Considering PADI master diver

[josh]

DAN reports about up near 1000 injuries/year and pushing 100 fatalities. BSAC reports another bunch. I guess you need to define rare/common.

Probably a better place to start in all honesty, it seems there is a want to "fix the problem", without really having determined that there is a problem in the first place.

Don't mean to sound overbearing and if I really do, I apologize.

Maybe we both just "wrong footed".

I really think the place to go with this discussion is to the standards.

And as I said, I remain to be convinced that there is a problem that needs to be fixed. It seems to me, that there is a philosophical point here that I am not sure can really be adressed. The PADI philosophy is "dive today" (or as you would have it, "kneel underwater" today), while your point seems to be "don't dive until you can *dive*" (or perhaps, "you are not a diver until you can handle whatever is thrown at you"). I suppose it comes down to is is diving something that should be broadly accessible, or reserved only for the few with the time and resources to partake in it? Again, I think the answer is as much personal philosophy as anything.

But...it's about
1 am here and I'm about to pack it in for the night.

Mid afternoon here. Suppose I should do *some* work though...
-j-

 

[MikeFerrara]

Problem? Consumers can buy what they want and businesses can try to sell whatever they want. The world at large doesn't much care what we do to our dive sites or if a few more or less people get hurt diving. If it is a problem there are certainly bigger ones out there.

I'll say this though, teaching a class that results in a more capable diver does not have to be a class that excludes anybody. It doesn't have to be harder but rather more thourough. In my experience it can be done such that it actually makes it easier on both the students and the teacher. The idea is easier, not harder.

We went from teaching to the book the way we were taught to teach and having a real scary time in OW to having some pretty slick divers. They had an easier time and most had more fun because they were diving rather than strugling. We didn't do it by making them run laps or free dive to 100 ft. We did it by giving them the information and the practice sequence that developed the skills that they needed to do a good job of diving. If anything it was conducive to including more people rather than fewer.

ok, now it is time for bed. LOL

 

[josh]

DAN reports about up near 1000 injuries/year and pushing 100 fatalities. BSAC reports another bunch. I guess you need to define rare/common.

And lets put that into context as well:


Scuba fatality estimates range around 5 fatalities per 100,000 divers. About a third of those are the result of heart or circulation problems, most common of which is a heart attack or cardiac arrest (which is tragically almost always fatal if it happens while submerged). Here is a partial list of things that are more dangerous than scuba diving:

Riding a bicycle on a city street
Being a passenger in an automobile
Riding a motorcycle
Smoking tobacco
Sailing a yacht
Fishing from a dock

snipped from
http://www.thescubaguide.com/

So, about 100 fatalities per year total, and the incidence is 5 per 100,000 divers meaning that there are around some 2 million divers. About 30 of the deaths are from stroke/heart attack. So, basically, irrespective of training, that car ride *to* the dive site in your friends car is more dangerous than the dive....hmmmmm.
-j-

 

[fisherdvm]

So, about 100 fatalities per year total, and the incidence is 5 per 100,000 divers meaning that there are around some 2 million divers. About 30 of the deaths are from stroke/heart attack. So, basically, irrespective of training, that car ride *to* the dive site in your friends car is more dangerous than the dive....hmmmmm.
-j-

I don't like statistics like this, as it is kinda like my sister telling me "flying" is safer than driving in a car, as she wants me to get into her single engine plane that is older than myself.... Why? It is comparing apples to oranges.

When you look at DAN's report, you are only looking at numbers reported to them. Not the total number of accidents not reported. Factor in the DCS injuries, it will go higher. Factor in the barotrauma, pulmonary induced air embolisms, lung injuries, etc... the number gets higher yet.

Then you look at the hours a person spend in a car, vs. hours spent diving. Then you realize that diving is much more likely to cause death and injury than the equivalent time spent in a car.

There is a reason why life insurance companies list flying in private aircraft and scuba diving as "high risk" activities. .... They are high risk - of death, injury, and illness.

When folks post data saying diving is safer than driving a car ...



They lied to you.... Statistics often are misused..

 

[josh]

I don't like statistics like this,

They lied to you.... Statistics often are misused..

We all know there are lies, damn lies and statistics. However, personally, I find statistics *so* much better than "I recon..."...

Then you look at the hours a person spend in a car, vs. hours spent diving. Then you realize that diving is much more likely to cause death and injury than the equivalent time spent in a car.

Nah, then I realize I am talking with some one who is unfamiliar with statistics...
-j-

 

[fisherdvm]

I am sorry, I had only 3 statistics courses, statistics for engineer, statistics and epidemiology, and a 500 level statistic class.

I bow to you, Josh...

 

[fisherdvm]

For those who don't understand statistis, rates, and prevalence... When you compare rate of death, aren't you suppose to specify by year, month, hours driven, miles flown, or minutes dove..

When you simply compare event without defining the variables, you are misusing statistics.

 

[Thalassamania]

For those who don't understand statistis, rates, and prevalence... When you compare rate of death, aren't you suppose to specify by year, month, hours driven, miles flown, or minutes dove..

When you simply compare event without defining the variables, you are misusing statistics.

Fisherdvm has it right. The problem with diving fatality/accident stats has always been that the numerator is always an incomplete value and the denominator has always been totally unknown. I trust an expert, "I guess that ..." over the self serving estimates of the industry (that unfortunately includes DAN in this matter).

 

[MikeFerrara]

And lets put that into context as well:


Scuba fatality estimates range around 5 fatalities per 100,000 divers. About a third of those are the result of heart or circulation problems, most common of which is a heart attack or cardiac arrest (which is tragically almost always fatal if it happens while submerged). Here is a partial list of things that are more dangerous than scuba diving:

You're still focusing on accidents.

Riding a bicycle on a city street
Being a passenger in an automobile
Riding a motorcycle
Smoking tobacco
Sailing a yacht
Fishing from a dock

snipped from
http://www.thescubaguide.com/

How is that evidence that dive training is good? I guess maybe it shows that dive training is equal in quality to the training fishermen get for fishing off of docks. LOL That's like when PADI conpares the injury rate in diving to bowling. It's meaningless.

So, about 100 fatalities per year total, and the incidence is 5 per 100,000 divers meaning that there are around some 2 million divers. About 30 of the deaths are from stroke/heart attack. So, basically, irrespective of training, that car ride *to* the dive site in your friends car is more dangerous than the dive....hmmmmm.
-j-

About 100 reported to DAN, but there's the thousand injuries. Then there all those that aren't reported to DAN. Then as has already been pointed out, we have no idea how many active divers there are or how many dives are being done.

Now lets look at the fact that a large percentage of divers are doing their diving at resorts under some level of supervision.

I know a little about statistics and the dive data we have is mostly just counting without enough information to make for any meaningful statistics.

Also don't forget that many incidents don't result in injury. You have to watch divers to see how often one pops to the surface without their buddy. You have to be in the water to see a mom freak and sink into the bottom with her husband who is trying to help her while they try to swim up but are too negative while the young child is abandoned in the water and later sees his mother pulled from the water screaming. I'll bet the instructor who certified that family a week or two prior is right proud of himself.

Things like that happen and say something about training but don't show up in accident counts.

Lets just look at diver performance and agency standards. You seem to be avoiding that discussion. Why?

Earlier we talked about defining a problem. Now that you have me convinced all the divers are completely safe, I want to save the fish and the vis.

Part one of the problem ...Around here our local dive sites are so silted out and torn up when divers are in the water that it isn't worth diving. I'd like to clean that up so we can all enjoy it more.

Part two...Many of the areas that the divers rototill through are covered in spawning nests for large percentage of the diving season. Those nests and the eggs in them get destroyed by the divers wallowing in the bottom.

Lets look at the standards to see if there are some simple changes that might be made that could improve that.

 

[Thalassamania]

Blah Blah Blah .... another smug everything sucks thread...

Bob in CO

Gee … that added a lot to the conversation.

And lets put that into context as well:

Scuba fatality estimates range around 5 fatalities per 100,000 divers. About a third of those are the result of heart or circulation problems, most common of which is a heart attack or cardiac arrest (which is tragically almost always fatal if it happens while submerged). Here is a partial list of things that are more dangerous than scuba diving:

Riding a bicycle on a city street
Being a passenger in an automobile
Riding a motorcycle
Smoking tobacco
Sailing a yacht
Fishing from a dock

snipped from
http://www.thescubaguide.com/

So, about 100 fatalities per year total, and the incidence is 5 per 100,000 divers meaning that there are around some 2 million divers. About 30 of the deaths are from stroke/heart attack. So, basically, irrespective of training, that car ride *to* the dive site in your friends car is more dangerous than the dive....hmmmmm.
-j-

Let me share some other sports calculations with you, for football.

FOOTBALL: There were three fatalities directly related to football during the 2005 football season. Two were associated with high school football and one with professional football. In 2005 there were 12 indirect fatalities. Eight were associated with high school football, two with college football, one youth league, and one professional football.

For the approximately 1,800,000 football participants in 2005, the rate of direct fatalities was 0.17 per 100,000 participants. To reach that level of risk there would have to be more than 52 million active divers in the US.

Play with the numbers a little. There are a little less than 22 player hours per game with about 100 player hours at the field, so each player averages .25 hours per game (more or less) and about 15 practice hours per week. So lets round down to make it more dangerous and say that each player is exposed to the risks of football for about ten hours per week and 100 hours per season. So for 180 million risk exposure hours there were three fatalities. Carrying this over to diving, to have the same level of risk there would have to have been over five billion diver hours spent underwater (or more than 20 hours underwater for every person in the United States), not likely.