Number one cause of diving fatalities?

[tridacna]

I don't think dying from a heart attack counts as a "diving fatality" since it would kill you regardless of where you were.

Untrue. Heart attacks are entirely survivable. Underwater not so much...

 

[kelemvor]

Untrue. Heart attacks are entirely survivable. Underwater not so much...

Have to agree, I know 3 or 4 people who have survived heart attacks. In fact, I haven't known anyone personally who died from a heart attack.

 

[2airishuman]

The combined DAN/PADI study a few years ago showed that other than medical issues, running out of air followed by a panicked ascent to the surface was the most common cause of dive fatalities. Medical issues are still number one, but since there is not a whole lot we can do about them, we concentrate on the issues that can be fixed through training.

Many accidents caused by medical issues were on dives undertaken against medical advice. How many? Who knows.

Some accidents originally reported as medical issues are believed to have contaminated gas as a root or contributing cause. Which ones? No one knows.

I believe there has to be some reporting bias in the data upon which the statistics are based. Diver dies, recovered kit seems functional but the tank is empty. Was there a freeflow? Was there CO or hydrocarbons in the gas that led to impaired judgment? Chances are that Occam's Razor is applied in the analysis and the whole thing is chalked up to a clueless diver who didn't check the SPG. Doesn't mean it's true.

I'm skeptical of the statistics but try to learn what I can.

 

[tridacna]

Many accidents caused by medical issues were on dives undertaken against medical advice. How many? Who knows.

Then how do you know? Did you just make this statement up? Are there recorded/documented instances?

 

[2airishuman]

Then how do you know? Did you just make this statement up? Are there recorded/documented instances?

There are several anecdotal reports.

 

[dmaziuk]

Have to agree, I know 3 or 4 people who have survived heart attacks. In fact, I haven't known anyone personally who died from a heart attack.

:raises hand: Out in .au bush, 2-hour drive to the nearest, well, everything.

There's high survival chance if you have one in the cardio ward in the local hostpital. There's low survival chance if you have one while breathing through a straw underwater. And everything else in between.

 

[kelemvor]

:raises hand: Out in .au bush, 2-hour drive to the nearest, well, everything.

There's high survival chance if you have one in the cardio ward in the local hostpital. There's low survival chance if you have one while breathing through a straw underwater. And everything else in between.

Yep, I totally get that. I think I've seen so many survive because I live in Pinellas county where there are hospitals 10 minutes away in pretty much every direction.

There are several anecdotal reports.

I've certainly seen a number of posts on scubaboard where people sounded like they were doing that very thing. How many turned into medical accidents while diving? Who knows? I have to assume a fairly high percentage, else that would mean the doctors saying these things are contradictions are wrong. I think the former is the more likely.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

This is one of the better studies I have seen on scuba fatalities.

http://www.divingmedicine.info/Ch 34 SM10c.pdf

It gets to the fact that, although drowning is the ultimate end in many scuba fatalities, the contributing factors are many and varied. Here's the summary at the end for recreational divers:

The most significant factors in recreational diving fatalities are:

• diving with disqualifying medical conditions • stress responses -panic and fatigue
• salt water aspiration
• environmental water movement
• buoyancy problems

• inadequate air supply - LOA or OOA
  
  
• adverse sea conditions
  
  
• failure to ditch the weight belt when in difficulty
  
  
• ignoring or misapplying the buddy system
  
  
• improper use of equipment
  
  
• failure of equipment.

1. Many of the factors associated with diving deaths are avoidable.
   
   Contributing medical factors should be largely preventable by adequate dive medical examinations prior to commencing diving and periodically after that, especially after diving and non-diving illnesses. With increasing age, the examinations should be more frequent.
   As a rule of thumb, routine medical examinations should be at least every 5 years when young, reducing to annual with old divers.
   
   Some changes in the emphasis of diver instruction, aimed at better education concerning the high risk areas of diving, would be helpful. Divers who may be knowledgeable of decompression theory and practice, are running out of air and drowning in solitude, with their excessively laden weight belts still firmly attached.
   
   Before diving is attempted, aquatic skills including unassisted swimming and snorkeling should be acquired. Scuba training should be from professional diving instructors, both for the initial open water training and subsequent courses on buoyancy control, rescue and advanced diving. Supervision is needed while extending diving activities involving different environments, equipment or dive parameters.
   

• 
  
  SeaRat

 

[tridacna]

Yep, I totally get that. I think I've seen so many survive because I live in Pinellas county where there are hospitals 10 minutes away in pretty much every direction.



I've certainly seen a number of posts on scubaboard where people sounded like they were doing that very thing. How many turned into medical accidents while diving? Who knows? I have to assume a fairly high percentage, else that would mean the doctors saying these things are contradictions are wrong. I think the former is the more likely.

Making unfounded guesses does not substitute for real data. Anecdotal data surmised from SB posts REALLY does not make a reliable data set.

 

[2airishuman]

Making unfounded guesses does not substitute for real data. Anecdotal data surmised from SB posts REALLY does not make a reliable data set.

I'm not basing my assertion on SB posts. If you read the BSAC and DAN accident narratives, you'll find individual instances. I don't have cites so you'll have to do your own research to find them.

My point isn't that I have the answers. My point is that there is no real data to be had. There are all kinds of problems with all the statistics that confound any effort to produce meaningful analysis:

1) There's no mandatory reporting, with the result that some cases are missed, especially unremarkable ones.
2) There are no accurate surveys, especially not ones available to the public, of the amount of diving activity broken down by experience, type of diving, equipment, age, etc. So we hear reports that a large fraction (I've read "more than half") of all accidents involve people with fewer than 20 lifetime dives. That's not very meaningful without knowing what proportion of the total number of dives involves people with fewer than 20 lifetime dives. The large number of rebreather fatalities is similarly difficult to draw conclusions from because we don't have data on how many dives are rebreather dives.
3) There's a lot of conjecture in accident analysis and in particular root/contributing causes early in the accident sequence are impossible to divine. Pressure from a buddy to continue a dive rather than thumb it. Navigation problems leading to OOA. Someone unintentionally taking a double dose of their morning medication. Equipment, entanglement, current, or navigation problems early in the dive setting the stage (anxiety, less air left, tired, etc) for problems later in the dive. This leads to a reporting bias towards readily identifiable mid- and later-stage steps in the accident chain.
4) Objectivity. For years we had people blaming "solo diving" for everything that ever went wrong when a buddy wasn't immediately present. That's changed, but other biases remain.
5) Lack of formal evaluation of students by instructors and divemasters. There's wide variation in aptitude and skill, and I think most instructors will tell you that some of people who fulfill the agency requirements for a C card are better divers than others. This is a factor that accident reports don't even consider, because the data isn't available, and because it flies in the face of the "anyone can learn to dive" marketing message.
6) There's no legal "safe harbor" for disclosing information about an accident, incident, or near miss, as is the case with (among other activities) aviation.
7) There aren't, thankfully, that many fatalities. You can only read so much into 80 fatalities a year.

On the whole, I believe most of the statistics but look at them with a skeptical eye.