Israeli woman drowns during epileptic incident - Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt

[BlueTrin]

My eyeballs popped out of my head when I read that line about how she didn't have seizures "all the time." But after I stuffed them back in, I reread it and wondered if it might be a mistranslation. Maybe what he said was more like "she took her medication and never had seizures anymore." I'm not fully up on the current dive medicine; I know asthma used to be an absolute contraindication but now it's considered acceptable if it's well-controlled. Is the same true of epilepsy or nah?

There are several types and levels of severity for asthma though and for example I am unlikely to die if I start having asthma during a dive because I never had asthma so bad that I would gag for air unless I have been already sick with bronchitis and already had some asthma recently.

I do not know if this compares well with epilepsy … I am not an expert but it seems unlikely to me that one can survive epilepsy in water at depth.

 

[BlueTrin]

Odds of dying in a car crash are 1 in 103 according to the national safety council.
They do not track scuba deaths directly, but they do track drowning in specific scenarios such as falling into a bathtub or falling into a pool. The drowning stat they have for "unspecified drowning and submersion" is 1 in 6,563. Other accounts of scuba death chances vary from 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 2,000.

So, you're much safer in the water than you are while traveling to that water.

Is it normalised by the number of times doing the activity or is it a lifetime statistic?

Edit: found the answer they are lifetime statistics:

Odds of Dying - Injury Facts

Knowing the odds of dying is the first step in beating them. New 2021 data shows the risks from plane crashes, guns, falls and more.

injuryfacts.nsc.org

You forgot to normalise by the number of times (or hours) an activity is done. I.e. a lot more people drive more than they spend in water possibly?

If I use the same reasoning, for a silly example that demonstrates this bias, I could argue that walking on the moon is incredibly safe since no one died on the moon that year. (Well obviously that’s probably because nobody walked on the moon that year )

To gauge risk, you usually want to answer one of these questions:
- how likely I am to die every time I do this activity
- how likely I am to die for every hour spent doing this activity
- how likely I am to die if I start this hobby/activity

 

[Miyaru]

There are several types and levels of severity for asthma though and for example I am unlikely to die if I start having asthma during a dive because I never had asthma so bad that I would gag for air unless I have been already sick with bronchitis and already had some asthma recently.

I do not know if this compares well with epilepsy … I am not an expert but it seems unlikely to me that one can survive epilepsy in water at depth.

There are many medical issues that are hardly/not survivable below the surface.

An epileptic insult is simply lights-out for your consciousness. No chance of actively holding the reg in your mouth throughout the seizure.
Same goes for oxygen toxicity - which looks the same under water.
Cardiac arrest - not survivable unless resuscitated by somebody else.
Heart attack (blockage of one of the coronary arteries) - small chance to make it, if you can get to the surface and get help.
Asthma - if it's exercise induced asthma the chance of suffering a bad episode is high.

And the list goes on.
What each and every item on the list have in common, is that the problem is started by the diver him/her-self. Not by the buddy. Not by the DM. Not by the instructor. If it's about pointing fingers, the first person to blame is the diver who suffered a medical event.

However, that is considered unethical. Being honest is not acceptable, especially not for those left behind. In this case, the diver that didn't survive an epileptic seizure, was not healthy. That diver had a health defect, took a calculated risk by diving anyway. And lost.

Too harsh to accept? Obviously, since the blame game was started. Because it is always easier to point your finger to someone other than the victim if you're the one left behind.

 

[Bob DBF]

In this case, the diver that didn't survive an epileptic seizure, was not healthy.

In this case Snorkler, however the rest of your case stands.

 

[Angelo Farina]

I honestly didn't believe the 1 in 103 stat for passing away in a card accident. However, 38,000 car accident deaths in 2020, and 2.4 million deaths total usa deaths. So I guess the math works but I just can't wrap my head around that number still.

Those numbers are not showing the risk associated with each activity, just the causes of deaths.
For assessing the risks you need to evaluate also the exposure time.
There have been 38000 deadly car accidents and "just" a few hundredths of dead scuba divers in one year.
But the numbers of man-hours spent driving is probably millions time larger than the man-hours spent diving.
So evaluating the risk of driving for one hour compared to the risk of diving for one hour, the latter is much higher.
Getting accurate figures is not easy, indeed.

 

[chillyinCanada]

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[Jcp2]

Those numbers are not showing the risk associated with each activity, just the causes of deaths.
For assessing the risks you need to evaluate also the exposure time.
There have been 38000 deadly car accidents and "just" a few hundredths of dead scuba divers in one year.
But the numbers of man-hours spent driving is probably millions time larger than the man-hours spent diving.
So evaluating the risk of driving for one hour compared to the risk of diving for one hour, the latter is much higher.
Getting accurate figures is not easy, indeed.

Micromort - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

According to this measure, the risk of 1 dive is just slightly less than running 1 marathon, about 2/3 of one skydive, the same as traveling 30 miles by motorcycle or 1200 miles by car. Giving birth is as risky as 25 dives, but half as risky as one BASE jump.

 

[VikingDives]

Asthma - if it's exercise induced asthma the chance of suffering a bad episode is high.

Do you have a source for this? My experience (I have it, as do both my kids and I've trained several people with it) is that never occurs when diving. Though granted it could happen, but chances being high? I'm doubtful.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Do you have a source for this? My experience (I have it, as do both my kids and I've trained several people with it) is that never occurs when diving. Though granted it could happen, but chances being high? I'm doubtful.

I'm so surprised by this. What happens when you are fighting a current? Have you been cold water diving?

 

[Miyaru]

Do you have a source for this? My experience (I have it, as do both my kids and I've trained several people with it) is that never occurs when diving. Though granted it could happen, but chances being high? I'm doubtful.

I think that is a question for the hyperbaric physicians (pinging @Duke Dive Medicine ). I don't have any other source but the doctors who didn't clear divers diagnosed with this.
There are many variations of asthma, and knowing what induces it, influences the doctor's decision about a diving clearance.

It is interesting that you know of cases of exercise-induced-asthma that never occur during a dive. However, a dive doesn't end at the surface. If it involves climbing a ladder with a full set and 50m walking back to the car, before you can take your set off, then that's also part of the dive (and in case of a diving course, the responsibility of the instructor).