Diving Risks

[nimoh]

It's more dangerous, more risk, because it is less forgiving, despite the training.

Any incompetent OW diver can go their whole lives diving and experience some incidents and still live to tell the tale.

However with cave diving etc, incompetence will quicker lead to death or injury...

Training teaches you to mitigate the risks, not eliminate them... And the reality is, there are MORE things that can go wrong in cave diving.. So it is inherently much riskier.. And most ppl associate risk with danger

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I agree that you can't really eliminate the risks, but you can mitigate them a lot. I also agree that more things can go wrong in a cave, but also that training and practice enables you able to handle more things.

As Diver0001 suggested, it is apples and oranges, and I am not trying to be arrogant, overly confident or anything like that. I just thought it would be an interesting discussion to try and compare a new cave diver in a cave and a new OW diver in the open water.

---------- Post added October 23rd, 2013 at 03:41 PM ----------

Well, all the things that could go wrong in an open water dive, can go wrong in a cave dive -- equipment can fail, you can get lost, lights can fail. You have redundancy to deal with equipment failures, and better skills to deal with other problems, but the fact is that you are under a time pressure in cave diving that you are not in recreational open water diving, because you CANNOT just surface if your coping strategies fail. Therefore, I'd have to say it's still higher risk. I think that, with a respectful attitude and a willingness to follow the rules, the risk profile falls within tolerable for me -- obviously, because I do it!

I agree. I think Diver0001 nailed it when he separated the chance of something happening from the effect of it happening. I think I was too focused on the former.

 

[Diver0001]

I think you articulated it much better than I did, and I agree that it is apples and oranges and very difficult to compare.

My underlying point was just that I don't feel that I am significantly risking my life by cave diving (within my limits). Similarly, I didn't feel like I was significantly risking my life when I took up diving to begin with.

I see. I have the same feeling about my diving too although I don't see any objective way to compare the total risk at different stages of my diving career.

I understand your feeling though.

R..

 

[Randy g]

We were on our way to cave country last week and I think I heard the best description from Bobby Franklin aka UW Light Dude. He told me that as open water divers our perception gets wider and wider the longer we dive. It goes from a very narrow view when we first become open water to very wide after a couple of hundred dives. Similar to a new 16 yr old driver verses someone who has been commuting in traffic over a couple of decades. He said the same thing about our upcoming cavern/cave courses. Our view is narrowed again as it was when we first got certified open water. After a couple of days with Jim Wyatt, I completely see his point.

 

[karstdvr]

. I have seen some cave diving accident reports, and most seem to indicate that some basic rule was breached leading to the accident (and suggests that if the rule was not breached, the accident would have been averted). Perhaps this is a wrong impression and I am open to changing it, but it is currently my impression.

When you read,"Blue Print to Survival",this is exactly what you see-break a rule and become a statisitic. This was formulated when cave diving still had the issue of people not being trained and doing this activity. The rules still apply,but with training being so very readily available,the situation of non trained cave diving accidents has dropped to nothing. Now,we are seeing trained cave diving accidents and they basically fall into two categories 1)exceeding limits and 2)medical issues. In the utopian world,everyone got trained,and everyone followed the rules,then accidents cease to exist; unfortunately no.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

Imo, cave training introduces divers to what situations are like, but its heavily diluted from the real thing. Real education comes post-class in the form of experience. The info you get from the class is just enough so that if you go slow, you probably won't kill yourself. Probably.

I agree with this assessment 100%.

We do try and make being out of gas, in the dark exiting as realistic as we can. However the student knows s/he is being watched by the instructor and the psychological aspect of the training is not what it will be when the exit is real.

 

[denisegg]

You have obviously not experienced a true life-threatening experience that is out of your control. An IPE 500 ft linear 95ft deep in a cave that you survived because of your cave training has not happened to you where your cave instructor drilled in your head, do not panic, stay in control or you will die. So you swimmed out, and at the last minute purged your regulator in your mouth to go the last 200 ft in the cavern, so that you would have enough gas left in your lungs to amerge on July 4th at JB in 2010.

 

[AA3JY]

We were on our way to cave country last week and I think I heard the best description from Bobby Franklin aka UW Light Dude. He told me that as open water divers our perception gets wider and wider the longer we dive. It goes from a very narrow view when we first become open water to very wide after a couple of hundred dives. Similar to a new 16 yr old driver verses someone who has been commuting in traffic over a couple of decades. He said the same thing about our upcoming cavern/cave courses. Our view is narrowed again as it was when we first got certified open water. After a couple of days with Jim Wyatt, I completely see his point.

In another similar form of 'Muscle Memory' type of activity..we in Motorcycle Safety training call it 'Taget Fixation'..where the 'new-to-the-sport' students, that havn't formed habits yet, are litterally glued to the single task at hand. You can watch there eyes as they are "fixed" on the (single) skill at hand..such as the eye-hand corrdination of manipulating throttle-clutch-brakes while almost total disregard to outside influenes or concerns..

This is also true to the supposid more experirnced students that have to relearn from old bad habits..

As well as students for the first time attaining new skills such as on-road or off road racing.

 

[DogDiver]

Bill Curtis on a PBS special a few years ago at Na Hoch site as "the most dangerous sport". One wrong turn, one misplaced fin kick, one error in judgement and your dead. There are no cave diving rescues, only cave diving recoverys. Over 600 divers have died in the north Florida springs since the 70's.


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[PfcAJ]

Be still my beating heart...

 

[shoredivr]

DogDiver, google Edd Sorenson.