Undercurrent--"Why Divers Die"

[Charlie59]

The reason to post the information for this thread was not to "bash fat people" it was to put forth the idea that DAN (a leading organization for diver safety) believes that obesity is "a top reason for diver fatalities". This information was not developed by DAN to be pejorative but to inform.

The bottom line is not how good are you at diving. The question is, are you as physically prepared as you should be to ensure you and your dive buddies safety while diving?

Skills and more frequent diving are surely helpful, but (as indicated by this article) DAN believes part of preparation is fitness. While you may disagree, you should at least ponder this possibilty.

 

[MikeFerrara]

The reason to post the information for this thread was not to "bash fat people" it was to put forth the idea that DAN (a leading organization for diver safety) believes that obesity is "the top reason for diver fatalities". This information was not developed by DAN to be pejorative but to inform.

The DAN data doesn't indicate any such thing.

 

[Charlie59]

The article in Undercurrent says that DAN says that, I guess they just pulled it out of the air. I'm sure no data was used.

or, at least data that some people would accept

 

[almitywife]

No.. What i say is that the uber-thin people who count calories are the ones that most frequently attempt to kill themselves..

many fat people kill themselve also... but instead of walking up to the roof of the building they continue eating themselves to death

i took myself out of the water at my heavist of 380lbs (there-its out there!) and only got back into the water in October as i reached one of my many goals (fitting into my wetsuit)

i didnt consider my diving skills or ability a accident waiting to happen..... my biggest concern was fat & nitrogen and the greater risk of dci

 

[MikeFerrara]

The article in Undercurrent says that DAN says that, I guess they just pulled it out of the air. I'm sure no data was used.

or, at least data that some people would accept

Just show us something from DAN that says that.

 

[Charlie59]

I referenced the Undercurrent article that evaluated the DAN 2004 data. Sorry, a little down on my luck this week so can't buy everyone a copy.

Honestly, I just brought it to people's attention. It is not my data. Do with the information what feels good to you (including ignoring it).

Good luck and good diving.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Here is what DAN has to say on the subject. http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/medical/articles/article.asp?articleid=79

From that article

Checking the Numbers


When DAN dive researchers look at the injury and fatality cases in our database, they glean a great deal of varied information. One of the most important facts they offer is that high blood pressure and heart disease have consistently been the most frequently reported chronic health conditions contributing to dive fatalities in the 15 years DAN has formally compiled fatality statistics.


In the 2004 DAN Report on Decompression Illness, Diving Fatalities and Project Dive Exploration, more than 14 percent of the fatalities reported had a chronic history of high blood pressure and / or heart disease. Obesity, another factor reported in 55 percent of fatalities, is connected to heart disease and hypertension, with resulting links to poor health and poor exercise tolerance. In combination with other contributing factors, poor cardiovascular health can increase the risk of a severe or fatal dive incident.

Read carefully for content in context. It says that heart disease and hypertension have consistently been the most frequently reported chronic health conditions contributing to dive fatalities. I said carefully now...the most frequent chronic health contributor NOT the most frequent cause. For all we know the percentage of health contribution might have been 1%...we have no idea and DAN says nothing about that at all.

Read the next paragraph and it says that 55 percent of the fatalities were obese. However, it doesn not establish obesity as a cause in those accidents. It doesn't even say what percentage of divers are obese. They say that in combination with other contributing factors, poor cardiovascular health can increase the risk of a severe or fatal dive incident. No place does it identify obesity as the number one cause. Those folks could have been eaten by sharks. Some were cut up by boat props. Some ran out of air. Some paniced and suffered a rapid ascent and AGE. We don't even have enough information to establish obesity as the primary cause in so much as a single accident.

This reminds me of a few years back when some stupid magazine quoted the number of divers who were found dead still wearing their weights and concluded that failure to drop weights was the number one killer. We had all these instructors and divemasters running around all the dive sites spouting this like it was some kind of revelation but, of course, 100% of the dead divers were found still wearing thir booties. It is therefor obvious that the booties killed them all. LOL

I'm fairly certain that once all the data is in and we crunch all the numbers we will clearly see that the real number one killer of divers is reading and believing stupid magazine articles. LOL

 

[MikeFerrara]

I'm pretty sure I have the 2004 DAN report laminated and in a folder someplace if anyone would like to go through all the number and the summary where they did identify poor skills and equipment infamiliarity as leading causes of accidents. I know what it said because I reviewd the DAN acident report with every class I taught at the time.

We don't need undercurrent to tell us what it says. We can just read it.

 

[Charlie59]

So, then, your argument is to gain weight and not worry about fitness, cause your sloppy diving is the real culprit. No one dies underwater of heart attack. Don't be concerned about health, just buy good equipment?

Wow, you've convinced me. Pass the doughnuts and ice cream.

I think though doth protest too much.

 

[almitywife]

So, then, your argument is to gain weight and not worry about fitness, cause your sloppy diving is the real culprit. No one dies underwater of heart attack. Don't be concerned about health, just buy good equipment?.....

i would throw this in because i can.... deaths where obese divers dont ditch their weights

does this go into the 'died because he was fat" (and had a ****load of lead on him) or "died because he didnt ditch his weights" category.

a recent coroner report in sydney stated that the XXXXL diver didnt ditch and i wonder if he might have had a better chance of survivng if he had. his size def attributed to the death by either internal health (air hog) or surface struggle & panic (didnt ditch ####lbs and didnt inflate bc)