appears to be giving you the right results, and ignore other mechanisms for progress. We set up systems, we hold certain things sacred, we stick to them, and we hold fast to these. Perhaps, as a profession, we need to allow ourselves some greater pliability to become less rigid and embrace a broader range of inputs to help us build the toolkit to be prepared for as broad a range of possibilities as possible.