Why so many casualties?

Why so many injured, lost or killed divers ?

  • Too many divers do dive beyond their capabilities.

    Votes: 57 47.1%
  • It's only the law of average ... More people diving, more accidents.

    Votes: 38 31.4%
  • Shark, you're only seeing the dark side ... and here's my 2 cents.

    Votes: 2 1.7%
  • None of the above !

    Votes: 24 19.8%

  • Total voters
    121

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This is from DAN's 2004 report:

Dive Fatalities
Out of 88 cases involving U.S. and Canadian divers, 42 percent occurred in the Southeast reporting region (North Carolina southward to Florida, plus Tennessee and Alabama). Autopsies were performed in 59 cases, and autopsy reports were available in 37.

Seventy percent of males and 80 percent of females were 40 years or older. The age range for females was 30-69 years, with a median of 53 years. The range for males was 14-72 years, with a median of 47 years. Body mass indexing (BMI) data available for 49 fatalities indicated that 26 percent were classified as normal weight, and 74 percent were overweight or obese. Forty-five percent were obese or morbidly obese, representing a higher proportion than in national surveys.

The initial triggering event that began the sequence leading to death was most often insufficient gas (14 percent), followed by rough seas and strong current (10 percent), heart disease (9 percent), entrapment (9 percent), and equipment problems (8 percent). The equipment problems may have been procedural or hardware related. The triggering event could not be established for 20 percent of the cases.

So if your over 40, overweight, and your name is Bubba, you're at risk.
 
I think it's a combination of the following:

  • divers being cert'ed with not enough mastery of skills (not necessarily a standards issue but almost always an inferior instructor issue);
  • inexperienced divers believing that they are that bee's knees and biting off dives in environments they are not skilled enough to dive in;
  • not diving enough with experienced divers to gain experience with good role models/mentors (this ties in with the above point);
  • diving too much with ignoramus DMs/instructors considering them the perfect mentors because they're DMs/instructors (gosh they have the cards, it must be so!);
  • The "It won't happen to us" mentality - a good reason often used to skimp on proper dive and emergency planning
  • Divers not keeping fit enough and/or living a healthy enough lifestyle to make sure that they are able to deal with physically demanding situations without dramatically increasing the risk to their own safety in unexpected strenuous situations
  • Divers getting hurt because that is just the way it happens - some of these incidents are after all accidents, because they do happen by accident without there necessarily being a factor of unreasonable risk due to negligence involved;
  • We're seeing more reports because the media is more accessible to the public - heck our kids know about everything before we even get to see the morning news and when you ask them how, they just say ScubaBoard (YouTube, CNN, or some other Internet site)!
Basically I think the answer is too complex to simply chalk it down to one simple overarching cause. Last I checked one of DAN's annual reports the stats appeared to favor health and fitness as one of the top reasons if I remember correctly. I'll have to look up some more recent stats to say for sure but it certainly does seem to play a big role, even though SCUBA related incidents do rank low compared to other "extreme" sports. :coffee:
 
You know I remember doing my AOW and watching 2 divers in the class prepare for our first deep dive...couple cigarettes and I think they were drinking beers at least their friends had beers. The first diver entered the water and his mask broke as he began to desend. The 2nd diver panicked at 100 ft when he realized that his new computer was set to "numbers he didn't know what it meant" in other words he didn't check his gauge before entering the water or at anytime during the desent. I had to take him up and try to keep him calm. He wanted to shoot to the surface that was diver error.
 
This is from DAN's 2004 report...

So if your over 40, overweight, and your name is Bubba, you're at risk.

Yep, that's what I was talking about too.
 
You know I remember doing my AOW and watching 2 divers in the class prepare for our first deep dive...couple cigarettes and I think they were drinking beers at least their friends had beers. The first diver entered the water and his mask broke as he began to desend. The 2nd diver panicked at 100 ft when he realized that his new computer was set to "numbers he didn't know what it meant" in other words he didn't check his gauge before entering the water or at anytime during the desent. I had to take him up and try to keep him calm. He wanted to shoot to the surface that was diver error.

Call me callous or insensitive but I like the saying that goes "Stupidity should never go unrewarded." I'm not sure who said that but kudos to him/her wherever they are. :eyebrow:
 
I keep seeing more and more of these threads for lost, injured or killed divers.

The US averages about 90 scuba diving deaths per year. This has been constant since at least 1994.

The first time I saw that stat (I think it was someone citing the annual DAN accident report) I remember thinking there aren't anywhere near that many reports on SB by a long shot for the US and Canada, let alone the rest of the world. So maybe it's just perception and that the information is getting more widely distributed. There may be a certain logic to this given that the size of the SB membership keeps growing, especially in parts of the world which previously weren't as well connected to the Internet (i.e. may of the popular vacation dive destinations).
 
When I took a graduate course in statistics, the professor used the following illustration.

Post WWII there was a dramatic increase in the number of tornado reports. Some speculated that it was due to the increased influence of cars passing each other on the new highways. The truth was that the increase was due to the number of observers who happened to be in cars.

Our population of divers is aging and diving is no longer a sport for just the young adventures. A lot of folks who got certified twenty years ago are taking one last fling at being young. A lot of young people still think that they are invincible and will dive beyond the limits of their training.

Bottom line is that diving is safer today and my Prof was right. The increase in the number of reported incidents is because we communicate more.
 
Well, certainly the agencies can put more info and tougher standards in their courses, and that if they did the number of divers involved in these accidents would be somewhat reduced.

Where I disagree is where you say "vast majority". Personally I think the vast majority of accidents and fatalities are caused by a lack of fitness.

Lets face it, people eat crap, drink like fish, many still smoke, and don't bother to exercise beyond walking from the kitchen to the tv to the bathroom.

Once or twice a year they cram themselves into tightfitting exposure suits, get overheated, strap on a bunch of weight, and go swimming, all the while eating even worse than normal and drinking probably a little more than ussual, hey, they are on vacation, why not?

IMO these things are already covered in class, but divers don't pay that much attention because heart attacks happen to other people, like their grandfathers.

I don't know if there are stats on this, but I would not be surprised to see that more than 50 or 60% of fatalities are in warm clear water, as opposed to NE or NW locales. Where the one trip wonders dive.

Could not agree more. Couple the above with ALOT more new divers and esp new divers that expect people above them to make the decisions and keep them out of trouble. You learn just enough in OW to be dangerous. Instead of collecting certs, cards, and gear, go out and make easy dives...ALOT of easy dives. Gradually increase your skills. DMs and Instructors are there to help, but ultimately its up to the diver to make the call on what they are comfortable doing.
Don't assume that diving once a year or every other year will keep up your skills! DIVE DIVE DIVE. Read, swim, study, and practice.
What ever happened to screening log books prior to taking people out on dives?
 
This is from DAN's 2004 report:

Dive Fatalities
Out of 88 cases involving U.S. and Canadian divers, 42 percent occurred in the Southeast reporting region (North Carolina southward to Florida, plus Tennessee and Alabama). Autopsies were performed in 59 cases, and autopsy reports were available in 37.

Seventy percent of males and 80 percent of females were 40 years or older. The age range for females was 30-69 years, with a median of 53 years. The range for males was 14-72 years, with a median of 47 years. Body mass indexing (BMI) data available for 49 fatalities indicated that 26 percent were classified as normal weight, and 74 percent were overweight or obese. Forty-five percent were obese or morbidly obese, representing a higher proportion than in national surveys.

The initial triggering event that began the sequence leading to death was most often insufficient gas (14 percent), followed by rough seas and strong current (10 percent), heart disease (9 percent), entrapment (9 percent), and equipment problems (8 percent). The equipment problems may have been procedural or hardware related. The triggering event could not be established for 20 percent of the cases.

So if your over 40, overweight, and your name is Bubba, you're at risk.


With stats sometimes it's just the tail wagging the dog! Perhaps the average diver is 47 (more disposible income) and perhaps the average dive takes place in the North Carolina to Florida reporting region since that's where the warmest water is. Most Americans are overweight so perhaps the average diver is overweight.

Therefore statistics that tell us that the average fatality is 47, overweight, and occurs in the SE tells us nothing other than the average diver fatallity involved an average diver.

Health related issues and poor judgement it seems to me are usually the proximate causes of most accidents/fatalities whether it's diving or river rafting or most any other activity.
 
I keep seeing more and more of these threads for lost, injured or killed divers.

What is everybody's take on the subject ?

That, without accurate statistical gathering we really have no idea whether casualty rates are going up, down or sideways.

The BSAC has been gathering accident statistics for the UK for years and is perhaps one of the better indicators of trends.

Their figures show a steady increase in accidents from 1991 to 2000 (presumably due to the rapid increase in divers during that time). From 2000 until 2007 figures are stable (despite a likely continued increase in the number of divers). It's obviously impossible to know how many people are actually diving but BSAC figures suggest that, if anything, accident rates per active diver are falling.

http://www.bsac.org/uploads/documents/Diving_Safety/incidents/2007_Annual_Report.pdf
 
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