Serious dive related injuries/fatalities on liveaboards

[Shasta_man]

In planning for solo liveaboard trip, I was thinking about "safe" boats. I was reassuring the wife that I am looking to go on safe boats. For example, I was looking at going on the Nai'a in Fiji and felt it is a very respected boat and an excellent crew. I was thinking that I don't hear of many injuries or indeed any fatalities on the major liveaboards out there. However, I'm now wondering how true that is. Does anyone have any thoughts about what real numbers, or a feel for such stats, there are on serious injury or fatality incidents on liveaboards? To be clear, I'm going regardless... but I'm wondering what the true numbers are....

 

[Wookie]

No one really advertises their data. US boats are pretty easy to find data on because the Coast Guard must receive a report, but as far as foreign flagged vessels go, it's pretty much the wild west out there. Same with inspections.....

It is very rare for a liveaboard to have an accident/incident that is "their fault". Liveaboards hire or make/train professional crew who stick around for months or years and become diving safety professionals. They usually don't have "real jobs" and do the divemaster gig as a hobby. If you are trying to sooth your wife's fears and tell her that you are going on a safe boat, just tell her that it hasn't caught on fire/sunk, therefore it is safe. If she is worried about you being injured, well, that's kind of up to you.

I'm often shocked at how folks remark about how "safe" we operate our boat. I usually find that the only thing they have to compare to is a day boat. There is a world of difference between the operation of a day boat that comes back to the dock at beer:30 and one that stays offshore and does 5 dives per day.

 

[Shasta_man]

Thanks Wookie. I was curious what you were going to have to say. To be clear, this is just the engineer in me wanting to know, and really I was just thinking of anecdotal info for precisely the reasons you state (no one is going to advertise it). Of course, anecdotal could be worth as much as I pay for it (0) but I thought it would interesting to see what thoughts or gathered info might exist. Further, I expected it wouldn't usually be the liveaboards fault but more a survey of how well diving happens on these boats.

 

[Tigerman]

Also, keep in mind that just about any boat that goes out on a regular basis WILL have had accidents, its just a matter of statistics and doesnt mean the boat is unsafe.
Im quite certain wookie can attest to that less than fun part of being in the service buisness..

 

[Wookie]

It's important to look at the type of accidents. Heart attacks happen, and the ones that I've been a party to usually wouldn't have ended up in a survival situation even if the decedent was in an emergency room when it happened. When it happens at 90 feet, it's for sure a bad thing.

In 16 years, I've had 3 heart attacks that were fatal, one that we got them back, and a lost diver who we searched for for 3 days. I've had a fire at the dock, and a number of cases of bends. I can't compare my statistics with other liveaboards, so I have to compare to DAN, AAUS, and NOAA statistics. My safety record exceeds all of them (I'm safer than industry, as well as scientific diver standards) for both fatalities as well as bends. I don't know about fires, but we didn't have passengers on, and the boat didn't sink. The systems worked as they should, all except for that pesky breaker that refused to trip....

 

[Tigerman]

Sort of my point.. I work in a hotel and cabin resort and we do have people just about once a month on average that leave in an ambulance or by helicopter. Most of them, as with your situation, is heart issues.
Ive had 2 people die while on my shift and neither of them would have survived regardless. One went to bed happy as a clam and never woke up the next day, the other where probably too far gone the moment he hit the floor.
Its no fun, but if you have enough customers it will happen and it really IS out of your control.

Which is why I did mention that all "serious" ops will have had incidents, without that being a safety issue.

 

[Doubler]

If you were to look at treatment center availability if something bad were to happen that would
pretty much eliminate every place fun and exciting and that is not limited to just diving accidents. The Truk Odyssea probably has a case or two of bends a month with an inoperable chamber and third world care facility on island but people still go. You seem to be a very safe diver so just stay safe and don't worry about it. Lust remember in most cases in the third world chambers are 24 to 72 hours away.