Main causes of scuba diving accidents?

[eelnoraa]

People are afraid of thing they don't understand. It is just the fact human being is. All my friends who don't scuba dive think I am nut for doing scuba. I think sky diving is dangerous because I don't know anything about it. One of my friend doesn't drive but fly small single engine propaller planes, which scared the heck out of me, yet he think flying is safer than driving. What they don't do is coming into a scuba community and calling scuba diving dangerous, as I don't go to sky diving or small plane owner's forums and say their passion is dangerous either.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

This was a very interesting thread to read, and I will add only what is not redundant. I have found that scuba diving is a safe activity when the diver is a safe diver. By that I mean the diver is in good health, has good equipment that is properly maintained, dives within his/her limits, follows no decompression limits, ascends at a proper and safe rate, and does not dive under unacceptably hazardous conditions or in unacceptably hazardous locations. If a diver is a safe diver, they minimize the primary threat to their safety, which is their own negligence or recklessness. That might be negligence in attending to their health, or equipment, or dive skills and practices. The vast majority of divers are safe divers. If you choose to join our sport, I hope you will be a safe diver. Technical divers are among the safest of safe divers, through training, knowledge of equipment, and the like. We can all reduce risk factors, but not all risks can be eliminated. Some are latent, undiscernable issues that cannot be eliminated through preventive conduct. But I and my wife both chose to accept responsibility for our own safety by staying in shape, keeping our skills honed, our equipment tuned, and follow safe diving practices, and between us we have over 24 years of recreational diving and a whole lot of dives without any injury or incident greater than an urchin tattoo. Diving is serious fun. It's lots of fun, but you need to be serious about safety, too. Pay attention to your health, your equipment, your skills and the environment. Then let's go diving!
DivemasterDennis

 

[Thalassamania]

... Scuba is dangerous because it's done in an alien environment. It's more like sky diving - you can't simply pull over like you're in a car and take a timeout. ...

Here I agree, but that leads to disagreement. If you plan properly you are always able to pull over and take a timeout. Even if you don't plan properly, if you are in the right state of mind and have developed the skill, you have several minutes that you can take a timeout and slowly and carefully solve your problem. While this approach is fine for OW, clearly, if you have a ceiling you need to rely more on proper planning, practice and kit than on simply good breath holding skills.

Most scuba accidents are caused, like flying, by operator error.

I'd say almost all scuba accidents could have been avoided by some clearly definable action on the part of the victim.

Even those that are trained and experienced can make errors or get caught up in them. Most fatal errors are usually a combination of errors (e.g., running out gas while trying to find out why the landing gear didn't go down) - that' why being rigid in not cutting corners is important.

Compounding issues are almost always involved.

Not deferring to the expert or accepting direction by someone that isn't following guidelines or asks you to something you aren't comfortable or trained for gets too many people on the wrong side of line. Training is more than just instruction. Continuous training and expanding your horizons is really important and practicing is just as important.

Now this posses a conundrum ... how do you expand your horizons without moving, at least a little bit, outside of you training and/or qualifications? That is a problem that is, perhaps, worth exploration in another thread.

 

[TexasKaren68]

Florida's 2 day mini lobster season starts tomorrow night. We always see a few die there in spite of all the work done by many to warn and educate divers who are not prepared.

Killer lobsters? Why do so many die? Sorry, but as a newbie diver I'm not sure why it's dangerous. I also don't see why hunting for lobsters would be fun - just head on over to a nice seafood restaurant, cheaper than diving.

 

[DandyDon]

Killer lobsters? Why do so many die? Sorry, but as a newbie diver I'm not sure why it's dangerous. I also don't see why hunting for lobsters would be fun - just head on over to a nice seafood restaurant, cheaper than diving.

Hard to say really. So many locals turn out to hunt for the "free" lobsters; it's crazy with boats going out at 11pm so divers can roll off at the stroke of midnight. Sadly many go with rusty skills and equipment, get caught up in hunting fever and blow off buddy protocols, suffer failures and mistakes, etc.

The first death this year was a Massachusetts man out on a private boat with his son and the son's GF. http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/accidents-incidents/390785-2011-mini-season-lobster.html They separated; his chances would have been some better if they'd stayed together and/or had a safety pilot left onboard.

There are usually 3 or 4 deaths every year in spite of a lot of cautions by many.

 

[IJS]

Killer lobsters? Why do so many die? Sorry, but as a newbie diver I'm not sure why it's dangerous. I also don't see why hunting for lobsters would be fun - just head on over to a nice seafood restaurant, cheaper than diving.

I like a nice dinner after diving as well.

 

[DivemasterDennis]

I think you stretch yourself under controlled conditions with more experienced divers, and thus gain competence. It's like continuing education without the cost. Take con ed classes, too.

 

[boulderjohn]

I find it interesting that in this thread so many people offered their opinions on the main causes of death during scuba, but no one cited an authoritative source. Every year DAN puts out its fatality report, with as much detail as they can about the causes of scuba fatalities. Each year, one of the main causes, if not the number one cause, is cardiac--the diver suffered some form of heart attack while diving. The latest issue is no exception.

Every year as well the average age of fatalities goes up, and so, it seems, does the weight. Fatalities are happening to divers who are overweight or obese at a very high rate.

The entire study makes a good read. You would be surprised by the number of instructors and highly experienced technical divers in the mix each year. In the last report, 39% of the fatalities for whom experience was known had been diving for 10 years or more.