More L.A. County fatality stats (Casino Point & others)

[Thiad]

I think it's also become more of a mainstream sport compared to years back - even in the 80s. For those in our 40s, our first exposure was probably on TV and it seemed like going to the moon. Now you walk into almost any coastal sporting goods store and they're teaching SCUBA. It's great that more people are into the sport than ever!

From the older stats, however, I wonder how much had to do with equipment failure? It would be hard to deny that equipment today is far, far superior and safer to what was used 10 or 20 years ago - especially the inclusion of computers vs. dive tables as standard fair for most divers. But since I know little to nothing about older gear, I can't even begin to make a guess. All I know is that when I went to the diving museum, I looked at some of the older stuff and shook my head in wonderment. Truly some brave divers out there!

 

[Peter Guy]

Re my questions concerning the LA County Program:

a. It was NOT intended as a backhanded slap at the program. For good reason it is the (a) "gold standard" for teaching basic scuba.

b. I picked it because it is (as far as I know) localized -- that is, the LA County Program is JUST in LA County so you would have as close to a discrete population of students as possible. Trained under the same general conditions and same general program unlike, say PADI for which the conditions, and teaching, is completely varied (if not random!).

c. IF "increased training" IS the key to a lower fatality rate, then one would expect the graduates of the LA C program to have a noticable difference in their fatality rate since the training they get IS what most people call "good basic training."

d. If, OTOH, proximity to last dive (or series of dives) IS the key to a lower fatality rate, then the initial (basic) training would probably be much less important (if not irrelevant). Having the longitudinal study of the LA C graduates might help answer some of that.

For the record, my guess (based not only on diving but on other sports) is that recentcy of activity is the biggest key to safety. The PADI taught student who hasn't dived since she took the OW class three years ago is probably pretty much as clueless as the LA C student who hasn't dived since she took the OW class three years ago.

I'm just curious as to whether my guess is anywhere near correct.

 

[InTheDrink]

Lies, damned lies and statistics. Isn't that what they say?

From a personal POV my curiosity is fatalities that are attributed to cardiac arrest (and also to a degree to drowning).

At nearly 40% for medical causes (including cardiac arrest which is indicated as the most frequent) from the stats stated I struggle to accept this. Likewise, a lot of rebreather divers seem to die of cardiac arrest.

Seems to me we're missing something important. I'm not trying to grind me PE axe here, but umbrella causes like drowning and cardiac arrest may be obscuring some genuine lessons that we need to be learning.

John

 

[boulderjohn]

Lies, damned lies and statistics. Isn't that what they say?

From a personal POV my curiosity is fatalities that are attributed to cardiac arrest (and also to a degree to drowning).

At nearly 40% for medical causes (including cardiac arrest which is indicated as the most frequent) from the stats stated I struggle to accept this. Likewise, a lot of rebreather divers seem to die of cardiac arrest.

Seems to me we're missing something important. I'm not trying to grind me PE axe here, but umbrella causes like drowning and cardiac arrest may be obscuring some genuine lessons that we need to be learning.

Drowning is certainly an "umbrella" cause, because the ultimate cause of death is usually drowning, whatever happened first. I have no trouble accepting the cardiac arrest numbers. If you read all the descriptions of fatalities attributed to cardiac events in the DAN studies, they look pretty convincing to me. The one I know personally had an autopsy that showed several cardiac events leading to the fatality were evidently ignored. While the percent seems high, the total numbers aren't that many. Ultimately, not that many people are dying in the first place.

As for the large number of rebreather deaths attributed to cardiac arrest, I have never noticed that at all. I read the DAN report every year, including every single incident description. I don't recall that association, although I supposed I might have missed it.

If you think the numbers are suspicious, then you have a simple remedy at your disposal. Go to several DAN studies and do your own analysis of the data. Show where it is wrong. You should especially be able to document an association between rebreather deaths and cardiac arrest. It doesn't take long to do this sort of thing. I have done it a number of times to refute SB posts that report "facts" that are not actually true. It actually becomes a fairly interesting pursuit, because you will see all sorts of things that others haven't noticed.

 

[diverrex]

Lies, damned lies and statistics. Isn't that what they say?

From a personal POV my curiosity is fatalities that are attributed to cardiac arrest (and also to a degree to drowning).

At nearly 40% for medical causes (including cardiac arrest which is indicated as the most frequent) from the stats stated I struggle to accept this. Likewise, a lot of rebreather divers seem to die of cardiac arrest.

Seems to me we're missing something important. I'm not trying to grind me PE axe here, but umbrella causes like drowning and cardiac arrest may be obscuring some genuine lessons that we need to be learning.

John

The deaths attributed to medical reasons don't surprise me, or truthfully bother me. With an average of 85 deaths a year and 40% being medical (mostly cardiac I assume) that's 34 a year. I bet more than that die of cardiac events playing golf, or cards, or whatever. As Ken pointed out earlier scuba is a relatively safe activity.

Now people dying because they run out of air that's a shame.

 

[Diver71_au]

Drowning is certainly an "umbrella" cause, because the ultimate cause of death is usually drowning, whatever happened first. I have no trouble accepting the cardiac arrest numbers. If you read all the descriptions of fatalities attributed to cardiac events in the DAN studies, they look pretty convincing to me. The one I know personally had an autopsy that showed several cardiac events leading to the fatality were evidently ignored. While the percent seems high, the total numbers aren't that many. Ultimately, not that many people are dying in the first place.

For this reason DAN (and other researchers) are moving towards root cause analysis of incidents to determine the chain of events that lead to the end result (ie the "cockup cascade"). The triggering event (what actually starts the incident) is usually much more telling than the cause of death.

 

[boulderjohn]

For this reason DAN (and other researchers) are moving towards root cause analysis of incidents to determine the chain of events that lead to the end result (ie the "cockup cascade"). The triggering event (what actually starts the incident) is usually much more telling than the cause of death.

I am aware of this and fully agree with the move. As I said above, the classic example is OOA leads to improper response through rapid, breath holding ascent leads to embolism leads to loss of consciousness leads to drowning, so the cause of death is drowning.

The problem is that the causal chain is sometimes hard to determine. For example, I said I knew of one case intimately. Here is a partial description of the chain: 1) diver panics and discards regulator 2) diver begins panicked, rapid ascent 3) diver has embolism 4) diver drowns. Looks like a complete chain until you ask why the diver panicked when nothing unusual had happened before that. The clue was in the discarding of the regulator. She had had a cardiac event, confirmed by autopsy. This limited blood the flow and led to carbon dioxide buildup. Carbon dioxide buildup is what causes the panicked sense that you need air. This led the diver to believe her regulator was not working. This caused her to discard it. This led to the panicked ascent and everything else that happened.

Without the autopsy results, the true cause of the incident would not be known.

 

[InTheDrink]

Does the autopsy result give this information? Official results I've looked at quite often seem to state ultimate reason for death (cardiac arrest, drowning) rather than those leading up to it.

I'll try to dig a little deeper on my *feeling* with some of the CODs and my dissatisfaction with them because of their general nature. Likely I'm wrong, I normally am. But I still feel there are too many deaths out there that aren't adequately explained.

I do however agree that running out of air seems too common and should be fixable. There are several simple things in terms of training and config that would surely help here but like many of us, we're pissing against the wind.

John

 

[scubadada]

From the older stats, however, I wonder how much had to do with equipment failure? It would be hard to deny that equipment today is far, far superior and safer to what was used 10 or 20 years ago - especially the inclusion of computers vs. dive tables as standard fair for most divers. But since I know little to nothing about older gear, I can't even begin to make a guess. All I know is that when I went to the diving museum, I looked at some of the older stuff and shook my head in wonderment. Truly some brave divers out there!

I was certified (by LACUU) in 1970. I bought my 1st gear in 1972 (this is 40 years ago). I still dive my ScubaPro MK5/109, a good regulator, even today. I had a BC with autoinflator, a SPG, and a depth gauge, and knew my Navy tables. I do not think I was put at risk by my equipment but did have the advantage of superior training.

Good diving, Craig

 

[drbill]

Peter... as I indicated, the LAC program apparently no longer certifies OW students like it did when I was certified in the 60s. I'm not sure exactly when they stopped OW certification. Today they offer a fantastic ADP program but it is for certified divers. Given the fact LAC OW certs are no longer given, it is hard to compare apples to apples (LAC OW cert to PADI/NAUI/SSI/etc OW cert), although I'd say based on my experience comparing a LAC OW cert to a PADI OW cert is more like comparing watermelons to grapes..