Cave Diving Statistics

[matts1w]

Dan's report on dive injuries puts cave diving 5th in accident rating. It appears to be less than 10% of all injuries (2005), but does represent 15 % of all fatalities. I guess that you could read this as - cave divers are generally safer, but when they get in trouble, it represents a higher level of danger. The largest group, by far, are recreational divers between the ages of 30-39 diving in the Caribbean area.

How many people actually dove in 2005? How many divers are there?

Cave divers represent 15% of diving deaths, but what percentage of the diving population are cavers? My GUESS is less than two percent. Just using simple numbers: if there 1,000,000 divers in the US, 2% would 20,000 cave divers? Maybe I am way off, but there is no way there are 20,000 swimming around in caves every year.

So if about 1% of the diving population represents 15% of the deaths one could conclude that cave diving, even with training, is very dangerous. If one adds in divers using virtual overhead environments the stats go slightly higher.

I am fine with that, but to imply cave diving with excellent training is less of a risk than other forms of diving is a bit far fetched..

 

[cerich]

How many people actually dove in 2005? How many divers are there?

Cave divers represent 15% of diving deaths, but what percentage of the diving population are cavers? My GUESS is less than two percent. Just using simple numbers: if there 1,000,000 divers in the US, 2% would 20,000 cave divers? Maybe I am way off, but there is no way there are 20,000 swimming around in caves every year.

So if about 1% of the diving population represents 15% of the deaths one could conclude that cave diving, even with training, is very dangerous. If one adds in divers using virtual overhead environments the stats go slightly higher.

I am fine with that, but to imply cave diving with excellent training is less of a risk than other forms of diving is a bit far fetched..

If cave diving was as safe as open water it would lose some appeal
More risk, more needed to do=more reward.

 

[Nevis Diver]

Several months ago a small group of us left Cozumel and went to Chok Mool cenotes for a dive. None of us were certified in cave diving (or cavern diving if there is such a thing). Maybe our LDS owner was, I 'm not sure. The rational of the DM was that we would never be more than 200 linear feet from an opening or air pocket. Yeah, right. We did the dive which was about 75% halocline, very disorienting for someone who vertigos more easily than others or is not used to diving in low vis conditions. One guy had to be helped down to a level where the halocline disappeared because he started to get disoriented.

Other than that the dive went well and I realy enjoyed it.

However...

I am not going back to the cenotes until I am trained in cave diving, have the proper equipment and a trained dive buddy. I hear that there are cavern environments you can dive at some of the cenotes in the Riviera Maya, which I take to mean that you can always see where the openings are. If this is the case, I wouldn't mind doing that. But it is difficult to believe that with rental gear that may not be maintained, inexperience of some people getting a dive in while on vacation and the loose rules used in the cenotes by some that more accidents don't happen.

Besides, I would rather dive another reef than be in a cave anyway.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Dan's report on dive injuries puts cave diving 5th in accident rating. It appears to be less than 10% of all injuries (2005), but does represent 15 % of all fatalities. I guess that you could read this as - cave divers are generally safer, but when they get in trouble, it represents a higher level of danger. The largest group, by far, are recreational divers between the ages of 30-39 diving in the Caribbean area.

How many people actually dove in 2005? How many divers are there?

Cave divers represent 15% of diving deaths, but what percentage of the diving population are cavers? My GUESS is less than two percent. Just using simple numbers: if there 1,000,000 divers in the US, 2% would 20,000 cave divers? Maybe I am way off, but there is no way there are 20,000 swimming around in caves every year.

Many of those deaths in caves were not cave divers but rather divers going in caves with no cave training. In fact until fairly recent years the cave community boasted that there were no deaths of trained cave divers. More recently the boast was no deaths of cave divers who followed the rules of acident analysis but I don't know if that really holds any more or not. I believe that to this day, the lions share of the cave deaths have been divers with no cave training. I would never try to convince anyone that cave diving is safe but the average non-cave trained diver going into a cave just doesn't stand much of a chance and there have been some fairly recent examples. Just look into some of the deaths there have been at vortex alone. If I remember right one single incident took out like 8 divers. Dispite the warnings, I still see OW equiped divers scooting in and out of there all the time. They installed permenant lights, breathing bells (or whatever you'd call them) and there's a locked gate about 300 ft in. Just in the last year or two there have been several OW divers killed in caves.

All that said, while trained cave divers have a pretty good safet record no one that I know of ever tried to represent cave diving as being safe. I don't consider diving safe and cave diving even less so. I am, however comfortable with my own risk but dives are not created equal and niether are divers.

My prediction is that the continued increased commercialization of cave diving and cave training is going to pile them up. It's a LOT more accessible to far more people than it used to be.

The NACD and the NSS-CDS may still have a policy of not promoting (actively selling) cave diving but I'm not sure all their members share that policy and other training agencies never had such a policy in the first place. I'm not saying that any one should be denied access but mentorship is not as common as it once was which puts less experience divers out on their own sooner. I've also seen some pretty sloppy stuff going on in classes that I didn't see when I first started. I haven't been cave diving all that long so I think things are changing fast.

 

[MikeFerrara]

The first rule of accident analysis seems to be the most deadly: Training.

Exceeding your level of training killed more in the 70's (non trained divers) and diving beyond their training is catching up with more of todays trained cave divers.

Yes. The scooter guys at Little River, the lady at Eagles nest (was it?) with the closed manifold and the screwed up mix who never got into the cave, the two in mexico and a few more. There are some goofy things that you just aren't going to get away with.

Blue Print For Survival by Sheck Exley is still a book to read for any one interested in cave diving. Training, air, line, lights and depth...it's all still true.

 

[H2Andy]

mike, i think you mean the scooter guys at Eagles Nest

i belive one or both of those divers had not been able to pass the
scooter class. he probalby lost control of the scooter in a tight
passage and silted out the entire room they were in, leading to
their loss of visual contact with the mainline. after that, it was
just luck that might have gotten them out alive. their luck failed them.

the diver at Eagles Nest was a failure to follow refill protocol. she
did not make sure that her manifold was open, and ended up with
almost pure helium in one of her tanks.

the guys in Mexico failed to mark their direction of exit while making a jump.
on the way back, they guessed wrong and went the other way. they eventually
figured it out, and headed back. two guys made it out alive with almost no gas. two guys ran out of gas and died close to the exit.

the cause of all three accidents can be attributed to failure to follow protocol:

1. failure to pass scooter class before taking a scooter into a dangerous system

2. failure to observe fill protocol and open manifold valve

3. failure to follow jump protocol and mark direction of exit

yes, even trained divers do dumb things and don't follow their training

and i think you're right. the more trained cave divers there are out there
diving, the more chances there are for things to go wrong and somebody
to die.

 

[PA/NJdiver]

mike, i think you mean the scooter guys at Eagles Nest

There were also two scooter guys at Little River several years ago where one made it out and his buddy did not. They had not been cave diving in a while and scootered beyond the point where they should have been in Little River. This fatality stands out for me since there were claw marks in the floor where the guy tried to get out.

Stacey

 

[H2Andy]

There were also two scooter guys at Little River several years
ago where one made it out and his buddy did not.

yes, this was back in 2000. both were Intro Cave divers only, but were
diving doubles and using scooters.

again, divers exceeding their training.

(since mike mentioned two very recent accidents as well, i assumed
he meant the recent scooter accident at Eagle's Nest)

 

[MikeFerrara]

yes, this was back in 2000. both were Intro Cave divers only, but were
diving doubles and using scooters.

again, divers exceeding their training.

(since mike mentioned two very recent accidents as well, i assumed
he meant the recent scooter accident at Eagle's Nest)

I was talking about Little River although I didn't realize it had been that long. If I remember right if was an uncle nephew buddy team. They silted things out, lost the line and the uncle? found it and headed out. Also if I remember right he said his integrated computer wasn't working so he didn't know how much air he had left.

In regard to what you said about the guys in Eagles Nest. If you lose the line in a silt out, it's not luck you need to rely on but skill, keeping calm and doing like you were taught. Assuming you planned to have enough gas for such things it's just a matter of tieing off and conducting a systematic search for the line. You shouldn't be that far away and it shouldn't be too hard to find.

I think there was more to the Mecico incident if I remember right.

 

[Cave Diver]

I was talking about Little River although I didn't realize it had been that long. If I remember right if was an uncle nephew buddy team. They silted things out, lost the line and the uncle? found it and headed out. Also if I remember right he said his integrated computer wasn't working so he didn't know how much air he had left.

You are referring to one around Thanksgiving 2003. Two guys from Texas, I think around the Dallas area. They were the ones that were getting in just as my team was exiting and we had a brief PM convo about it...