DAN Report on Diving Fatalities

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Mr Carcharodon

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DAN just made available to public this set of papers related to diving deaths: 2010 Fatality Workshop

There is data that resolves a number of discussions on this board about the risk of diving compared to other activities and the size of the diving population. PADI has compiled data from a number of studies that suggest that the diving population in the USA/Canada is between 2.3 and 3.2 million divers. Diving deaths in USA/Canada/Europe run at 160 per million divers per year. That makes diving riskier than many occupations that are perceived to be high risk such as construction, mining and agriculture. The risk of death from diving is still only about 20% of the risk of dying in an automobile accident annually. But those are rates without regard for the number of hours involved. On a per hour basis diving is higher risk than any of the previously mentioned activities. DCS which seems to garner a lot of attention appears to be low risk in precipitating fatalities.

Embolism is the most common cause of diving deaths in North America, followed closely by cardiac events and running out of gas. Many of those out of gas events were dives that occurred in overhead environments without adequate training or equipment.

Good cardiac fitness, buoyancy control, and gas management would substantially, perhaps by more than 90%, reduce the risk of death. All too often we focus on the wrong things, which is part of what makes reports like these so valuable.
 
The official dive death rate is one in 200,000 in the US. Many of them are medical related, like heart attack, etc. Most others are from common sense mistakes, like trying to go to almost empty air and so on. The estimated diving deaths from uncontrolled circumstances and not medical related is 0.001%. So diving is really not so bad. Sure, it has their risks. All sports and hobbies have something that can hurt you. It just means if a person doesn't have common sense, maybe this isn't the sport for them, that's all.

(Information was gathered from sources including DAN, Padi, and numerous coroner locations in popular diving locations in the US. Numbers are not exact, but it was what was given to me. They all were the same)
 
the diving population in the USA/Canada is between 2.3 and 3.2 million divers.

And I thought I was special. Thats a big number! :amazed:
 
The official dive death rate is one in 200,000 in the US. Many of them are medical related, like heart attack, etc. Most others are from common sense mistakes, like trying to go to almost empty air and so on.

If the sense were so common we wouldn't have so many people who lack it. I think this report and previous reports highlight a common training weakness. Perhaps certification agencies should place more emphasis on training divers to both avoid and deal with these situations.
 
I am again struck by the information as to the triggers of dive accidents and how they don't really seem to correlate very well with a lot of Open Water training. DCS appears to be an insignificant issue (at least regarding fatalities) whereas running out of/low on air is a big one as is loss of buoyancy control.

Assuming that is correct, shouldn't we thus be spending the majority of our Open Water Training time on ways to ensure divers don't run out of/low on air AND that they are able to maintain buoyancy control at all times?
 
I am again struck by the information as to the triggers of dive accidents and how they don't really seem to correlate very well with a lot of Open Water training. DCS appears to be an insignificant issue (at least regarding fatalities) whereas running out of/low on air is a big one as is loss of buoyancy control.

Assuming that is correct, shouldn't we thus be spending the majority of our Open Water Training time on ways to ensure divers don't run out of/low on air AND that they are able to maintain buoyancy control at all times?

I agree but I wasn't aware that most dive training time was currently spent discussing DCS. The time currently spent may be inadequate but it is spent on buoyancy and to a lesser degree on not running out of air...isn't it?

I do agree with the poster somewhere above who mentioned that if you back the health related incidents out of the figures it's more realistic (in my opinion). People have health issues and die regardless of the activity so that's not really scuba related in many cases. There are a lot of older divers due to either cost or having the time to do it.
 
I agree but I wasn't aware that most dive training time was currently spent discussing DCS. The time currently spent may be inadequate but it is spent on buoyancy and to a lesser degree on not running out of air...isn't it?

I can only speak for my training... Buoyancy was certainly stressed but almost always in the context of site seeing. The more control you have over your buoyancy the better able you are to enjoy your dive. There was very little mention of the potential for serious injury and even death. It is one thing for an instructor to stress buoyancy control to look at pretty starfish and quite another to stress it because lack of control is one of the leading causes of dead divers.
 
Assuming that is correct, shouldn't we thus be spending the majority of our Open Water Training time on ways to ensure divers don't run out of/low on air AND that they are able to maintain buoyancy control at all times?
Amen Bro. I spend the majority of my time with a student working on BOTH of those items.
 
I wanted to apologize. When I posted a response it was late and I wasn't thinking. I read it today and realized it sounded rude or argumentative. I was actually just providing some additional information. I just certified in late August and have 13 dives since so far and eager to do more. Before I certified I did A LOT of research on safety practices and statistics. So I just wanted to give my findings. I apologize if it sounded otherwise.
 
Admittedly, it was five years ago, but I don't remember much emphasis on not running out of gas. The instructors told us to check our gauges. That was about it. There was certainly no discussion of anything resembling gas management.

If the ability to demonstrate ANY kind of buoyancy control had been a prerequisite for certification, I wouldn't have gotten my C card :)
 

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