Dive accidents - why so little information afterwards?

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97% of the readers and poster's here are making the same misunderstanding as you typed. They are looking for the one single cause that they can point to and say "See, that's the single thing that killed them". (ie zero air)

But most of us who have investigated accidents, sent months of letters, spoke to onsite witnesses, and pulled dead divers off the bottom know that's not the case.

Every accident is a line sequence of events, that when perfectly combined, results in a homicide. Breaking just one step in the sequence will most likely result in survival. Just like the Medical examiner always lists the final cause of death in a dive accident as drowning, it's up to the reader to do the extremely hard, long and difficult work of finding out each sequence of events that led up to the drowning.

I completely agree with you that it is rarely one single event/error/malfunction that causes diver deaths. One of my diving friends said to me once - if one thing goes wrong under water, manage it. When two things go wrong, end the dive. I have found this advice has held me in good stead in my limited diving career.

I'm not looking for a magic bullet or a quick fix. What I would like to see, among other things I have mentioned, is more of a focus in training on task loading - in a calm, cool, environment, all of us make good decisions. When stuff starts going to h*ll, that is where the true test of our skill kicks in. I don't want to be coddled or babysat by my dive shop when doing a course, just so I can get another cert card in my wallet. I want to feel safe in the water, have others feel comfortable diving with me, and not become a statistic.

The role of accident analysis in all of this is, IMHO, to find out what those chain of events are that cause injury or death and train our divers how to deal with multi-incident problems underwater.

I agree that the Near Miss section of this website is a good place to find information and learn - I just recently read a posting by someone who had an OOA diver who grabbed someone's reg and took off to the surface with the buddy in tow. NOT a good day! I am thankful for those who experience events like that who are willing to share and learn from them. The sport of diving is an awesome one and we need to take care of each other.
 
If it bleeds it leads, so when a diver dies a the press may put out a story about the diver and his oxygen tank, with possibly a follow up either correcting or compounding errors in the story and probably adding the divers name. Do you actually think that they will use their manpower to research the story, get the facts straight and in weeks or months do a story , Diver still dead here are the facts, for the few people who might be interested, I don't think so, they are more likely to be on to the next story.

Because the dive industry is self policeing, the government is not interested in getting detailed statistics and the industry itself, as others have mentioned, are not interested on spotlighting failures. DAN does gather statistics, but I doubt that they do comprehensive recearch into every incedent, and their reports are statistical rather than a narrative.

Untill a group wants to take on the task of finding and researching each fatality and/or incedent and presenting its findings, let the speculation continue.



Bob
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I may be old, but I’m not dead yet.
 
Untill a group wants to take on the task of finding and researching each fatality and/or incedent and presenting its findings, let the speculation continue.

There is a book published annually called Accidents in North American Mountaineering Accidents in North American Mountaineering - American Alpine Club Would be nice if diving had an equivalent. The recreational agencies aren't going to do it as they want to present diving as a fun safe activity for the whole family. The NACD could do it for cave diving if they got their act together. (not holding my breath on that one! )

Maybe Dandy Don could volunteer?
 
Hi, you'll have to pardon my ignorance on this, but why is it that we hear about dive accidents/fatalities through media or friends in the industry, but after the initial announcement, there is no real information out there? Wouldn't it make sense to let the dive community know the specifics of an accident and what happened so that we could learn from the mishap and hopefully prevent future incidents?

I don't understand why all the secrecy? :confused:

Hi Dive Tigger,

I am the wife of Jeffrey May, who died on Memorial Day at La Jolla Shores in San Diego County, CA. The reason why you probably don't get the reasons for the death or cause of death through the media or others when a story of a downed diver comes out is because it takes a long time for medical officials to declare a cause of death. My husband was lost in the waters for 6 days. His body and organs were compromised by that time. It took them 4 months to decide it was an accidental drowning and state it is possible that he had a natural cardiac event due to extensive cardiovascular disease, and enlarged heart, and 90% blockage in his right coronary artery. At the time that this information is released - nobody remembers the case anymore except for close friends and families. Deaths in the water are the most difficult ones to determine and they are almost always treated as a criminal case.

What you can learn from this mishap is DON'T DIVE ALONE!!!! Also, make sure you have a healthy body even if you appear extremely healthy. I hope this helps understand just a little on how these cases linger and then the public has forgotten.

Kaymay84
 
The BSAC does gather, collate and publish accident statistics for the UK.
 
They do know how to prevent it and seem to do a good job of advising tourists. At least they have always advised me and I have never had a problem.


Don't leave anything of value in your vehicle. It is not that hard.


As I said -

A tiny island of 14,000 people and they can't figure out how to prevent it, and it's a hush hush subject, and one that's blamed on the tourists for creating the temptation. :shakehead:

That line of thinking mimics the lines written purposefully to demonstrate irony in the movie full metal jacket where the sarge spots a foot locker with the lock unlocked and declares how if there were no unlocked foot lockers there would be no thieves.

If somebody thinks victims are the cause of burglary they are just a breath away from believing women who are raped deserved it because of how they dressed.
 
Untill a group wants to take on the task of finding and researching each fatality and/or incedent and presenting its findings, let the speculation continue.

The Ontario Underwater Council investigates and publishes Incident Reports on all diving accidents in Ontario, Canada as well as any dive accidents outside of Ontario that involve divers residing within Ontario. It is a lot of work, but it can be done. Scroll down for the annual reports updated whenever more information becomes available:

Ontario Underwater Council
 
Thank you, Kaymay84, for sharing about your loss with us on the board. Never diving alone and making sure to have regular physical exams would certainly be important steps in making sure we stay safe as divers. It is interesting that both the UK and a province in Canada (Ontario) have statistics and publish some kind of incident reports related to diver deaths, yet I am unaware of anything like that in British Columbia. Considering we are said to have some of the best cold water dives in the world and fatalities that result from diving here, wouldn't it make sense to have something similar here?

My wish list seems a bit unrealistic, but...
1. Organization that tracks and provides incident reports in British Columbia (that subsequently shares this information with other provinces/countries in the world).
2. Incident report information incorporated into cold water and warm water dive scenarios in dive instruction manuals to keep us all safer.
3. Readily available/published resources available for those who are left behind - spouses, dive buddy, friends who are impacted. I know of Gary Ladd (psychodiver.com) whose has a lot of knowledge and expertise related to diver accidents and incidents, but does anyone know of any others that they can share?

Sorry if this sounds like a soapbox - it is coming from a love of the sport and a desire for all of us to stay as safe as we can.
 
I agree with all of that except the "never diving alone" bit. It can be done with adequate safety, and in fact it's my favourite form of diving.
 
The investigation into the actual cause of a diving accident also takes time and therefore factual details are often assembled well after the incident.

Exactly - my daughter died 5 years ago. It takes a long time to get the information and in our case, we filed a lawsuit so there was no talking about it until everything was settled. Bob Bailey and I wrote an article about my daughter's accident and I was able to get a modified version of it in Alert Diver. Please read the article and pass it on to dive shops/friends - http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/content/460-don-t-worry-will-ok.html. I recently traveled to Seattle to dive the site. Bob wrote about it - http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/431653-meaningful-dive.html
 
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