Skydiving or SCUBA Which is safer?

[Tigerman]

Purely fatalities.

I'd imagine the risk of injury is higher in skydiving. In Scuba, other than DCS, there aren't a whole lot of injuries that can routinely occur. I assume hard landings while skydiving are more common

Hard landings is not at all uncommon, no and they do potentially screw your ancles up and in bad cases you can break your leg. Also landing in the trees can be fairly rough although rarely (if ever?) fatal and that does happen from time to time as well. I kinda see more potential for (and have seen more first hand) minor injuries with skydiving than scubadiving.

Ive actually seen one that wasnt all that minor as well, but it was very unlucky. A guy landed in some tall trees, which usually means the chute get snagged in the branches and youre hanging there like a ripe fruit. His problem was the chute didnt catch anything and he fell down and injured his back badly and spent months in recovery.

 

[Sias]

They both have the same issue: running out of air.

 

[dwaters]

Good answers above, but from a person with 263 logged skydives and only 133 scuba dives, my perception is that skydiving may have less fatal numbers/100,000 but that does not make it safer than scuba..... A skydive is 1 minute of freefall plus max. 4 minute of parachute ride=5 minutes and scuba is 45-60 minute avg./dive.....so there is 9 to 15 times longer for something to go wrong. So looking at it that way I'll take the SCUBA odds. Plus as already mention, SCUBA has a lot less broken bones and other non-fatal injuries vs. skydiving.
Two very different sports....one is for the "rush" and the other for the peacefull relaxing enjoyment and the older I get the "slow down and smell the roses" works for me.

 

[Coldwater_Canuck]

Good answers above, but from a person with 263 logged skydives and only 133 scuba dives, my perception is that skydiving may have less fatal numbers/100,000 but that does not make it safer than scuba..... A skydive is 1 minute of freefall plus max. 4 minute of parachute ride=5 minutes and scuba is 45-60 minute avg./dive.....so there is 9 to 15 times longer for something to go wrong. So looking at it that way I'll take the SCUBA odds. Plus as already mention, SCUBA has a lot less broken bones and other non-fatal injuries vs. skydiving.
Two very different sports....one is for the "rush" and the other for the peacefull relaxing enjoyment and the older I get the "slow down and smell the roses" works for me.

Fair enough. "Safest" is very subjective. You're right that fatalities / minute of time spent in air / below water", skydiving would likely be far more dangerous. However, on the other hand is this the most valid comparison? Because while a scuba dive may be 10-20x longer than a sky-dive, the fact is it's not like someone is able to 10-20 sky dives in that time.

In any case, it's not a great discussion because while there are some inherent risks with either, both are safer than people commonly believe and relatively speaking, fairly safe if done correctly.

 

[dwaters]

Fair enough. "Safest" is very subjective.

In any case, it's not a great discussion because while there are some inherent risks with either, both are safer than people commonly believe and relatively speaking, fairly safe if done correctly.

Agree with you there and as with any sport, 75% (or more)of both skydiving and SCUBA injuries and fatalities are caused by human error, lack of judgement, and/or carelessness.

 

[HJeffreyM]

You can never really get exact stats on SCUBA fatalities as there is no central record keeping agency (I don't know if there is one for sky diving). The other thing is the "apples and oranges" nature of comparing one sport vs. another. I think in the case of Sky vs. SCUBA, maybe it should be "1 SCUBA dive = 1 Sky dive."

Just to add another sport into the mix, what about skiing? I wonder if people realize that most major resorts have skiier deaths every year. And, like SCUBA people die skiing the "bunny slope" like Natasha Richardson, "blue cruzers" like Sonny Bono and "extreme" like Shane McConkey.

In other words, just being a DIR or GUE diver doesn't mean you won't die while diving....and being a beginner with your instructor right in front of you is no guarantee either.

But what are the odds?

 

[Tigerman]

Dont get me started on skiing... That **** is DANGEROUS!
I cant even be bother to start counting how many times Ive hurt myself there - And its not because im a bad skier..

 

[gcbryan]

I think scuba diving should be safer if you are talking about comparing an experienced skydiver with an experienced scuba diver....in actuality there are probably more in scuba who aren't experienced than you would find in sky diving so scuba diving probably results in more deaths per "exposure"

 

[TROGDOR]

This is a very loaded question.

I've done 49 Military Jumps, 51 Civilian skydives, and 15 SCUBA dives.

Skydives and SCUBA dives are as safe or dangerous as you make them. If you are diving at 25' in a quarry and have been properly trained and do every thing right, you are pretty damn safe.

If you get certified to skydive and then jump a 97 square foot parachute the next day, you will probably die.

I could make the same argument in the reverse.


Statistically, I believe they are roughly the same (with SCUBA being slightly 'safer') I read this somewhere based off of number of fatalities/dive, but don't recall where.

 

[Tigerman]

a 97 for a n00b.. Now thats a safe way to get a hard landing..