How Dangerous is Scuba Diving?

[boulderjohn]

This may be what you're looking for. it show riding a bike to be 8 times more dangerous.

How Safe Is Diving?

Judging by their reference to the latest DAN report being in 1997, this report is about 10 years old. (The DAN 2007 report is out now.) If you look at the DAN fatality statistics now, you will see that the decade since 1997 has had far fewer fatalities than the decades prior to that, even though there are more divers.

 

[Water Monkey]

Your absolutely right strenuous activity after a dive is not a good idea. But you have jumped to some conclusions that are incorrect. The dive was in Hood Canal Washington, not open ocean, the water was flat as a pancake and dive site was only about a hundred yards away from the haul out point. Plus the hyperbaric dr’s guess was an embolisum not DCS.

 

[TSandM]

There is no meaningful way to compare diving with, for example, motocross motorcycle racing, because there is no denominator for diving. Racing, you can count the number of entries in events and the number of events across the country, and compare with the number of injuries. But no one has any idea how many people are diving actively, or how many dives they are doing, or under what circumstances they are doing those dives.

I've been reading accident and incident reports for five years now. I have seen very few reports of drownings where anything was known about the event, and there wasn't a clear sequence of bad decisions or poor skills involved. There are episodes of DCS, and gas embolism cases that are REALLY difficult to explain (Denton Byers' death, for example), and there are plenty of physical injuries -- falls, fractures, head injuries from boats, etc.

I would say that diving is like many outdoor activities, and in many ways similar to the horseback riding which is my other sport. There are inherent risks; behaving stupidly massively increases your risk of being hurt or killed. Poor skills contribute to accidents. There are unpredictable influences that can make hash of your plans. Discretion is often the better part of valor, and the vast majority of rides and dives occur without incident.

 

[Crush]

Re-posted from http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/296690-skydiving-scuba-safer-4.html

Taken from an alertdiver.com summary of a study conducted by Dr. Petar J. Denoble, Neal W. Pollock, Panchabi Vaithiyanathan, Dr. James. L. Caruso, Dr. Richard Vann and Joel A. Dovenbarger, R.N., published in the medical journal Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine in December 2008:

1. Comparisons with other sports are problematic since the measures of exposure (e.g., the number of dives, hours of jogging, etc.) are not always available. For example, the annual rate of 16 fatalities while diving per 100,000 divers is comparable to the 13 deaths while jogging (per 100,000 joggers). However, a jogger may run several times a week, but a diver might only dive two to three weeks a year;
2. Fatality rates for scuba diving and driving a car are nearly identical when calculated per number of participants. However, the vast majority of us will spend much more time in traffic situations than in diving; and
3. The rate of injury among divers is much lower than the rate of injury amongst most other sports. However, the likelihood that a diving injury will result in death is much higher than for most other sports.

 

[InTheDrink]

If you spend any reasonable amount of time learning how to do it, diving is not dangerous within the recreational limits. It has some risks, but I consider them low in objective risk in comparison to many other normal daily activities including driving or cycling.

This is my opinion only and I'm not pushing any stats to validate my position.
J

 

[TMHeimer]

I agree with all the replies. Statistics are almost meaningless--We all know that your chances of dying in a car are much greater than on a plane. But you have some degree of control in a car, and how many people are driving at a given moment as opposed to flying? You have to be careful at all times when diving. Sometimes even after 4 years, I look up even from 30 feet and think "holy cow", there's a lot of something I can't breathe above me. I have done a fair bit of deep diving and am comfortable with it, but without the tank, I still get the heebee jeebees when I'm over my head. And I'm a good swimmer.

 

[rstofer]

It isn't so much that scuba diving is a dangerous sport as it is that it is terribly unforgiving of carelessness. Last summer I was wandering around Breakwater while my son-in-law did his OW dives. Another new diver's mother came up and asked me if I was a diver and if I thought what her son was doing was safe. I told her "Sure, it's safe just as long as he isn't careless."

I kind of wonder what my father thought of my taking up diving while I was living in a foreign country, thousands of miles from home...

I don't have numbers but I would be willing to bet more people die from falling overboard from sailboats on San Francisco Bay than die in scuba accidents in Monterey. There are almost always a handful of fatal man-overboards each year but I think there are only 2 or 3 fatalities at Monterey. There isn't an order of magnitude difference but I believe scuba diving has fewer fatalities.

The perception is that sailing is a safe sport. And it is, as long as you keep the people in the boat and the water out of the boat. And don't run into things...

Richard

 

[Lee Taylor]

Hello Mike,

The following are just my personal opinions. Food for thought.

Everything we do in life comes with degree of risk and potential consequences.

Low risk = high probability of success
High risk = gamble

I personally assess that any sport or hobby that continually takes peoples lives is dangerous. The degree of danger can be measured and graphed as follows:

Quanity of people scuba diving per unit time

VRS

Quanity of people hurt or killed per unit time.

Make similar graphs for other things (such as driving a car, hunting, rock climbing, etc) and compare the graphs.

Yes the data is out there. It will not be easy to get and it will require quite a bit of your time. The graphs will give you your answers but you are not going to get your answers without the research.

 

[InTheDrink]

Quanity of people scuba diving per unit time

VRS

Quanity of people hurt or killed per unit time.

Make similar graphs for other things (such as driving a car, hunting, rock climbing, etc) and compare the graphs.

Yes the data is out there. It will not be easy to get and it will require quite a bit of your time. The graphs will give you your answers but you are not going to get your answers without the research.

Nope, data is not out there. Your graph sounds lovely but exists only in fantasy. Not being harsh - just this information about diving sadly is not available to anyone irrespective of research.

J

 

[CamG]

Greetings Mike I agree with Web Monkey.......
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Like most things in life, it's exactly as dangerous as you make it.
As Terry points out diving is much like other sports that we choose to be a part of. Be it biking, sailing, ATV's, hockey, etc. There is always an element of risk but manageable with training and preparation under normal conditions. There are always conditions that no matter how much training and prep you do, whatever sport people get hurt. Yes people die riding bikes, sailing, riding ATV's, etc. there you have it. As sports go I think it is safer than most if you run the numbers. But that is going on hear say / conjecture on my part. I have not currently reviewed the statistics.
To put your relatives at ease, share the OW manuel with them or show them the DVD.
Help them to understand that recreational diving is very quite safe when you adhere to safe diving principals. This will work for 90% of them but your mother will never see it that way! Mine still refuses to talk about it.
I am about to start OW training with my youngest 11 year old, which will make the whole family divers. I do not know any other sport that I would rather pass on to my kids. A life long healthy activity that they can take with them. Diving teaches us to be responsible and not complacent for we all should live life ignorance free! Just my opinion there.
Have fun and be safe diving, play by the rules!
CamG Keep diving....keep training....keep learning!