Are there any diving specific accident publications with stats, case-studies, and best practices?

[KevinNM]

Accidents in entry level scuba courses are the ones that make me crazy. Nobody should be getting lost and drowning on a DSD or their 2nd open water training dive. A whole lot of the other fatal scuba accidents are medical events, which may or may not have been fatal if they were in Starbucks instead.

 

[Patoux01]

A whole lot of the other fatal scuba accidents are medical events, which may or may not have been fatal if they were in Starbucks instead.

1) The odds of surviving a medical event at Starbucks are much higher than 30m below the surface, at which there's only a boat with little to no medical staff/equipment, 5 miles out at sea.
2) Diving puts stress on the body in a way the body is not supposed to work, it seems quite likely to me that it is a cause of the accidents and should be taken into the numbers. Most people I see wanting those numbers "removed" only try to make themselves feel good because they'll be safe, they're in good shape. Except that's not how it works and even athletes have heart attacks.

 

[Brad_Horn]

For the OP, I don't think this has been covered:

Descriptive Epidemiology of 153 Diving Injuries With Rebreathers Among French Military Divers From 1979 to 2009

ABSTRACT
Introduction: Rebreathers are routinely used by military divers, which lead to specific diving injuries. At present, there are no published epidemiologic data in this field of study. Methods: Diving disorders with rebreathers used in the French army were retrospectively analyzed since 1979 using military and medical reports. Results: One hundred and fifty-three accidents have been reported, with an estimated incidence rate of 1 event per 3,500 to 4,000 dives. Gas toxicities were the main disorders (68%). Loss of consciousness was present in 54 cases, but only 3 lethal drowning were recorded. Decompression sicknesses (13%) were exclusively observed using 30 and 40% nitrox mixtures for depth greater than 35 msw. Eleven cases of immersion pulmonary edema were also noted. Conclusion: Gas toxicities are frequently encountered by French military divers using rebreathers, but the very low incidence of fatalities over 30 years can be explained by the strict application of safety diving procedures.

http://militarymedicine.amsus.org/doi/pdf/10.7205/MILMED-D-10-00420

 

[Rred]

John-
The questionable percent of OOA deaths in divers comes form the way the deaths are reported and investigated. If a diver is found floating somewhere with their lungs full of water...easy for a coroner (and in some spots they don't even have one of those) to say the cause of death was "drowning". So that's how it goes down, these guys don't know anything about SCUBA and if the gear was recovered, it is often just thrown wet into an evidence locker or other storage, sometimes someone has turned the valves, sometimes they haven't, no formal record is kept. DAN has tried to go beyond that and chase down any information on the tanks so some of the data is "best guess" and some is going to counter the official cause of death. After all, it is "death by accident/misadventure" and not a homicide, not a crime, so there are limited resources and reasons for any official investigation.
But feel free to contact DAN directly, they are very good at putting out their numbers, even if you are not a member. If you try to get answers to these questions on the internet in general, you get all sorts of things like answers.com or yahoo where bozos crawl out from rocks with totally uninformed personal guesses, instead of best-guess objective stats.
I was amazed to hear how many apparently OOA related deaths are still going on. That's why the (rough) number stuck in my head.
Then again, many things I hear in SCUBA still amaze me. When the LDSes all told me that my old J valves were going to kill me, I started locking them in the closet at night, to make sure that can't happen in my sleep.(VBG)

 

[boulderjohn]

My reference was to the description of the diver "being found dead with no air in their tank. No apparent cause of death except 'out of air.'"

In most of the cases of OOA-related fatalities, the OOA incident was witnessed--not a diver found dead with no air in the tank. In the joint DAN/PADI study of about 5 years ago, the most common chain of events leading to the fatality included both OOA and a panicked ascent, with the resulting embolism being the main reason for death. That study led PADI to make a number of changes to its OW course.

 

[Rred]

"In most of the cases of OOA-related fatalities, the OOA incident was witnessed--not a diver found dead with no air in the tank. "
We're talking about two different things.
You're talking about OOA incidents, and the results that were witnessed from them.
I'm talking about the recovery of dead divers, and the subsequent finding that perhaps coincidentally, their tanks were also empty.
While those might seem like the same kind of incidents, they're two separate things.

PADI training...Sorry, but I never agreed with PADI's "bite sized morsels" no matter how popular that is as a training modality. I come from a NASDS and university training course, where it was expected that not everyone in the course would or could be certified, and the goal was to teach safe SCUBA, not to certify customers for a business. I know, PADI succeeded and grew to domination, NASDS fell under. But for typical open water diving, OOA should be a damned inconvenience, not an emergency.

 

[boulderjohn]

I know, PADI succeeded and grew to domination, NASDS fell under

NASDS is today one of the biggest of all the scuba agencies. It just goes by a different name--SSI. NASDS merged with SSI years ago, with the NASDS owner, Doug McNeese, becoming part of the management team of the new SSI. A few years later, McNeese bought out the other owners and took over SSI completely. All the training and (mostly) marketing methodologies of NASDS became the training and marketing philosophies of SSI. I got this history from an SSI marketing workshop conducted by Doug McNeese, who still manages SSI under the new ownership of Mares.

 

[Rred]

I'm familiar with the legacy, but wouldn't swear that all the SSI policies and priorities weren't modified somewhat along the way. For instance, NASDS issued a "certification", period. SSI does the OW, AOW, etc. dance. And while "Nitrox" didn't exist back then, the training we got was that whatever you breath, find and use the right tables, etc. for it. No big deal, just learn how to read and do math.

Although never to the extent that PADI did, with "merit badges" for every conceivable increment. Pole fishing, spearfishing, night diving, left handed flashlight on a weeknight, compass navigation...OK, maybe a few of those aren't quite real but you know what I mean. They used to have at least two sets of "extra" badges to go around the big PADI logo.

 

[Bob DBF]

I don't say they are infallible, I had a dive buddy signing OOA despite the J. It was one of those "but we were taught to open the valve only 1/4 turn" days. (Yeah.) Nothing is infallible, but a J does allow the tank to reach out and slap your face in a way that pressure gauges never do. "Hello! This way!" while the gauge stays silent and unread.

The problem with the j-valve slapping you in the face is that it may not be in the reserve position at the time it does. Aside from not placing the valve in the dive position, it could be moved out of position while diving. Many divers removed the rod to keep the valve from being actuated kelp or other debris, this reduced inadvertent actuations, however a diver had to check valve position, as you would an SPG, on a regular basis or one may have no reserve available at the end of the dive, a real slap in the face.

I was never taught to open the valve only a 1/4 turn. I learned to open the valve fully and not backseat the valve, but that was before training by catchphrase.


Bob

 

[Jack Hammer]

My recollection is there was some discussion a while back (2010?) about the number of divers who died being found with empty tanks and whether or not they actually went OOG or if the tanks drained during/after the incident. I dont recall if there was an official consensus.