There is an excellent thread currently going on discussing OOA as a "trigger" for scuba deaths.
I'm all for trying to learn from or prevent any scuba death where that's possible as I'm sure everyone else is as well.
The only problem is that if you find a cause for a large percentage of scuba deaths it has to be something that the scuba industry as a whole can correct. To me the number one cause of scuba deaths is poor judgment and I'm not sure you can influence someones judgment abilities or common sense. It seems to me you either have it or you don't.
To me there are three reasons for scuba deaths...heath related causes, your time is up (bad luck) issues or poor judgment.
You can of course argue that anyone who had health problems in the water which resulted in death shouldn't have been there but I don't think that's fair for the most part. I'm not aware that most people having heart attacks were in poor condition otherwise (some no doubt but most not I would think).
When you're luck is up (my words) this doesn't mean that you stop trying to prevent those but most times after a wind storm, for instance, we are able to drive under (near) a broken overhanging tree limb over a busy road and we don't die...on occasion someone does!
I am still careful under those circumstances but I don't stop my car in the middle of the freeway and refuse to go forward nor would most people. In diving the equivalent of this happens as well. Not a whole lot that you can do about it in a realistic sense.
Therefore poor judgment or lack of common sense seems to ultimately account for the rest. There are varying degrees of course but going too deep, too little air, OOA, and many even more unreasonable things seem to account for most of the preventable deaths. They are preventable only if you can improve someones common sense or judgment.
I'm sure you can to a small degree but not much more than that in my opinion. There are many of us (probably most of us) who have never run out of air even when we were inexperienced and even if our training was poor. We still had common sense. We had the common sense to be conservative until we had more experience.
I can think of many local diving deaths and they would all fit into these three categories with the first two categories being largely unpreventable. The third category seems to cover most everyone else.
I'm not saying don't try as an industry or as an individual to prevent these deaths but I'm wondering if we aren't really about as low as we are going to get considering human nature. When talking about unemployment sometimes you here the term "structural unemployment" used. Maybe at a point in time someone defines that as 3%. So when unemployment goes below 3% it's considered full employment as all that you have left is "structural unemployment" or in other words a level beyond which you will not get (due to those in the process of moving, not looking for work, not able to work, etc). Maybe it's the same in diving. There will always be a small number that will die due to health, bad luck, or terminally poor judgment.
I would appreciate any other opinions or perhaps examples of scuba deaths in your area where they don't fit into these categories. All the ones in my area do fit (IMO).
I'm all for trying to learn from or prevent any scuba death where that's possible as I'm sure everyone else is as well.
The only problem is that if you find a cause for a large percentage of scuba deaths it has to be something that the scuba industry as a whole can correct. To me the number one cause of scuba deaths is poor judgment and I'm not sure you can influence someones judgment abilities or common sense. It seems to me you either have it or you don't.
To me there are three reasons for scuba deaths...heath related causes, your time is up (bad luck) issues or poor judgment.
You can of course argue that anyone who had health problems in the water which resulted in death shouldn't have been there but I don't think that's fair for the most part. I'm not aware that most people having heart attacks were in poor condition otherwise (some no doubt but most not I would think).
When you're luck is up (my words) this doesn't mean that you stop trying to prevent those but most times after a wind storm, for instance, we are able to drive under (near) a broken overhanging tree limb over a busy road and we don't die...on occasion someone does!
I am still careful under those circumstances but I don't stop my car in the middle of the freeway and refuse to go forward nor would most people. In diving the equivalent of this happens as well. Not a whole lot that you can do about it in a realistic sense.
Therefore poor judgment or lack of common sense seems to ultimately account for the rest. There are varying degrees of course but going too deep, too little air, OOA, and many even more unreasonable things seem to account for most of the preventable deaths. They are preventable only if you can improve someones common sense or judgment.
I'm sure you can to a small degree but not much more than that in my opinion. There are many of us (probably most of us) who have never run out of air even when we were inexperienced and even if our training was poor. We still had common sense. We had the common sense to be conservative until we had more experience.
I can think of many local diving deaths and they would all fit into these three categories with the first two categories being largely unpreventable. The third category seems to cover most everyone else.
I'm not saying don't try as an industry or as an individual to prevent these deaths but I'm wondering if we aren't really about as low as we are going to get considering human nature. When talking about unemployment sometimes you here the term "structural unemployment" used. Maybe at a point in time someone defines that as 3%. So when unemployment goes below 3% it's considered full employment as all that you have left is "structural unemployment" or in other words a level beyond which you will not get (due to those in the process of moving, not looking for work, not able to work, etc). Maybe it's the same in diving. There will always be a small number that will die due to health, bad luck, or terminally poor judgment.
I would appreciate any other opinions or perhaps examples of scuba deaths in your area where they don't fit into these categories. All the ones in my area do fit (IMO).
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