SDI vs PADI

[Kingpatzer]

And you can read about these people in the Accidents and Incidents forum where they are injured or killed due to lack of training, poor skills, etc etc.

We call these type of people resort divers and these people don't care what agency they use other than what was close to the location they were staying and how nice the staff were.

Do you have any evidence that the rate of accidents they suffer is in any way significant?

My guess is that far more are injured per dive due to accidents on the docks, in their cars on the way to dive sites, and so on than are in anyway harmed by diving. But it is a guess I admit.

According to Undercurrent, in 2002 PADI, SSI, SDI and NAUI combine certified 177,000 divers.

According to DAN reports, there were 669 reported DCS injuries that year, more than 99% of which had complete relief of all symptoms after 12 months. About 12% of the injured male divers and 19% of the injured female divers had less than 1 year of diving experience. Since most newly certified divers do not continue diving, we can work with those values pretty directly.

(and yes, I realize that relying on DAN data is in itself as problematic as relying on self-reported certification numbers from those agencies. But I gotta work with what I can find).

457 * .12 = 55 injuries to new male divers and 212 * .19 = 40 injuries to new female divers. So we're talking 95 diver injuries total give or take on or two

That means that the rate of risk for injury for diving is around 55 per 100,000.

There were 91 dive fatalities. More than 40% reported chronic health conditions.

Just short of 40% of the dive fatalities with certification information (61) had been certified less than 1 year (Only a few percentage points higher than those who had more than 10 years of experience, oddly enough). If we assume the remaining deaths were similarly certified that puts the number of new diver deaths around 36. Assuming an even distribution of causes of death (the break down isn't available that I can see), only about 19 of those are possibly training related as nearly 45% of deaths are cardiac and age related issues.

This means a new divers have a death rate around 10 in 100,000.

A person is more likely to die of suicide (11.1:100,000) and is far more likely to die in a transportation accident (15.9:100,000).

Death rates for all injury causes in the USA that year, according to the CDC is 59.8 per 100,000. 40.6 per 100,000 were unintentional, not including alcohol and drug induced causes (7.4:100,000 and 12.8:100,000 or firearm injury (10.3:100,000).

Now, certainly we would like to see 0 deaths per year and 0 injuries per year diving. But it will never be possible to have a risk free environment.

For those of you who bemoan current standards as insufficient, how many of those injuries and deaths do you attribute to insufficient training? What is your basis for that? How many injuries and deaths would you consider represent acceptable risk levels? Do you have any proof that the additional standards you support would lower these numbers?

 

[Kingpatzer]

. The risk of the environment is not constant from place to place and time to time. It ranges from the rather benign of shallow water, on calm days, in tropical islands to the challenges of, say, the Northern California coast when the wind is blowing like stink. There is little or no inherent risk to a person in the former as long as do not run out of air and remember to always breathe normally while the latter presents some real risk, even to a well trained individual.

I absolutely do not disagree with that.

But the OW dive market caters to the former and presumes that anyone interested in the later will continue on to additional training.

You're point about a different training paradigm leading to a more robust diving community with a higher profit margin on things like equipment sales and the like is, I think, more or less correct (you convinced me of that the last time we had a similar discussion).

However, that misses the point that certification agencies are by and large not about gear sales, they are about certification sales. They aren't interested in selling and servicing gear they are interested in selling certifications. Everything else appears to be ancillary to that goal.

Since that is the market space as it currently sits, the evaluation of standards within that market space is what I'm discussing.

PADI and all the other agencies considered to be bottom feeders around here could raise their standards to GUE levels tomorrow, and another agency would be created virtually over night to back fill the market they vacated.

So long as the risk of engaging in the activity remains at a level the public perceives as reasonably low, and so long as the public remains largely uneducated about the differences between agencies, it will always be the lowest cost, shortest time to certification agencies that win out in the market.

Given the reality of those dynamics (which I do not see changing short of government intervention, god help us) the question invariably reduces to a simple question: is the risk of injury or death associated with one successful (in business terms or recreational market share owned) standard set significantly higher than another?

My guess is that that specific question not only has not been answered, but it can not be answered, for largely the reasons you noted.

Which means there is no objective reason to condemn one agencies standards over another. We might or might not presume that a set of standards are insufficient, but it is merely subjective opinion. And given that anyone on this board almost certainly is far more serious about diving than the average OW certified person, the question of if we even represent the market those standards are aimed at is another variable to bring to the party.

What it boils down to is that I object to people being made to feel "special" by being prepared for and escorted on comforable and rather risk free excursions while not being sufficiently trained to deal with much more and also not being equipped to really be able to differentiate were the fine line that separates where it is OK for them to go from where it is too dangerous for them to go. How many OW students (of even instructors for that matter) are able to look out over a cove and tell you, to a certainty, that the conditions are, "the same or better than those that they trained in?" Would not a little more "top" in their training be prudent to compensate for such potential errors?

And this I don't disagree with either.

Look, I'd have much rather been far better trained than I was coming out of OW classes (which is one reason I spent the next 50 or so dives diving with guys I was friends with who were far superior divers with decades of experience in some cases). I went on to take a number of additional classes to raise my skills. I learned what I didn't know slowly and deliberately and I still consider myself merely a fairly well trained recreational diver and nothing more.

But the market doesn't cater to me. That isn't what they're selling. They're selling the trip under the gin clear still waters around the reef next to the resort. That's the product being peddled. And it's being peddled to people who are only going to do that once in their life.

 

[Thalassamania]

Do you have any evidence that the rate of accidents they suffer is in any way significant?

Once again, may I suggest that accident rate is not the best measure of the efficacy of standards except at the extremes.

My guess is that far more are injured per dive due to accidents on the docks, in their cars on the way to dive sites, and so on than are in anyway harmed by diving. But it is a guess I admit.

I'd agree, but three years from now most of those people who this year drove a car or walked on a dock are still doing so, but most of those who took up diving are not diving any more.

According to Undercurrent, in 2002 PADI, SSI, SDI and NAUI combine certified 177,000 divers.

According to DAN reports, there were 669 reported DCS injuries that year, more than 99% of which had complete relief of all symptoms after 12 months. About 12% of the injured male divers and 19% of the injured female divers had less than 1 year of diving experience. Since most newly certified divers do not continue diving, we can work with those values pretty directly.

457 * .12 = 55 injuries to new male divers and 212 * .19 = 40 injuries to new female divers. So we're talking 95 diver injuries total give or take on or two

That means that the rate of risk for injury for diving is around 55 per 100,000.

The conventionally accepted risk for DCS in the sports community is one in ten thousand dives. If you're coming up with 55 per 100,000 divers, that's about one new diver in two thousand being bent, so that sounds about right, if each new diver made five dives that would translate into about 89 cases of DCS, so the interal consistency of the numbers seems to hold up, at least for back of the napkin calculations.

There were 91 dive fatalities. More than 40% reported chronic health conditions.

Just short of 40% of the dive fatalities with certification information (61) had been certified less than 1 year (Only a few percentage points higher than those who had more than 10 years of experience, oddly enough). If we assume the remaining deaths were similarly certified that puts the number of new diver deaths around 36. Assuming an even distribution of causes of death (the break down isn't available that I can see), only about 19 of those are possibly training related as nearly 45% of deaths are cardiac and age related issues.

Your assumptions here can not reasonably be granted. Even if someone dies of a cardiac condition whilst diving I would have to consider that a dive related incident with a cardiac contribution, since it might well not have occurred had the person stayed on land. Also there is no reason to assume a even distribution of causes of death, in fact, I think that rather doubtful. So we really need to use the entire 61 new divers, which yields about 35 per 100,000.

This means a new divers have a death rate around 10 in 100,000.

A person is more likely to die of suicide (11.1:100,000) and is far more likely to die in a transportation accident (15.9:100,000).

Death rates for all injury causes in the USA that year, according to the CDC is 59.8 per 100,000. 40.6 per 100,000 were unintentional, not including alcohol and drug induced causes (7.4:100,000 and 12.8:100,000 or firearm injury (10.3:100,000).

Putting it on a par with the death rates for all injury causes, which are not adjusted (I'm sure) for, say car crashes that were cased by a heart attack or a stroke.

Now, certainly we would like to see 0 deaths per year and 0 injuries per year diving. But it will never be possible to have a risk free environment.

It doesn't take a risk free environment. As I mentioned before there are alternatives that yield an order of magnatude better DCS results and virtual elimination of fatality risk.

For those of you who bemoan current standards as insufficient, how many of those injuries and deaths do you attribute to insufficient training? What is your basis for that? How many injuries and deaths would you consider represent acceptable risk levels? Do you have any proof that the additional standards you support would lower these numbers?

I would attribute all of them (within reasonable confidence intervals) to a combination of insufficient training and insufficient medical screening since a community with significantly higher training and medical standards does not exhibit a similar number of fatalities or DCS cases.

 

[disccop75]

This has all given me a slight headache... lol

Unfortunately, the almighty dollar runs this industry just like every other one. Therefore the marketing and training standards are constantly being balanced out for "most" certifying agencies. IMHO, kudos to the agencies that have higher standards that produce more experienced, competent and safer divers. I am certified through PADI but I have a slight feeling of regret for not seeking out a more intense training package. But at 22 (11 years ago, wow!), I just wanted to get in the water wearing all the cool looking equipment and see pretty fish and coral so I didnt give it a second thought.

 

[TCDiver1]

Yes there is. While the recreational agencies have been rather tight lipped about their real numbers, we can take a look from the extremes in, what that shows us is that there are a number of fatalties and injuries, not to mention a skyhigh dropout rate are dignostic of the sports diving community whilst the scientific diving community (the major difference really being in the duration of training) enjoys extremely low fatalty, injury and dropout rates.

This is not a good comparision IMO. Trying to compare divers who dive for basic recreational reasons with divers who are training for scientific (professional) reasons doesn't wash. No doubt these scientific divers are better prepared due to the extra time spent in training but that isn't the question. The question is, do recreational divers require that higher level of training to perform a reasonably safe recreational dive? I don't think they do but really don't see any data available to clearly support either side of that argument.

It also stands to reason that a person training to be a scientific diver, is much more motivated to be a diver and keep diving, than your average Joe who walks into a dive store wondering what it would be like to dive. This average Joe is more likely to move on to something else for no other reason than just to try something different. Diving isn't for everyone but it certainly is the ticket for most people who have taken up diving for scientific reasons. They are much more likely to stick with it regardless of which training they get IMO.

 

[Thalassamania]

This is not a good comparision IMO. Trying to compare divers who dive for basic recreational reasons with divers who are training for scientific (professional) reasons doesn't wash. No doubt these scientific divers are better prepared due to the extra time spent in training but that isn't the question. The question is, do recreational divers require that higher level of training to perform a reasonably safe recreational dive? I don't think they do but really don't see any data available to clearly support either side of that argument.

Require? For what reason? Safety? Profit? Lowering the drop out rate? All of the above? Do recreational divers require that higher level of training to perform a reasonably safe recreational dive? Where is this dive? Under what conditions? Sometimes no (warm calm tropics) sometimes yes (Monastery on a big day). One size and one answer does not fit all, but the industry would like to pretend that one answer (the easiest one) does fit all.

It also stands to reason that a person training to be a scientific diver, is much more motivated to be a diver and keep diving, than your average Joe who walks into a dive store wondering what it would be like to dive. This average Joe is more likely to move on to something else for no other reason than just to try something different. Diving isn't for everyone but it certainly is the ticket for most people who have taken up diving for scientific reasons. They are much more likely to stick with it regardless of which training they get IMO.

Many of the people (likely about half) that I've trained are, in fact, average Joe College Student, they took the class because they wanted to learn to dive and it was the only class that the University offered. I took them in and trained them because researchers need buddies who are not focused on their own underwater research projects. Buddy divers are a great resource. I'd have to say that my experience with these "buddy diver" types has been no different than my experience with the researcher types, save that they may be a little easier to train.

 

[Kingpatzer]

. One size and one answer does not fit all, but the industry would like to pretend that one answer (the easiest one) does fit all.

I would argue that is absolutely not true at all. Agencies offer additional certification precisely because they know that not to be hte case (and hope to profit from supplying additional training to those who decide they need more. Various agencies exist specifically to fill niche training markets left under-served by the main-line agencies. The industry seems to me to have precisely the opposite view.

Many of the people (likely about half) that I've trained are, in fact, average Joe College Student, they took the class because they wanted to learn to dive and it was the only class that the University offered. I took them in and trained them because researchers need buddies who are not focused on their own underwater research projects. Buddy divers are a great resource. I'd have to say that my experience with these "buddy diver" types has been no different than my experience with the researcher types, save that they may be a little easier to train.

Yet that still demonstrates a motivation (and a continuing motivation) that is different from the average recreational diver.

Again, the average recreational diver is interested in doing a few dives during their cruise and then going on with their life. They aren't interested in becoming buddy divers to researchers.

 

[CompuDude]

Agencies which have virtually no market place penetration are not worth discussing in this context. NOLA divers are trained to a higher standard as well, but since the vast majority of prospective divers have no access to these agencies, their standards are immaterial to a discussion around the standards recreational divers as a population.

I've sent an e-mail to SEI asking for any information number of instructors (preferably by state) and number of students certified but have so far not received a response.

It's my understanding the SEI is the direct successor to the YMCA scuba program. If I'm not mistaken, that gives them quite a legacy. A name change due to cost and liability concerns, yes, but it's the same people and essentially the same training program, just a different name on the card. The record at YMCA is quite well established.

 

[CompuDude]

BTW, I'm not sure I'd agree with your idea of "the readily available agencies." As far as I know, I don't have easy access to SSI, SDI, or CMAS, but I do have easy access to PADI, NAUI, UTD, GUE, IANTD, and TDI.

You have ready access to SSI, SDI, PADI, NAUI, UTD, GUE, TDI, and IANTD (I'll take your word on that one, not sure which local shop offers that training). Here in SoCal, I believe you are correct that no local shops are CMAS.

Just so you know.

 

[Blackwood]

You have ready access to SSI, SDI, PADI, NAUI, UTD, GUE, TDI, and IANTD (I'll take your word on that one, not sure which local shop offers that training). Here in SoCal, I believe you are correct that no local shops are CMAS.

Just so you know.

The shops closest to me are PADI (Sea D Sea and Dive N Surf).

The shop I use is PADI, TDI, IANTD and UTD (Ocean Adventures).


And actually I guess I didn't think of Sport Chalet, and I don't know what they teach.