DAN Report on Diving Fatalities

[MXGratefulDiver]

I'm assuming that was meant as sarcasm ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[SC_Hoaty]

I'm assuming that was meant as sarcasm ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Ahhhh - missed the sarcasm tags on it!

 

[Crush]

I'm assuming that was meant as sarcasm ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

It was meant as sarcasm with some derision at the notion of simply telling someone to hit the surface with 500 psi but never having taught the person how to do that. There was no derision directed towards Bob.

 

[boulderjohn]

It was meant as sarcasm with some derision at the notion of simply telling someone to hit the surface with 500 psi but never having taught the person how to do that.

Yes, this should be part of a course, and I do add it. It doesn't take long.

Gazing into my crystal ball, I suspect that we will see some positive changes from all of this in the next year or two. (And, yes, I really do have more than a crystal ball on which to base this hunch. Not a lot more, but more nonetheless)

 

[Ayisha]

Do tell.

 

[Diver0001]

The official dive death rate is one in 200,000 in the US. Many of them are medical related, like heart attack, etc. Most others are from common sense mistakes, like trying to go to almost empty air and so on. The estimated diving deaths from uncontrolled circumstances and not medical related is 0.001%. So diving is really not so bad. Sure, it has their risks. All sports and hobbies have something that can hurt you. It just means if a person doesn't have common sense, maybe this isn't the sport for them, that's all.

(Information was gathered from sources including DAN, Padi, and numerous coroner locations in popular diving locations in the US. Numbers are not exact, but it was what was given to me. They all were the same)

Just a question about your numbers: The DAN findings indicate that the individual risk/year is 1:6000, not 1:200000. I'm not sure if that's the same as what you were saying but I suspect not. When you say 1:200000, what is that? is that 1:200000 divers/dives/hours/certifications..... ???? I can't place that number in context.

Also, the way I'm reading it, it looks like the two biggest direct causes of disabling injury are (1) botched emergency ascents at #1 and (2) preexisting medical issues following close behind.

Evidently the most common triggers that set things in motion are OOA (by quite a margin), but also significant are entrapment and equipment failure.

Putting that all together in some kind of scenario I'm thinking that what it's showing us is that a lot of accidents are probably unfolding as follows:

(a) It looks to me like the most common scenario is that the diver goes OOA or has a gear malfunction and responds by making an emergency ascent. During the ascent they either pass out from asphyxiation or they hold their breath and AGE themselves.

(b) A second evidently common scenario is that the diver somehow becomes entrapped and simply runs out of air, suffocates and drowns.

(c) And of those things don't get them, then the strain of the experience causes a heart attack in a large number of cases.

There are other scenarios too but this looks like it covers the 80% side.

So if you're thinking about what to do (or where to put the emphasis in a scuba course), then I think you can apply the golden rule of "prevention is better than cure" to all of the above and really stress these three points:

1) running out of air is REALLY REALLY REALLY BAD so don't do it because botched emergency ascents are the most common cause of death. Monitor air supplies and learn how to plan to be back at your safety stop with a proper reserve.

2) NEVER and we seriously mean NEVER go in an overhead unless you have proper training because people DO die on a regular basis from not listening to this bit of advice despite the fact that it's in the book, we discuss it in the course and the proverbial horse has been lead to the water.

3) When major issues arise, many people turn out to not be fit enough to deal with it and have heart attacks. .... so when you dive choose conditions you can handle in terms of diving skills AND AND AND physical fitness levels.

If these points are stressed well enough and new divers take that to heart and use it then they can reduce their risk by a huge margin..... at least if I'm reading into it what's there.

R..

 

[Mr Carcharodon]

It seems every year in southern California on opening night of lobster season we have a few fatalities. And the people who die consistently fit a profile. They are overweight middle age men who have not been diving since the last lobster season. In the process of telling people scuba is fun we have forgotten to put enough emphasis on fitness to dive.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Yes, this should be part of a course, and I do add it. It doesn't take long.

Gazing into my crystal ball, I suspect that we will see some positive changes from all of this in the next year or two. (And, yes, I really do have more than a crystal ball on which to base this hunch. Not a lot more, but more nonetheless)

Do tell.

I won't speak for John ... but I believe he's right. I can say that in my area (greater Puget Sound), the past six years have shown a lot of progress in getting divers more educated on gas management. I can think of a few instructors who at least discuss the concepts in their OW classes. My seminars have been growing in popularity ... the first one was attended by two people ... now I get standing-room crowds. Best of all, there are at least two other instructors who are now offering their own seminars ... and people are attending them.

If I can conclude anything at all from that, it's that people want this information and find it useful ... and where there's a "market", someone will find a way to fill the niche.

If that "someone" happened to be PADI, I'd be thrilled ... because as PADI goes, so goes the industry. And they have the talent and infrastructure to make it a mainstream part of the educational curriculum.

So John ... I'm really hoping that's what you're seeing in that crystal ball of yours ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

To add to tddfleming's discussion of CAD and diving: immersion and exposure to cold significantly alter a person's hemodynamics. Blood is shunted away from the extremities and into the core, which increases the load on the heart and stresses it in a way that can't be duplicated on the surface. This elevates the risk of sudden cardiac death in people who are susceptible, so even though a person passes a stress test on the surface, he or she may not be fit to dive, or even snorkel. A person doesn't need to be breathing compressed gas to experience this effect.

The DAN report also provides some insight into the diagnosis of "drowning". An untrained medical examiner may mistakenly conclude that because a person was found underwater, they drowned, when in fact drowning is a secondary effect that has a primary cause. It's impossible to tease out the specific cause of death in some of these ambiguous cases, so the statistics may be off because of that.

 

[legions]

I am just curious, and this might be the wrong place to ask, but are there any training agencies who teach students to buddy breath? And to clarify that, I do not mean simply grabbing your partners safe second, I mean sharing your partners primary reg.

Legions