Are Finns bad divers? Thread split

[StefinSB]

First, it is "Libya" not "Lybia"

That's a valid point. My bad.

 

[undrwater]

In short, culture and popular attitude have a lot to do with it and shouldn't be ignored.

I'll agree with this statement, but I doubt that such culture and attitude are constrained by the artificial boundaries of any particular country.

 

[bqualls]

My post is anecdotal, so take it for what it is worth. I spent a week with two Finnish divers on a Komodo liveaboard a few years ago. They were both excellent divers who were quite safety minded. I really enjoyed divng and spending surface interval time with them. The Finnish educational system is top notch. I suspect a certain amount of that inures to benefit of diver education. YMMV

 

[bada3003]

I doubt VERY much that the diving population is small in China. PADI and almost all other international training agencies are focusing on China because of the wealth and extremely large population there. Finland with less than 6M people can't possibly have any significant diver population compared with much larger countries.

It helps to understand relative vs. absolute when trying to gauge if one population is more prone to risky behavior than another. With a population of around 1.4 billion, China will have larger absolute numbers than just about any other country pertaining to common human activities. That doesn't imply anything when aiming to draw conclusions related to this thread.

 

[bada3003]

We have this issue in Libya with death rates in free diving and in DCS injuries due to lack of proper training and cultural attitude towards following rules. We have more uncertified self-proclaimed "instructors" teaching free and scuba diving when these charlatans aren't' even OW certified. When I speak against these charlatans (without mentioning their names), I am attacked as somebody who is trying to destroy people's "livelihood." I was threatened few times because of my writing against this fraud. We have had many fatalities due to free divers taking a breath from their friend who is on scuba underwater and coming up holding their breath. We also have extremely high DCS incident rates compared to Libya's population (less than 6M).

In short, culture and popular attitude have a lot to do with it and shouldn't be ignored.

Libyans presently have far more important things to worry about than scuba or free diving. You should consider yourself fortunate that they seem to be humoring you despite calling folks "charlatans".

 

[BoltSnap]

Libyans presently have far more important things to worry about than scuba or free diving. You should consider yourself fortunate that they seem to be humoring you despite calling folks "charlatans".

Every country in the universe can be considered to have far more important issues to worry about than scuba or free diving especially when considering the relative small diver population in most countries in the world yet there are rule and regulations (government or dive industry) in most of these countries in the world protecting the public from these fraudsters. There are people that care about the state of divers in these countries and do their best to improve diver training and treatment in their communities. We have too many injured divers in Libya with many dying or becoming crippled for life. We have divers who never had any type of training or who were trained by the charlatan "instructors" who go diving to depths of 50+ meters and making 3 dives to these depths in a single day exceeding all known NDL without any knowledge of how to use dive tables or dive computers only to end up twisted like a pretzel when they come up to the surface and die shortly after because of the most severe form of DCS (or lung rupture). Far greater numbers end up with permanent injuries that limit their mobility and/or their mental function. I have had a person come to me asking about getting trained and certified in scuba after he took a "course" with a self-proclaimed instructor and turns out that he had an inner ear injury and will never be able to dive in his lifetime, (scuba or free diving). There are many other incidents like this in the country. These crooks don't know anything about decompression theory or dive tables for their own use let alone teaching it to their "students."

Anyone that takes on the role of an instructor and starts a business claiming to be a free or scuba diving instructor and charges money for his courses is a charlatan, a fraudster, a crook and a thieve who is causing people to die and/or suffer severe injuries that would stay with these people for the rest of their lives. I don't know what your issue is here. I am certain that you wouldn't accept somebody doing the same in the US or in your neighborhood in Indiana for sure.

 

[BoltSnap]

It helps to understand relative vs. absolute when trying to gauge if one population is more prone to risky behavior than another. With a population of around 1.4 billion, China will have larger absolute numbers than just about any other country pertaining to common human activities. That doesn't imply anything when aiming to draw conclusions related to this thread.

What does this mean here? If China has a diver population that is the same size as the entire population of Finland yet have less diver injuries than diver injuries/deaths in Finland, what does that say? Wouldn't, at least, draw the attention that something is worth investigating especially in Finland? (We can limit the numbers to divers who are properly trained through sanction international diver training agencies and not self-taught divers just to keep the field level here).

 

[BoltSnap]

My post is anecdotal, so take it for what it is worth. I spent a week with two Finnish divers on a Komodo liveaboard a few years ago. They were both excellent divers who were quite safety minded. I really enjoyed divng and spending surface interval time with them. The Finnish educational system is top notch. I suspect a certain amount of that inures to benefit of diver education. YMMV

Yes, Finland has probably one of the best general education systems in the world and probably one of the best standards of living as well. They probably also have the best of everything in the world. This makes it even more interesting that they "may" have higher than normal/standard rates of diver fatalities. I can understand why in Libya we have issues with diver deaths and injuries because of the most screwed up situation in Libya but it will be difficult to understand it when it happens in Finland. Could it be that the Finnish get cavalier and more daring because of their over confidence due to the excess of good things in their lives?

 

[Rechno]

Ok, so for those criticizing Finish divers (or at least seeing them as more endangered of having an accident).
On how many accidents / incidents du you base your opinion? What is the ratio towards Finnish divers overall? And what are the respective numbers for other countries?
Are there enough incidents to be statistically representative?

I guess, for morst it is just a feeling, but can not be statistically proven.

 

[Storker]

Are there enough incidents to be statistically representative?

We're discussing three incidents with four fatalities.

It should be bleedingly obvious what the answer is.