How dangerous is diving?

[BDSC]

I am always amused at people who think diving is either dangerous or macho. I've never found anything dangerous or macho about it. You don't even have to be in shape or anything close to do it. Fat people, skinny people, obese people, old people, young people, in shape and out of shape people. It's just another hobby like fishing or hunting as far as I can tell. You want real macho and danger, check out this guy. Alex Honnold. The best free climber in the world. Now this is danger and macho!

 

[je76]

Which part is over the top...I assume you are referencing what you have indicated in the bold lettering.

Fact - Diving has inherent dangers. Opinion - I feel that these dangers are often downplayed or misrepresented. I don't lay this at instructor's feet but rather with some of the training agencies themselves.

Fact - Statistically speaking newer divers are more prone to injuring themselves Opinion - Some divers never get out of this new diver stage because they simply don't dive enough. They dive a few times a year at most, never develop their skills and as such are more subject to the dangers of diving. Then they go diving somewhere, skills are challenged and they get hurt. I, like many others, have seen it for myself. Most recently while diving in the Bahamas wherein a very reputable dive operation took divers on dives they shouldn't have been on based on what they experienced with the same divers the day before. Why would they do this? I don't know but the fact that this is a business I am sure has something to do with it.

Not to sound combative but because skiing, biking and skydiving are dangerous doesn't mean diving is less dangerous.

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On a side note I should add to this the line about driving being more dangerous than diving is incorrect. Comparing the total number of hours driving and total number of hours diving it turns out diving is much more dangerous than driving. Your life insurance company will also agree based on what their actuaries tell them.

Don't believe me? Read the study...http://archive.rubicon-foundation.org/xmlui/handle/123456789/6770. Reading the whole study is good but the last few lines of the abstract is really where our attention should go.

Does this mean I am going to sell my gear, quit diving and take up knitting? Absolutely not. Does this mean that I won't enjoy my diving, have fun doing it or turn it into a chore. No I won't.

But I am also not deluded about the inherent dangers that my sport possesses. Diving is my raison d'etre, my passion and I accept these risks and dangers but I don't downplay them or misrepresent them. If someone can't accept this risk, needs to lie to themselves about it or turn it into a cliche they should take a hard look at what they are doing. Could they go an entire dive career without an injury...sure...but that doesn't mean that the danger isn't there.

---------- Post Merged at 12:49 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 12:34 AM ----------

I also agree with BDSC...macho...I don't dive to be macho. I dive to be alive, experience the world, explore another world, challenge and learn about myself, to photograph beauty and sometimes spear and eat it. I don't do it to be macho, pick up girls, or an impress anyone nor do I know anyone that dives for these reasons.

 

[TMHeimer]

je76, Interesting diving/driving study. My gut feeling has been that diving is more risky. Neeless to say, it depends on what kind of diving and driving an individual does. You also have to consider the total number of people driving vs. diving or flying in a plane worldwide at a given moment. When driving 70 mph on interstate with cars like 20 feet apart, I marvel that there aren't a ton of more accidents. What do you guys who say "I'd more likely die on the way to the site driving..." think of this study?

 

[vladimir]

In comparing the risks of diving vs driving, hours is not a useful unit, in my opinion. Unless you have to make a choice between, say, a four-hour drive and a four-hour dive. But that's not really what we're looking for when we compare diving and driving—we are just using a more familiar risk (driving) as a metric to compare diving to. I would expect a one-hour drive to be roughly twice as risky as a half-hour drive; I would not expect an hour dive to be twice as risky as a half-hour dive.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I also agree with BDSC...macho...I don't dive to be macho. I dive to be alive, experience the world, explore another world, challenge and learn about myself, to photograph beauty and sometimes spear and eat it. I don't do it to be macho, pick up girls, or an impress anyone nor do I know anyone that dives for these reasons.

It's absolutely true that diving makes it easier to pick up girls ... underwater they don't hardly weigh anything at all ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[nimoh]

It's absolutely true that diving makes it easier to pick up girls ... underwater they don't hardly weigh anything at all ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

that just made my day

 

[TMHeimer]

In comparing the risks of diving vs driving, hours is not a useful unit, in my opinion. Unless you have to make a choice between, say, a four-hour drive and a four-hour dive. But that's not really what we're looking for when we compare diving and driving—we are just using a more familiar risk (driving) as a metric to compare diving to. I would expect a one-hour drive to be roughly twice as risky as a half-hour drive; I would not expect an hour dive to be twice as risky as a half-hour dive.

Your opinion on 1 hr. vs. 1/2 hour may be correct. What do you base this on?

 

[tye1138]

What do you guys who say "I'd more likely die on the way to the site driving..." think of this study?

There are just too many variables to mathematically determine which activity is more dangerous. The study in my view is inconclusive its also too localized.

I guess my initial comment was more for humor then anything else.

 

[boulderjohn]

To go back to what some have said, I think it make s a big difference whether you are talking about injuries or fatalities. I moved primarily to diving as an activity after a lifetime of beating my body up in other sports. The worst injury I have had in scuba was a cut on my arm that I got when my hand slipped while trying to tug on a too-tight wet suit and my thumbnail drew some blood. (I actually have a scar from it, which I trot out when we get into a Jaws-like discussion of scuba injuries.) It is rare to sustain those kinds of injuries in scuba.

People have talked about diving within your limits, following the rules, etc. Once again, that is where scuba differs from some other activities. In scuba, you are usually pretty much in control of your dive. In many other activities, you can be a victim of an outside force beyond your control.

Here in Colorado we have a number of skiing deaths per year, and we regularly have some in which a person was just standing still and was creamed by an out of control skier.

A friend of mine was standing still when someone went by and hooked his ski. He fell and shattered his femur.

Another friend was driving home one day when another driver fell asleep at the wheel and hit him head on. He awoke in the hospital to learn that his wife and children were all dead.

I was a competitive (even ranked) volleyball player, and my two worse injuries (and they were bad) occurred when idiots doing something stupid came under me while I was coming down from making a spike.

This past spring I was taking a nice, leisurely bicycle ride on a bicycle path and was taking a blind curve when I was suddenly confronted by a high school student taking the curve on the inside (my lane), apparently trying to set a bicycle path speed record. My broken bones only healed enough for me to return to the relative safety of diving a few weeks ago.

 

[TMHeimer]

boulderjohn, I would agree with you, as I certainly got banged up enough playing basketball, and nothing that I can think of yet with scuba. How would you rate these other activities vs. scuba regarding fatalities?