How did it make sense? Ep 28: Nathalie Lasselin - “You were nearly hit by a tug. They didn’t see us.”
On today’s episode of How did it make sense I am joined by Nathalie Lasselin, a filmmaker, technical diver, explorer, and someone who dives where most people wouldn’t even go looking.
Nathalie’s story starts with an ambitious expedition called Urban Water Odyssey, a 44-mile dive along the St. Lawrence River with a large support team. The plan was meticulous, the team trained, and everything seemed under control, until the dive ran late, the river got busy, and night fell. When Nat surfaced, she was struck by a boat, and only then did the team realise a tugboat was approaching. They pushed her out of the way, but the near-miss revealed a gap in the operation: no dedicated lookout, broken communication, and the kind of task overload that makes obvious risks invisible.
What makes this episode powerful is not just the incident, but the deeper learning behind it. Nat breaks down how the expedition’s delays created cascading failures, how people’s perception of risk changes under pressure, and how the team culture their focus, trust, and ability to respond saved her life. This conversation is a reminder that you can’t design risk out of real-world operations; you can only build resilience and a team that can fail safely.
Find Nathalie here:
Website : www.aquanath.com
Non profit organisation : www.aquasubterra.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NathLasselinofficialpage/
Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/nathalie-lasselin-72419721/en
Instagram: @aquanathstudios
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/aquanath
Chapters
0:00 Start of the story: Urban Water Odyssey
1:20 The dive runs late and conditions worsen
2:40 Nat surfaces and is hit by a boat
4:00 The tugboat appears: “They didn’t see us”
5:20 What went wrong: no lookout & communication failure
7:00 The role of team culture in the rescue
8:40 The bigger lesson: resilience and failing safely
10:00 Recommended reads and mindset resources
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Using principles from Human Factors (HF), High-Reliability Organisations (HRO), and Human and Organisational Performance (HOP), we develop and deliver highly immersive and impactful programmes using the High-Velocity Learning LAB (HVLL) concept. We give you the know-how, the tools and the support to make results stick and empower your people to achieve the extraordinary. We help you answer the question "How do we uncover those hidden stories in our organisation?"
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