kingdiver
Guest
I seldom dive with buddies and I clown it all the way down! and I got over 1000 dives under my belt.
Livin' on the edge, livin' with danger.
Livin' on the edge, livin' with danger.
Is Scuba Diving Dangerous ?
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AliKat
Contributor
When I was living in San Diego, one of the papers out there printed a list of different "sports" and their relative danger/liklyhood of death due to the activity. Near the very top was sky diving. Just a little lower than that was driving on highway 15 (and yes, this is a sport to some).
Near the bottom, just above bowling, was recreational SCUBA.
As for rescue, I think every diver should take it. Doesn't matter what agency, just get rescued certified.
Near the bottom, just above bowling, was recreational SCUBA.
As for rescue, I think every diver should take it. Doesn't matter what agency, just get rescued certified.
rdriver
Contributor
I have one for you....
Is getting out of bed in the morning dangerous?
I guess I live by the wise old adage "nothing ventured nothing gained"!
Rob
Is getting out of bed in the morning dangerous?
I guess I live by the wise old adage "nothing ventured nothing gained"!
Rob
HydroCephalic
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:wacko: :wacko: :wacko:
No, go ahead, it's perfectly safe - ignore all those silly precautions they gave you in scuba class - there is nothing to worry about my little jellyfish - you don't need that silly computer or tables - go ahead, it's OK -
PhotoTJ
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- I just don't log dives
...It does have a higher than normal Darwin ratio.
Death=Stupidity/Activity
(Approximatly)
Death=Stupidity/Activity
(Approximatly)
diverjed
Contributor
but then again so is fishing, walking across the street, or playing soccer in your back yard.
The proper question is "dangerous compared to your other activities of the day?"
And there, the answer is, statistically-speaking, "no."
About 100 people a year get to meet St. Peter diving every year. PADI cranks out some 200,000 divers every year. Assuming half of them keep diving at least occasionally (they actually dive at least once a year) and half of all "newly minted" divers can and do continue to dive for 10 years, there are at least 1,000,000 (one million) active divers from SSI alone at any given time.
That makes your risk of "buying it" one in ten thousand, or 0.01%, or to put it in terms often used in actuarial tables, 10 per 100,000 of the population.
In fact this grossly overstates the risk. Best estimates are that anywhere from 2 to 10 times as many people as this actually do dive on at least an annual basis, and most people, when they do dive, do so more than once at a time (e.g. if you dive only on vacation, you still probably do more than one dive per vacation!)
As a consequence the actual risk of buying it is between 1 and 5 in 100,000.
Then you must, to be fair, account for "diving deaths" that actually aren't caused by diving and take them out of the statistics. A heart attack underwater or on the surface is responsible for a huge percentage - perhaps as much as 30% - of all diving deaths. These are not really "diving-related" deaths at all; if you had that heart attack while on the golf course, or while driving your car, or while out fishing 20 miles from land, you'd likely be just as dead as you are when it happens underwater. In fact, about half of all persons who have a heart attack do not survive the original event or its complications - no matter where they are when it happens.
To put this in perspective, all of the 15 leading causes of death are higher in incidence. The risk of accidental injury leading to death (including motor vehicle accidents) is 34.3 per 100,000, or approximately ten times that of diving. Both heart disease and cancer have death rates of about 200 per 100,000 population (the former somewhat higher, the latter slightly lower), which is a risk approximately 50 times that of diving!
Chronic lower respiratory disease, most due to smoking, has a death rate of 43.5 per 100,000, or about 10 times that of diving.
And so on.
Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005110.html
The proper question is "dangerous compared to your other activities of the day?"
And there, the answer is, statistically-speaking, "no."
About 100 people a year get to meet St. Peter diving every year. PADI cranks out some 200,000 divers every year. Assuming half of them keep diving at least occasionally (they actually dive at least once a year) and half of all "newly minted" divers can and do continue to dive for 10 years, there are at least 1,000,000 (one million) active divers from SSI alone at any given time.
That makes your risk of "buying it" one in ten thousand, or 0.01%, or to put it in terms often used in actuarial tables, 10 per 100,000 of the population.
In fact this grossly overstates the risk. Best estimates are that anywhere from 2 to 10 times as many people as this actually do dive on at least an annual basis, and most people, when they do dive, do so more than once at a time (e.g. if you dive only on vacation, you still probably do more than one dive per vacation!)
As a consequence the actual risk of buying it is between 1 and 5 in 100,000.
Then you must, to be fair, account for "diving deaths" that actually aren't caused by diving and take them out of the statistics. A heart attack underwater or on the surface is responsible for a huge percentage - perhaps as much as 30% - of all diving deaths. These are not really "diving-related" deaths at all; if you had that heart attack while on the golf course, or while driving your car, or while out fishing 20 miles from land, you'd likely be just as dead as you are when it happens underwater. In fact, about half of all persons who have a heart attack do not survive the original event or its complications - no matter where they are when it happens.
To put this in perspective, all of the 15 leading causes of death are higher in incidence. The risk of accidental injury leading to death (including motor vehicle accidents) is 34.3 per 100,000, or approximately ten times that of diving. Both heart disease and cancer have death rates of about 200 per 100,000 population (the former somewhat higher, the latter slightly lower), which is a risk approximately 50 times that of diving!
Chronic lower respiratory disease, most due to smoking, has a death rate of 43.5 per 100,000, or about 10 times that of diving.
And so on.
Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005110.html
AliKat
Contributor
Not sure how/where they got their stats. I just think the point is, with proper training, there is not much higher of chance of death from SCUBA than from a lot of other daily activities.
And I have never (knock on wood) sustained a diving related injury. I did, a few years back develop a tennis elbow from bowling and had to quit.
And I have never (knock on wood) sustained a diving related injury. I did, a few years back develop a tennis elbow from bowling and had to quit.
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