Panic and Exhaustion

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RJTY

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Location
Lake Mary, Fl
It seems that the most common reasons for diving deaths are panic and exhaustion. I believe that both of these could be helped with harder certification requirements. Four dives hardly prepares you for handling panic and the guidlines for swimming are far too easy. If the agencies were a little more strict, some of these instances may be avoided.
 
In recreational diving, it is better to avoid panic and exhaustion, rather than deal with it once it kicks in. Experience and training are the primary means to achieve this, but fitness and proper equipment are also critical.

You appear to be newly certified. How much did you pay for your course? How much would you pay? How long would you consider such a course should take?

Keep in mind that different people have different abilities to deal with stress. My first OW experience was in a leaky, badly fitting wetsuit in too cold water, without proper instruction. I had a leaking Mae West vest with an oral inflate, was a tad over weighted and was in 60' deep river. I had a reg to breath from, so life was good.

On the other side of the coin, I've seen people that can't put their face underwater and breath through a reg without popping up and ripping their mask off.
 
RJTY:
It seems that the most common reasons for diving deaths are panic and exhaustion. I believe that both of these could be helped with harder certification requirements. Four dives hardly prepares you for handling panic and the guidlines for swimming are far too easy. If the agencies were a little more strict, some of these instances may be avoided.
Really? Do you have some data to back that assertion up? Are there some specific instances that you know about that cause you to think that that's true?

From my understanding of what I think I've read about I'd have to say that the leading causes would be diving beyond your training, or a predisposed medical condition or medical event while diving.

In fact it's actually rather rare AFAIK to see a really inexperienced beginner dying while diving. Unfortunately there does seem to be one case that has happened in the last couple of days, but it seems to be very much the exception rather than the rule based on the accident reports I've seen here for the last few years.
 
Spent most of the day yesterday researching this mostly using google and these two reasons were the most common.. I will see what I can find again.
 
Here's an interesting fact though. Check out this page:
http://www.lifesaving.com/issues/articles/DrowningFacts.html

Death by drowning while swimming - 1 chance in 662.
Death by drowning while scuba diving - 1 chance in 1491

So diving seems to be more than twice as safe as swimming!!!

Maybe we should make everyone learn to dive before they're allowed to swim!! :eyebrow:

(disclaimer: while the site preports to measure these figures by number of swims/dives performed I have no idea how accurate their figures actually are!)
 
I am still a beginer. I have been certified for four years and have aprox. 60 dives now. I paid $200 to get certified. The same shop charges $300 now. As I look back on it now, I would have paid more, because I know the thrill. I dont know if I would have then. I dont think it is a matter of how long it takes. More of a matter of the requirements. There have been a lot of threads on here about divers seeing somebody diving that didnt seem to know what they were doing, or couldnt swim back to the boat, etc.. I was only trying to say that more training and tougher qualifications may eliminate some of these accidents we read about.
 
Kim:
Here's an interesting fact though. Check out this page:
http://www.lifesaving.com/issues/articles/DrowningFacts.html

Death by drowning while swimming - 1 chance in 662.
Death by drowning while scuba diving - 1 chance in 1491

So diving seems to be more than twice as safe as swimming!!!

Maybe we should make everyone learn to dive before they're allowed to swim!! :eyebrow:

(disclaimer: while the site preports to measure these figures by number of swims/dives performed I have no idea how accurate their figures actually are!)
That is an interesting fact. When the air in the tank is gone though, it would be a good idea to know how to swim.
 
RJTY:
I was only trying to say that more training and tougher qualifications may eliminate some of these accidents we read about.
LOL......OK, I'll back off! :D

Really I understand your concern. It's completely true that new divers haven't really got the experience yet. One can make the argument that courses should therefore be harder but in the end if they doubled the number of dives and made everyone jump through a load more hoops then if they don't really dive again until the next time they're on holiday they probably won't be any safer with 8 rather than 4 dives originally. What new divers need to do is practice within their limits what they have been taught to do....assuming they weren't taught incorrectly! (there's not a lot of point practicing mask clearing heavily overweighted sitting firmly on the bottom for instance - remove and replace your mask occasionally during the normal course of a dive isn't bad though! :wink: )
The fact is that we really DON'T lose many new divers. If we did the training agencies wouldn't be allowed to operate and an organization like PADI wouldn't churn out so many divers. I really am interested though if you've seen cases of panic or exhaustion causing deaths. I'm not saying it's never happened - I never saw it as a leading cause though. The problems really start when people try to do stuff they have never been taught how to do without thinking about or knowing the risks at all. Then when something happens they are WAY out of their depth and I should imagine that panic is then a very natural reaction.
Don't sweat it! Dive within your training and keep practicing. Get more training to learn more things if and when you feel a need to...and then practice the new stuff etc etc. Diving is never going to be 100% safe no matter how much training, experience, whatever you have. Take it easy though and most of us live to tell the tale and keep diving for years! :wink:
 
RJTY:
That is an interesting fact. When the air in the tank is gone though, it would be a good idea to know how to swim.
Even if you can't as long as you know how to orally inflate your BCD you'll probably float around OK until someone fishes you out of the water! :wink:
 

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