DAN's 2004 Injury/Fatalities Report

[rcain1]

I have been diving for over 15 years and feel very comfortable in the water. My wife just got her OWD Cert so I have been taking diving A LOT more serious. I always did but diving had become common and routine. With that being said, after reading DAN’s report I have been doing some things differently. Different in the planning, preparation, actual dive and after dive review. I want to instill everything she and all of us were taught in our dive training. Face it, most of don’t treat a dive like we are going to have an emergency while we are diving. Accidents happen, that is why it is called an accident. You have to ask yourself if you are actively doing everything you can to prevent one from happening! Did you talk out the dive, is your equipment in proper order and so on.

I know I sound like I am preaching to the choir but read the report! I am not ragging on Dive Masters but they are more trained than most divers. Here are some of the things that killed people in the report. Dive masters running out of air at 150 feet. Diver masters not having their auto inflator hooked up and people with sever medical problems diving.

After reading the report I could honestly say I could see myself in most of the incidents reported. I would really say if you have not read the report do so. It may save you or your buddy.

Thanks for reading.

 

[captain]

When you read about an auto accident in the newspaper do you take your driving more seriously. People put them selves at risk every day in many ways but it seems many on this board over emphasize the risks associated with diving. People do stupid things and get themselves killed. That applies to diving, driving, boating, hunting and many other activities.

Captain

 

[Foo]

Do you have a link for the report? Thanks,
Foo

 

[miketsp]

My wife just got her OWD Cert so I have been taking diving A LOT more serious.

There is no doubt that having ones spouse as a buddy throws a whole new light on buddy care. My wife is my buddy on 99% of my dives but this spills over even when I dive with someone else. I look after my buddy as if they were family.

 

[Laser]

The report can be found on DAN's website but you need to be a member.
I've seen DM's that are squared away and I've seen DM's that I won't go near. Juat last year, I clued an AOW instructor teaching a class that his tank was only hanging behind him by the hoses seconds before he jumped in ( I think his students should have mentioned it ) Ya gotta be methodical in the preparation regardless of training or experience.

 

[Otter]

When you read about an auto accident in the newspaper do you take your driving more seriously. People put them selves at risk every day in many ways but it seems many on this board over emphasize the risks associated with diving. People do stupid things and get themselves killed. That applies to diving, driving, boating, hunting and many other activities.

Captain

operating a +3000 vehicle at 70 MPH while talking on their cell phone?

 

[MikeFerrara]

When you read about an auto accident in the newspaper do you take your driving more seriously. People put them selves at risk every day in many ways but it seems many on this board over emphasize the risks associated with diving. People do stupid things and get themselves killed. That applies to diving, driving, boating, hunting and many other activities.

Captain

Interestomg point. I drive a lot and I see things all the time that make me evaluate the way that I drive.

The same with diving. When I dive I don't preoccupy myself so much with worry over the risk that I don't enjoy it. However when I'm teaching or otherwise involved in training, dive accidents and their causes are first and formost on my mind. The only purpose for dive training is ti enable people to dive and live. The DAN report does a good job of showing that it's poor skills, and the basic ones at that, that get people hurt.

I've seen people get hurt and others come really close. you know what? They weren't doing anything that was real stupid and even on pretty shallow easy dives. What they were doing that was stupid was diving because they weren't ready. The last near miss I watched happened at 30 ft in a quarry with great vis. Nothing was even wrong the lady just freaked. The father helped Mom to the surface where they pulled her from the water screaming but they about abandoned Jr. in the process. Boy...you should have seen that ascent. It looked like they were wrestling on the wing of the plane. Then they fell off the wing of the plane and though they were vertical looking up, reaching up and kicking as if they were ascending they were sinking. They ended up standing in the bottom still kicking up a cloud that probably still hasn't settled. When they finally got moving toward the surface they were moving like at the speed of light. Later the boy approached me. hearing his view of it made me want to strangle some one. Yep all fun and games. Great for the whole family. And it only takes two days to learn. I thought it was going to take that long for them to realize they were going down instead of up. If there wasn't a bottom there they would have been crawdad food.

In the last few years I've seen so much of it that I don't really even enjoy diving any more. Oh, I still like to dive. I like the caves and wrecks but I can't get myself to ge near the local quarries. Resorts?...Not on a bet. It seems like every time I do I'm in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can't stand to watch it any more. I have to dive where that crap isn't going on or I don't like it at all.

 

[miketsp]

When you read about an auto accident in the newspaper do you take your driving more seriously.

Captain

The problem is that it is short term and you eventually get used to it.
Many years ago I was a military reserve pilot and at one air base, every Saturday the emergency services would run a fire drill by setting fire to the carcase of an aircraft at the edge of the base and then put it out. It would stay smoking for the rest of the day. Then somebody realised that there were never any flight accidents on Saturdays. Everybody took off with the image of a smoking aircraft in their mind. So they tried an experiment doing this on consecutive days and the effect just wore off and the accident rate went back to normal.

 

[jviehe]

The report is always pretty interesting. Here are some highlights i found in this years report (2002 data)



-reported dive injuries are down, but reported dive fatalities are up, but still very few at less than 100

From PDE data (voluntary survey of 17000 dives by 1500 divers)

-nitrox usage is up, and a higher % of women use nitrox than men by almost twice as much, though women still make up less than 30% of divers

-computers remain the most widely used method of planning a dive, and a larger amount of divers use guides

-most divers wait 22-30hrs before flying after diving

-of about 9000 dives, equipment problems were reported less than 1% of the time, with the weight belt and fins being most commonly reported at 44 times each

-there were 7 cases of DCS in the 17k dives, with an overall tendancy of 5.5 cases per 10k dives in the last 5 years

Injuries

-163 chambers reported about 1100 cases of DCS

-54% of injured had 5 or more years of diving since cert and 50% had less than 20 dives in the past 12 months

-injured divers were mostly using air, with 10% on nitrox, and 5% on heliox or trimix

-median depth for injured was 92ft

-most of the time symptoms of DCS appeard within 3-6hrs of diving, with 14% reporting symptoms before another dive!

Fatalities

-89 reported

-68% of male deaths were aged 40+

-men with 6yrs or more since cert were most frequent fatalities

-half of fatalities had reported equipment problems, with BC being most common, and computer in 1 case

Great report if you can get it. Might try Kazaa

 

[ScubaDadMiami]

After reading the report I could honestly say I could see myself in most of the incidents reported.

Many accidents are just a concurrence of several smaller incidents that are not prevented, or are not dealt with properly, resulting in a snowballing effect that culminates in accidents or death.

You might be surprised at how many little things wound up in death cases. It could be any of us if one does not make a determined effort to remain vigilant.

For example, anyone who goes on live aboard trips might notice that more accidents happen later in the trip due to "stupid" mistakes such as forgetting to turn on gas, etc., because divers become more complacent after several successful dives. Saftey procedures must be followed on every dive like a methodical check list.

So easy to say. Everyone has ignored this at one time or another however. That is when you are starting to take chances.