What's with the deaths?

This is weird. What is with all of the deaths of divers and missing divers recently? On this first page of Basic Scuba Discussions alone there are three psots about diver deaths and one missing in the Fl. Keys. What's up with this? It's sad that so many divers are having accidents and going missing.

I was thinking the same thing.

Perhaps everyone needs to stop and remember there is no such thing as a routine dive.

Mr Murphy or his cousin Darwin can visit at anytime, so it's best to be prepared for the worst.

... thinking the same thing when I found this post. Seems that there has been a lot of deaths lately, and even if we learn nothing from them, they should be a reminder to be safe.

Be safe everyone!

Kayla

Colin,

I think more people are diving now than the industry has seen previously, I believe this sport has seen tremendous growth in the last few years, with more divers "diving" we're going to see more diver related accidents (or deaths as it were) and such. (as a result, we will with little doubt draw nearer to regulation)

I think there are around a hundred annual deaths from SCUBA diving in the US. If this is true, it means that on average there are a couple fatalities each week. The fact that there were recent postings on Scubaboard just means that the news reached board members who were inclined to post a message about it.

I haven't noticed any increase.

We tell people it's a safe sport.

We sell them classes for the whole family.

We streamline the classes so they can get certified fast and cheap.

They mistakenly believe they know how to dive.

They trust the divemaster or instructor and follow them.

They run into a little problem that kills them because they aren't prepared for any problem at all.

We call it bad luck, blame no one and change nothing.

We have the same stuff to read about next week.

Careful Mike,

Someone will accuse you of bashing because you believe in teaching a good class.

Walter once bubbled...
Careful Mike,

Someone will accuse you of bashing because you believe in teaching a good class.

Click to expand...

LOL. Yeah, it turns out that everything Mike says is a standards violation.

R..

MikeFerrara once bubbled...
We streamline the classes so they can get certified fast and cheap.
They mistakenly believe they know how to dive.
They trust the divemaster or instructor and follow them.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately (IMnvHO) this comes down as Mike suggests to the culture of the Dependent Diver (TM).

Nowhere in the PADI (or any other mainstream commercial agency) is anything like environmental assessment considered until the DM level. You are taught to rely on the DM or instructor leading the group.

After a PADI OW course you are officially certified to dive with someone of a similar level in conditions similar to those you have qualified in. But, they don't teach you how to assess the conditions. Even after AOW you don't know how to assess the local conditions.

We are instilling a sense of false confidence in newly qualified divers, something that if they get past the first 50 or so dives will eventually disappear, but only after several near misses (sorry - positive learning experiences). Unfortunately these near misses don't get reported, and for every few hundred near misses that happen, unfortunately somebody screws up (sorry - has a negative learning experience)

Unfortunately, whilst people (PA$I for example) continue to live by certification numbers, there will always be pressure to cut the course to the bare minimum. Teaching people that diving is dangerous is not good for getting bums on seats in those OW classes. :boom: a time bomb if ever there was one :boom:

Jon T