Half of Dead Divers on Their First 20 dives

[dumpsterDiver]

I remember learning that the beginning diver is MUCH more at risk of being killed. Today I was reading the DAN Publication Alert Diver and they indicated that about:

Half of all scuba dive fatalities occur to divers who have less than 20 total scuba dives.

I don't recall if this is a new statistic, but I find it pretty schocking. When I used to teach OW PADI diving, I lobbied my students pretty hard to IMMEDIATELY sign up for an advanced class. I always felt that if we can get them through a few more supervised dives, they will be much safer. Seems like this single statistic supports that idea.

Is this new data, or more of the same????

 

[Blackwood]

What's the average number of dives required for an AOW? Less than 20, probably.

I wonder what was the cause of death. Is there some egregious mistake that new divers make which can be rectified by the presence of a supervisor? Is there something about that modest amount of dives that makes it less likely the be commited or repeated?

If anything, maybe it speaks to the efficacy of OW classes culminating with such few dives. Having logged something on the order of 20 times that many dives, I still consider myself a beginner; I believe that mentality keeps me grounded as I seem to remember that, statistically, you start out high-risk, lower that risk with more experience, but that it eventually picks up again.

Really, I think we may be trying to rationalize the random.

 

[Laila Ft Lauderdale]

The deaths are probably the results of mistakes made due to inexperience: in a panic and rapid ascent, as an example. And I hate to say this, as I am not a snob, but there are some people who just are not suited to be underwater, just as some should not jump out of planes or rock climb cliffs. Unfortunately many of these people become certified and really should not be.

 

[Blackwood]

The deaths are probably the results of mistakes made due to inexperience: in a panic and rapid ascent, as an example.

Maybe, but it's hard to assign meaning or extrapolate policy from it that statistic.

If half of all dead divers die within their first 20 dives, then half of all dead divers die after their 20th dive. Should we hit 20, call it the sweet spot and bow out of the sport?

How many of those divers died alone, versus how many supervised?

Really interesting topic, Dumpster. Thanks for bringing it up. I hope this thread garners a lot responses.

 

[Airleron]

I'm shocked at that statistic. But then again ...........My personal comfort level didn't happen until at least 100 dives, and I'm still trying to perfect so many things.

Is this statistic strictly diver error, or does it include health related accidents?

 

[TSandM]

If I remember correctly, poor buoyancy control and running out of gas were two of the major issues associated with scuba fatalities. Both of those are more likely to occur to new divers, as they don't have their buoyancy control down, and they are so short of bandwidth. Divers with a bit more experience are less likely, I suspect, to hold their breath if they DO lose buoyancy control.

Every sport has its newbie mistakes and mishaps. The problem with diving is that, when you combine the types of mistakes likely to be made by novices with the errors in coping strategy which are also typical of them, you easily get a fatal problem.

 

[I Dive]

I'm not surprised, but I would like to see the data on how long they have been diving as well. Twenty dives for a person certified 3 months ago is different from 20 dives for a person certified 3 years ago.

 

[flots am]

I remember learning that the beginning diver is MUCH more at risk of being killed. Today I was reading the DAN Publication Alert Diver and they indicated that about:

Half of all scuba dive fatalities occur to divers who have less than 20 total scuba dives.

I know people that have been diving for 10 years and still haven't hit 20 dives.

This seems like a misleading statistic, except that it would be useful for figuring out who needs to be watched really closely on a dive.

flots.

 

[Crush]

I have no quarrel with DumpsterDiver, but this thread must not accept his assertion* that:

Half of all scuba dive fatalities occur to divers who have less than 20 total scuba dives.

unless he or someone else can provide corroboration. It is tempting to blame fatalities on new divers, but most DMs do their best to keep new divers from killing themselves. I study DAN Annual Reports and have never seen any statistic to support this claim. Looking at the last several years of DAN Annual Reports, there is no breakdown of fatalities by number of dives. There is, however, a breakdown by the number of years diving. According to the DAN Annual Diving Report – 2008 Edition:

Fifty-six of the victims (75% of all cases) were known to be certified but information on the certification level was missing in half of these cases. The cases with known information included three student divers, six with open water certification, six with an advanced or specialty certification, six with technical certifications, and four instructors.

Figure 4.3-3 shows the number of years since initial certification. It is based on 38 cases (51% of total) with known information. Thirty-nine percent of those with known history had been certified 10 years or more, and 19% one year or less. This pattern can change dramatically from year to year given the small sample size. Evaluation of the specific risk factor is not possible based on one year of data.

The time between the most recent previous dive day and the day of the fatal accident was known for few cases. There were at least three divers with a hiatus of more than one year.

FWIW, In the 2008 report, a large number of deaths occurred in the month of July - more than twice the fatality rate than in any other month. Treat all statistics with some suspicion.

* In fairness, DumpsterDiver stated that he believed that he had heard this claim and was seeking clarification on the matter.

[Edit: DumpsterDiver may be right - we just need to know before we carry on.]

 

[Gene_Hobbs]

This was one of the many stats discussed at the DAN Fatality Conference last year. The powerpoints and video from the meeting can be found here.

Five of the presentations have been sent for publication in Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine and the whole proceedings are being written up now.

If you download the videos from the DAN page but don't have much time, check out Drew's presentations. That was the best data presented at the meeting.