A comparison between the risks of freediving and scubadiving

[seeker242]

1. SWBO: Lights off, no warning, no nothing; you have absolutely no control and no recourse, you just go blank and die!

That's not really accurate. If you are diving responsibly your buddy is sitting there watching you the whole time. Your buddy is your recourse. If you BO he is right there in a matter of seconds to rescue you and he knows the proper technique to get you to the surface fast, safely and how to keep you there. Freediving, without a buddy, or with an untrained buddy, is on par with doing a cave dive with no cave training. It's just plain stupid.

 

[BoltSnap]

That's not really accurate. If you are diving responsibly your buddy is sitting there watching you the whole time. Your buddy is your recourse. If you BO he is right there in a matter of seconds to rescue you and he knows the proper technique to get you to the surface fast, safely and how to keep you there. Freediving, without a buddy, or with an untrained buddy, is on par with doing a cave dive with no cave training. It's just plain stupid.

From a medical/physiological point of view, you point is of no relevance. The presence of the buddy and the quality of the buddy won't stop or prevent SWBO at all. They are "after the fact" a God sent lucky type of rescue but won't physiologically stop SWBO. In this case you are depending on an outside variable, outside yourself, to rescue you hoping that they are paying attention, can see you when you are hit and fast enough to do what needs to be done. None-the-less, SWBO is still: Lights off, no warning, no nothing; you have absolutely no control and no recourse, you just go blank and die!

 

[seeker242]

From a medical/physiological point of view, you point is of no relevance. The presence of the buddy and the quality of the buddy won't stop or prevent SWBO at all. They are "after the fact" a God sent lucky type of rescue but won't physiologically stop SWBO.

"Medical perspective" is what is of no relevance. An actual injury happening is what is of relevance and with a proper buddy following proper saftey procedure, injury does not happen...

you have absolutely no control and no recourse, you just go blank and die!

Completely and totally false...Not very surprising though. Comments like that are often said by people who have no understanding on how to actually freedive.

 

[Sbiriguda]

Lights off, no warning, no nothing; you have absolutely no control and no recourse, you just go blank and die!

As far as I remember, there are 2 types of blackout. The first one is a "brain" blackout. The other one is a "brain + cardiac arrest" blackout. The second is extremely dangerous. Properly speaking the "blackout" should be the first ("brain only"). It can be compared to fainting underwater. There are several maneuvers a dive buddy can do to rescue a diver affected by BO both underwater and on the surface, and both in case of "brain blackout" and "brain + cardiac arrest". That said, it also true that these maneuvers might prove unsuccesful and the blackout could lead a diver to death o permanent injury in any case

 

[Sbiriguda]

Freediving
Risk
“Of the 10,000 active freedivers in the United States, about 20 will die every year, which works out to about 1 in 500. (In comparison, the fatality rate for BASE jumpers is 1 in 60; firefighters, about 1 in 45,000; and mountain climbers about 1 in 1,000,000.)”
The Shocking Reality Of Freediving Death Rates

The risk of freediving blackout is not known as there are currently no rigorous data on freediving blackouts. However, the estimated, average, annual fatalities attributed to freediver blackout over a period of ten years in a population of approximately 135,000 divers in nine countries was 53 per year, or one in 2,547.
Freediving blackout - Wikipedia

Scuba
Risk[edit]
See also: Scuba diving fatalities
the majority of diving fatalities can be attributed to human error on the part of the victim.
Fatality rates are comparable with jogging (13 deaths per 100,000 persons per year) and are within the range where reduction is desirable by Health and Safety Executive (HSE) criteria,[101] The most frequent root cause for diving fatalities is running out of or low on gas.
Scuba diving - Wikipedia

 

[Sbiriguda]

Completely and totally false...Not very surprising though. Comments like that are often said by people who have no understanding on how to actually freedive.

Yes... and no. While it is not correct to say that there are no ways to recover from blackout with the help of a dive buddy, it is also true that a very high percentage of freediving accidents are lethal about 75% of the total according to DAN
The Shocking Reality Of Freediving Death Rates

These statistics are probably not fully reliable because they are not 100% accurate, still it's likely they give us a rough idea of what happens. Most freediving accidents are lethal

 

[seeker242]

Yes... and no. While it is not correct to say that there are no ways to recover from blackout with the help of a dive buddy, it is also true that a very high percentage of freediving accidents are lethal about 75% of the total according to DAN
The Shocking Reality Of Freediving Death Rates

These statistics are probably not fully reliable because they are not 100% accurate, still it's likely they give us a rough idea of what happens. Most freediving accidents are lethal

That true. However, the cause of such accidents is what is important. DAN 2017 report on breath hold incidents identified procedure/behaviour in 32% of the incidents, AKA not following proper saftey procedures. A further 27% due to inadequate fitness and a further 24% due to medical issues. The primary activity in 49% of all incidents was not even actual freediving but snorkeling. In other words, untrained people not following proper freedive saftey procedures. The point here being that it is extraordinarily easy to prevent injury from blackout. With proper training and proper procedure, blackout is not excessively dangerous. What is dangerous is untrained people not knowing what they are doing and trained people not following their training.

 

[MAKO Spearguns]

If you consider a SWB to be an accident, then the comment that most freedive accidents are fatal/lethal is invalid.

SWB is unfortunately not that uncommon, but there many, many stories of rescues and recoveries. These incidents would not be reported to DAN or anyone and there is some stigma associated with it, so people tend not to discuss it openly.

However, almost everyone in the freedive community knows one or more people who have had an incident. As I tried to explain earlier, a SWB should not be fatal and generally results in nothing more than driving the boat for the remainder of the day if it is handled properly.

I don’t want to minimize the potential tragedy that can result from a SWB, but a fatality is thankfully, relatively unusual.

 

[Storker]

almost everyone in the freedive community knows one or more people who have had an incident.

This kinda freaks me out a little bit. Personally, I prefer sports where I don't run a very significant risk of blacking out in an environment which isn't conductive to human life.

YMMV, of course.

 

[MAKO Spearguns]

Also, the statistics about the number of US freedivers and the associated mortality rate copied from Wikipedia are difficult for me to accept at face value. I'm by no means an authority on this topic, but a 1 in 500 mortality due to freediving seems way too high. Perhaps the denominator of just 10,000 freedivers is an issue.