Why so many casualties?

Why so many injured, lost or killed divers ?

  • Too many divers do dive beyond their capabilities.

    Votes: 57 47.1%
  • It's only the law of average ... More people diving, more accidents.

    Votes: 38 31.4%
  • Shark, you're only seeing the dark side ... and here's my 2 cents.

    Votes: 2 1.7%
  • None of the above !

    Votes: 24 19.8%

  • Total voters
    121

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shark_tamer

Contributor
Messages
754
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Location
Montreal, Canada
# of dives
100 - 199
I keep seeing more and more of these threads for lost, injured or killed divers.

Personally, I mostly dive with insta-buddy and I'd say 25% of them DO dive beyond their capabilities. :shakehead:

What is everybody's take on the subject ?
 
perhaps more people diving and more reporting? Some here will say that training standards have slipped over the last decade or so and leads to more injury, some will say that is nothing more than speculation. I think the truth is in between. I have seen with my own eyes a couple who certified their 10 year old son one week and took him to Coz the next. Seems imprudent to me.
 
I started diving as a poor swimmer. I'm simply lucky I haven't been seriously injured. My feeling is, if requirements were higher, I would not be a diver today. But, with higher requirement for swimming skill, and higher training requirement, my guess is that up to half of the injuries and deaths are preventable.
 
Most deaths:
- heart attacks or other medical condition, triggered by diving (fitness issues?)
- embolisms

source: medical examiner, Fla Keys.

Could training address either of those? I don't know.
Personally believe training has become a little too "anybody can do it" friendly, but given the number of divers who been trained this way and haven't died, it appears to be reasonably effective. Dive boats crews (when not miscounting) seem more attentive these days.

Stop me before I go into ancient-history anecdote about the 40-hour training course and grueling laps just to get in, and the "think fast" sessions where instructors turned off your air or pulled off your mask and fins and you had to recover without surfacing...
 
Statistical anomaly perhaps. Scuba deaths are so rare that a cluster would seem to indicate a pattern. Also, news outlets reporting them is on the up. There were fatalities in yester years that would have appeared maybe in a local print obituary. Now, its almost impossible for a dive fatality to not find its way onto the internets.
 
Most deaths:
Stop me before I go into ancient-history anecdote about the 40-hour training course and grueling laps just to get in, and the "think fast" sessions where instructors turned off your air or pulled off your mask and fins and you had to recover without surfacing...


I wish training was like that! I'm a new cert and I hardly feel competent.

I started reading this board in march- As a new diver I'll admit it is a bit disturbing that there seem to be new fatalities/accident posts almost weekly:11:. Is this typical of the start of the diving season:confused:? what gives?
 
Personally believe training has become a little too "anybody can do it" friendly, but given the number of divers who been trained this way and haven't died, it appears to be reasonably effective.

I hear you KC ... And what about those "weekend certification" ... they get certified over the weekend, and the next week, where are they ? 35 meters down in Cozumel !! SCARY !!!

And sometimes I do hear that scuba diving is now a "business" ... the more certified divers there are, the more money the agencies, dive stores and dive centers make ...:confused:
 
I wish training was like that! I'm a new cert and I hardly feel competent.

...and how will you react when on a boat dive in the Caribbean and the DM's pre-dive tells the group you'll be going down at 35 meters, visit a wreck ( and you may penetrate the wreck if you like !!! ) ?

WOW ... you have just paid 45$ for this dive and it is "probably" beyond your capability ... Will you jump in and hope for the best ???
 
We will never know. We will never know because accident reports are never released. We never get the facts. I suspect, but I obviously don't know, that the vast majority of diving accidents could be prevented if people received adequate training and practiced their skills often.
 
...and how will you react when on a boat dive in the Caribbean and the DM's pre-dive tells the group you'll be going down at 35 meters, visit a wreck ( and you may penetrate the wreck if you like !!! ) ?

WOW ... you have just paid 45$ for this dive and it is "probably" beyond your capability ... Will you jump in and hope for the best ???

This is a good point (I see how this can get tough), since I'm diving with my wife, there's no way she'd do that dive so we'd very very likely sack it.

After certification, We plan on doing some local quarry dives, then we're taking a trip to Couple's in Jamaica included is 2 dives per day 1st one to about 50-60ft 2nd to 25-35ft..Since diving is included- I'd have no problem calling a dive if either of us is uncomfortable...And from what I read, that resort is focused on safety and begginers.

By the time we get back we'll have ~15 easier dives in then we'll take AOW.

So hopefully we'll never be put into that position. I very much intend on staying within my training.
 
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