Danger Window...

[Geddes]

I used to live in an area where there were a LOT of freefall parachutists. At the local airport, it wasn't uncommon to see quite a few world recognized jumpers. I have freefall jumped. as well as military jumped, but prefer the relaxation of diving. It is my understanding, that statistically, most certified parachutists are injured between 700 and 1000 jumps. I have met many, personally, that fall into that catagory. Is there a 'danger window' for number of dives? I have pondered a lot about this, and diving is so diverse, it seems hard to catagorize 'number of dives' because of diversity (most skydives are 1. leave aircraft 2. fall 3. open chute 4. land). So for the long term divers, in a single location, is there a number of dives that open present a cautionary period?

 

[wedivebc]

I used to live in an area where there were a LOT of freefall parachutists. At the local airport, it wasn't uncommon to see quite a few world recognized jumpers. I have freefall jumped. as well as military jumped, but prefer the relaxation of diving. It is my understanding, that statistically, most certified parachutists are injured between 700 and 1000 jumps. I have met many, personally, that fall into that catagory. Is there a 'danger window' for number of dives? I have pondered a lot about this, and diving is so diverse, it seems hard to catagorize 'number of dives' because of diversity (most skydives are 1. leave aircraft 2. fall 3. open chute 4. land). So for the long term divers, in a single location, is there a number of dives that open present a cautionary period?

Believe it or not the danger window is open water scuba instructor
I read that many new instructors believe they are bullet proof.

 

[Crayon]

Believe it or not the danger window is open water scuba instructor
I read that many new instructors believe they are bullet proof.

Sadly an all too common occurance. With the multiple ascents an instructor is required to do during an Open Water course extra care is required. Too many newly qualified professionals (divemasters as well) believe that they are more or less immune to the effects of barotrauma and other diving injuries.

However, back to the original question. There is no danger window per say for diving accidents. Most diving injuries occur as a result of diver error. It is often found that these divers had omitted one or more of the basic diving safety rules, or had poor technique. This is brought about by overconfidence in your own ability to dive, such as omitting to do a pre-dive safety check because "it is a shallow site I have dived many times before ".
Never take your skills and ability for granted and try to avoid being overconfident. I have done several thousand dives in the course of my diving career and to this day I still treat each dive as if it was my first...with care, planning, excitment, and a little dash of nerves!

 

[jbd]

So for the long term divers, in a single location, is there a number of dives that open present a cautionary period?

Several years ago, I read that this was around 25 to 50 dives. This is when people, in general, get pretty comfortable with diving and the gear they are using. With that comes a bit of complacency which leads to a couple of those oh $&*# moments.

 

[SDAnderson]

According to DAN, one of the biggest corollaries is the number of dives in the past 12 months: year after year, 40% of injured male divers and 50% of injured female divers have are reported to have made less than 20 dives during the previous twelve months. Certification levels perhaps count less than staying in practice.

In other words, if you want to be a safe diver, you need to be a frequent diver...