Undercurrent--"Why Divers Die"

[Fish_Whisperer]

Where is the personal responsibility that will help me if I am on a dive trip with someone who is has a medical problem that they don't report and who is my buddy who needs saving at 100 ft? Again, if you risk diving with poor health and fitness and do it solo, fire away. The problem might be that unfit divers could hurt innocent divers.

What is wrong with the thought that if you love diving so much that you could use some personal responsibility to exercise, diet, and take care of your health? I would think diving could motivate some people to improve their health to extend their diving career.

Instead, we just damn the messenger and the message that we all know at some level is correct.

I haven't damned anyone. I agree that if someone wants to participate in a physically taxing pursuit, they owe it to themselves and to those around them, to be in reasonable health and take responsibility for being in good enough physical condition to participate, without becoming a burden on others.

 

[OHGoDive]

Where is the personal responsibility that will help me if I am on a dive trip with someone who is has a medical problem that they don't report and who is my buddy who needs saving at 100 ft? Again, if you risk diving with poor health and fitness and do it solo, fire away. The problem might be that unfit divers could hurt innocent divers.

What is wrong with the thought that if you love diving so much that you could use some personal responsibility to exercise, diet, and take care of your health? I would think diving could motivate some people to improve their health to extend their diving career.

Instead, we just damn the messenger and the message that we all know at some level is correct.

Well, I think the problem could be, as some here have already done, that people start equating heavier divers with bad divers. If you start blindly following the wrong trail, you'll end up with people cowering away from anyone who isn't svelte and tan, refusing to buddy with them. Or, asking them to drop and give you 20 pushups before you'll let them onto a boat. Ridiculous, but, I can certainly see the tendencies that people might be worried about.

At this point, there is no way that you can look at a persons size and say they're going to keel over on any one single dive. As even the Undercurrent article stated, it's about even whether it's the heavier or the lighter person who goes.

I think people should be aware of what might put them at risk, and obesity certainly puts them at a higher risk, all else being equal. But, at the same time, it's their risk to determine. I'd rather be on the boat or dive with the buddy with the most experience, regardless of size or shape. The chance of them having a health related issue underwater, on any one particular dive, is probably pretty much the same as mine.

If people keep that perspective, doesn't seem like it's much of an issue. It's the potential regulation and testing and government control that worry most people, I think.

 

[TxHockeyGuy]

Where is the personal responsibility that will help me if I am on a dive trip with someone who is has a medical problem that they don't report and who is my buddy who needs saving at 100 ft? Again, if you risk diving with poor health and fitness and do it solo, fire away. The problem might be that unfit divers could hurt innocent divers.

What is wrong with the thought that if you love diving so much that you could use some personal responsibility to exercise, diet, and take care of your health? I would think diving could motivate some people to improve their health to extend their diving career.

Instead, we just damn the messenger and the message that we all know at some level is correct.

Now we've gone and introduced another aspect here, not reporting a medical problem. That could just as easily be done by someone who appears to be perfectly fit as it could by a morbidly obese 400 lb diver. Since we're headed down this route, what about the diver who is not aware of their medical condition? We could play this game all day long.

As far as your comments regarding improving your health, I agree 100%. I have improved my health since I started diving with the goal of getting my SAC rate down. That being said while I am in better shape today I weigh the same as when I first started diving. That being said I have no intention of ever getting down to my "ideal" weight. I'd get killed when I play hockey.

 

[MikeFerrara]

An earlier section of this article is available in part for free:
http://www.undercurrent.org/UCnow/articles/die200509.shtml

From the article

Anthony Kalinowski, an advanced open water diver from Belmont, MA, with fewer than 20 lifetime dives, exhausted his air supply 20 minutes into a 90 fsw wreck dive off the Gloucester based dive boat Cape Ann II. He grabbed the octopus of a student diver in his group and then grabbed the student's primary. The student broke away from the distressed diver, who was later found unconscious on the bottom, with his mask off and regulator out of his mouth, according to the Boston Globe.

20 lifetime dives at 90 ft...AOW?... Out of air?.

Note that some agencies don't teach gas management and they all tell you that you will learn buoyancy control with experience but take you deep before you have that experience.

Tammy Nguyen (San Jose, CA), apparently became entangled in kelp while diving at Point Lobos in northern California's Carmel Bay. Shortly after descent, the 42 year-old got tangled in kelp, panicked and then grabbed at the regulators and masks of other divers who came to her aid. She was brought to the surface and transported to a local medical treatment facility, where the Los Angeles Times reported that she died of complications of neardrowning after being on life support for five days.

There was more to this story if I remember right and there is a long thread on the board concerning it....I'm pretty sure this is the lady. It could have been adiffernt one but...

She was with two buddies and the plan was to MEET AT THE BOTTOM. They waited for her and when she didn't show up they went looking for her and found her tangled in kelp.

Decend with your flipping buddies! Another thing that some agencies DON'T teach or require!.

Another source of panic-inducing anxiety is poor preparation. Unfortunately, that lesson was lost on a very experienced 40 year-old open water diver who used a new dry suit on a shoreentry dive into a cold water lake with low visibility. At 40 feet and 10 minutes into the dive, her regulator was freeflowing. She panicked and grabbed her buddy. The pair rapidly surfaced, but the buddy, unable to drop her weights for her, could not keep her afloat, and she drowned. Later it was determined that she had configured her weights in a manner that prevented dropping them and her regulator was in disrepair and ill suited for cold water.

Some agencies don't teach free flow management and none of that require the student to demonstratye the ability to manage a free flow midwater. We've had a loot of divers hurt around here.

No way up


In overhead environments, divers are taught to follow the rule of thirds: use onethird of your air on the way in, one-third on the way out and keep one-third in reserve. An experienced technical diver with cave diving certification made a cave dive to 94 feet using a scooter for transit. A siltout occurred during the dive, and he and his buddy became separated. The 42 year-old tech diver's body was recovered one hour later, and his gas source had been exhausted.

This sounds like the one in Little River. There was more to it...do some checking.

One certified cave diver with a history of narcolepsy (episodes of suddenly falling asleep in any situation), made a shoreentry solo dive into a freshwater spring system. He used a 34 percent Nitrox mixture and planned the dive to 108 feet for 20 minutes. The 35 year-old diver's body was recovered in a restrictive area within the cave where the current was brisk. It appeared that he had been attempting to exit the cave system. He had plenty of gas available and no obstacle to leave. He may have just fallen asleep.

Cow Springs. Yep solo but as I recall he was back at "Not My Fault" and you aren't going there and back in 20 minutes. The flow isn't bad and he was going with the flow if he was on his way out. I guess you could call it "restrictive" but it isn't a squeeze or anything. I'm not sure what their point is unless it has to do with the narcolepsy?

Throughout these reports, we see that virtually every fatality could have been avoided if the diver had made wiser decisions. Inexperience, panic, peer pressure and arrogance are thieves that can rob us of our better judgment. It's our responsibility to ourselves, our dive buddies and our loved ones to maintain our skills and fitness at levels that allow us to remain sharp and focused whenever we're in or on the water. Next month we'll examine cases involving shockingly poor judgment by divers, instructors or divemasters.

Yep better decisions...but maybe encouraged by better training? The free flow? the kelp with buddies waiting at the bottom? the diver with 20 lifetime dives at 90 frt with no air (he was even with a class)?

No mention in any of this comparing the actions of the divers to what they were taught (or not taught)? I think I see a correlation.

 

[drbill]

Why is it that so many people today think the government is responsible for their personal safety? What happened to personal responsibility?

I guess you didn't get the memo! Personal responsibility died years ago.

The underlying issue here may not be "obesity" but conditioning. An "obese" person most likely has a higher probability of being in poor physical condition, thus creating more physical stress on the body should something go "wrong" (long surface swim, panic, etc.).

Of course in today's society where so many are confined to cubicles and spend less time out-of-doors, even skinny Minny can be in poor physical shape from sitting in the cubicle or at the computer too much of the time!

Given that, I'm going to propose another hypothesis: Cyber divers have a much higher risk of death than those who actually frequent real, wet water!

 

[MikeFerrara]

Where is the personal responsibility that will help me if I am on a dive trip with someone who is has a medical problem that they don't report and who is my buddy who needs saving at 100 ft? Again, if you risk diving with poor health and fitness and do it solo, fire away. The problem might be that unfit divers could hurt innocent divers.

Do you have the same attitude about dive skills? A non-skilled diver might need saving at 100 ft too? I know, I've done it enough.

What is wrong with the thought that if you love diving so much that you could use some personal responsibility to exercise, diet, and take care of your health? I would think diving could motivate some people to improve their health to extend their diving career.

Exactly. what's wrong with the thought that if you love diving so much you can seek out good training and stay in the pool until your diving skills are squared away? But that's not how things are done in the dive industry though is it?

Instead, we just damn the messenger and the message that we all know at some level is correct.

Well, the messengers continually fail to deliver a message that hits the nail on the head.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Just a quick question. Is there not a problem analyzing dive statistics because even though a person has a heart attack, the death may be classified as drowning because that is what the coroner puts on the death certificate? Seems to me I read somewhere on SB that it is difficult to classify a lot of diver deaths because of this.

 

[iholly]

The BMI is indeed a flawed system for determining obesity. For example, I am 6' 1" 200 lbs. and train in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu on a regular basis. My BMI figures state that I am overweight, which is far from the truth.

 

[MikeFerrara]

This is speculation on my part but I don't think percentages are going to play as big a role in this experiment as you might think. If you are 2 lbs heavy you won't sink as fast being a bigger person because of the drag of the water but it still means you go down. Because the neoprene will compress more with depth I expect the bigger suit to have a much bigger buoyancy swing and cause more problems for the larger diver.

As for the inherent buoyancy of a suit I can tell you I have a 3x 7mm farmers john (and yes, I do wear a suit that big) that has 29 lbs of inherent buoyancy. I hate this suit as buoyancy is a real pain. And for those oh so worried about my health and the health of my buddy, I can probably out swim most on this board. I fully admit, I'm big, I'm fat, but I am in better shape than most.

I wear a plain old medium 7mm farmer john. I'll tell you this, that the buoyancy swing with depth and the effect on trim just flat out stinks. That's one reason, I don't like to wear a heavy wet suit on deep dives. The other is that the wet suit keeps you warmest at the surface...where the water is already warm. LOL. In a dry suit, if I am correctly weighted at the surface, I am correctly weighted at depth and there is no effect on trim. And...a medium 7mm farmer john takes a bit of weight to sink too.

I only use a wet suit in fairly warm water, and then, only for shallow dives.

 

[stepup]

I call this theory flawed until anyone can show the corollation and confidence of the conclusions. I don't doubt obesity can play a role, I just don't think its the 'key' factor in the discussion (or even of major significance compared to other factors)

Ultimately, we when look at dive accidents, we have only a few true causes.
1) Act of God
2) Diver Error (at some level)
3) Catastrophic Equipment malfuntion (IE, when no dive skills could prevent injury)

OK, in the above scenario, only 1 rates as a true 'accident' and that the Act of God. The rest have some level of human interaction. If you do everything right, and still get to #3, you are likely looking at injury rather than death. It happens, kinda the Act of God thing. The rest fall into Diver error.

So what causes Diver Error. My opinion, from reading several years of DAN reports, seeing students in the water and seeing divers locally, is a lack of fundemental dive skills and moreover, divers who cannot make an accurate risk assessment of the dive and thier skills. Essentially, divers who are undertrained/underprepared for the dives they plan to do.

When you take underprepared divers, throw them into an evironment that takes all of their skills and then some, you will start to see different stressors come into play to trigger an accident. Can you say that it was only water temperature, night/darkness, Obesity, overwieghting, underwieghting, surge, current, or equipment failure that was the one causal factor for the accident - NO. Its a combination of them all to differnt degrees. From what I read in this thread, many are attacking one stressor (obesity), which is argueably the hardest for many people to address. We should really be looking to elimate/reduce the other causal agents that are much easier to deal with.

But alas, its much easier to claim overwieght people are a danger to everyone around them than it is to admit most divers need more training/guidance than they have, even though they have a C card that says they have enough.

That is the best it could possibly be put. Wish I could think and type that good.