Death by Diving

[TSandM]

There is ample evidence that this simply is not true. The safety record of the science community demonstrates that with adequate training and a system of oversight diving fatalities can be virtually eliminated.

Well, unless you propose some kind of stringent regulatory system that prevents people from ever getting in the water in scuba gear until they have passed and are diving within such a system, I will stand with the statement I made.

The guy who signed off on my OW card had been diving for three years before he ever got certified. It's not that hard to do. People, like the fellow in Vortex, who are determined to do things that are stupid, are incredibly difficult to foil. You can have the safest imaginable system, but if you can't effectively force people into it, you're still going to have deaths due to stupidity and bad judgment.

We have strong laws against drunk driving, but guess what I see in the ER?

 

[Dave1981]

The yukon death is a recent death with divers pointing to whos the one to error, diver or charter.

When you learn to dive you're told you're responsible for yourself.
When you get on the boat you sign a waiver saying you're responsible for yourself.
If your buddy swims off and leaves you you're responsible for yourself.
If you leave your buddy you're responsible for yourself (and you're a bad buddy).
If you solo dive you're responsible for yourself.
If you breathe your tank dry you've no one to blame but yourself.

If anything happens and someone rescues you then you're lucky.

Bad fills and dangerous rental gear being the exception.

 

[Kingpatzer]

R
What would stop anybody, no matter how long it's been or how poorly they were trained, from pulling out their NASDS C-Card, renting some tanks and making The Last Dive?

Government regulation that requires the kind of standards they have Scripps be applied to all would-be divers.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the idea.

I'm not sure that Thal is either. I don't mean to speak for him, but from what he's said in other threads: I suspect he would love to see a zero accident rate for all divers; but, he doesn't have any better idea for achieving that than anyone else. He would like to see a higher level of diver training across the board; but, he realizes that such things can't be done without the force of law when diving is also an industry. I'm sure if I'm misrepresenting him he'll correct me. His point seems to be there's a model for a very low accident rate. I don't think he's advocating making it mandatory.

I'm personally skeptical of his claim in general in that scientific divers are diving with a specific, defined goal in mind typically governed by established protocols. They aren't dropping down to see the reef. They are dropping down to do a survey. They aren't saying "let's swim that way and see what we find, eh?" They are saying "let's mark off a 5'x5' plot and count the number of snails." Now, I realize that there is a wider variety of dive types than those in scientific work. But the point I'm making is hopefully clear: for a scientific diver, diving is a means to an end. And that end has career impacts for the diver. For a recreational diver it is neither of those things. That's the difference between someone doing something for recreation instead of for their profession.

And that difference has huge implications. The number of shooting accidents you'll see on a police firing range is very minimal. The number of people who have shooting accidents on a range caused by those who were trained through a police gun use and safety program is not (though it is still much, much, much lower than the accident rate for those who have had no safety training!)

well .. except for this guy

 

[Thalassamania]

Well, unless you propose some kind of stringent regulatory system that prevents people from ever getting in the water in scuba gear until they have passed and are diving within such a system, I will stand with the statement I made.

The guy who signed off on my OW card had been diving for three years before he ever got certified. It's not that hard to do. People, like the fellow in Vortex, who are determined to do things that are stupid, are incredibly difficult to foil. You can have the safest imaginable system, but if you can't effectively force people into it, you're still going to have deaths due to stupidity and bad judgment.

We have strong laws against drunk driving, but guess what I see in the ER?

I don't doubt that you are right. However, without any resorting to selective breeding for common sense, I can suggest several ways to get rid of deaths through poor judgment or thrill-seeking. You are correct that they would all involve screening out stupid people who lack judgment.

I was diving for two decades before I got my first recreational certification (my NAUI Instructor card). I don't see how that makes me either stupid or lacking in judgment ... quite the opposite.

 

[sansky]

Cudos to all of you in this thread - you have covered it quite well!
Ultimately I personally take full responsibility for my actions as a diver.
When you are a child you depend on your parents to take care of you - same goes for when you become an adult, "You take care of yourself! Mama is no longer there to put that bandaid on when you get hurt!"

 

[cruiser]

Ok now this one is astounding Shari Booth was on a advanced diving course with a walla walla group, from the west side of washinton state. 11 other dive students were in this course, her dive buddy tapped her leg and motioned she was going to the surface, vis was good and the buddy looked down and said she looked ok at 20' deeper, but was'nt sure if she was at 50' or 30'. The buddy boarded on the boat they watched her bubbles and then after a bit a bunch of bubbles poured to the surface then nothing. Search attempts were made she was never found.

Are there sharks in your waters? It sounds like one may have grabbed her, causing her to exhale sharply OR lose her reg and causing it to freeflow, and then took off with her body since nothing was found.

 

[TSandM]

No, I wasn't implying that people who dive without certification are necessarily thrill seekers or stupid.

What I meant was, although you have a system that results in a massive reduction of accidents and incidents, you have no way of forcing people into it. Even if there were legislation to require that anyone wanting to dive get that kind of training AND dive under supervision (and God forbid there ever should be such a law) there would be people who would circumvent it.

There are training systems out there NOW which can teach people to dive with better skills and more knowledge, and you can't make people take those classes or respect the limits they teach. People take the EXISTING classes and turn around and immediately do precisely what they have been told not to do -- we have an example on this board right now, of someone who finished his OW class and promptly went solo diving in a cold water lake.

We have a saying in the ER: You can't cure stupid. In almost any realm of life, you can find stories of people getting hurt doing things that are so obviously ridiculous that the majority of us would never think of doing them. Diving is no exception. I believe it was gcbryan who started a thread some time ago about whether accident reports do us any good at all, because the vast majority of them either give us no information about what happened, or tell a story which has so many egregious mistakes in it that none of the rest of us would ever go there.

 

[Thalassamania]

Lynne (and John, and KP): You're rather missing the point. It is not a matter of passing some law that says everyone has to do thus and so. It is more a point of people like you, rather than saying, "too bad, nothing you can do about it," say that, "there are ways to lower your risk of diving accidents, training programs such as those at major universities that meet AAUS standards have been shown to produce divers who are much less likely to ever be in a diving accident ... and by extension a similar result would be expected of the graduates of courses like those of GUE, UTD and similar organizations." As long y'all continue to tell the public that what the assorted major training agencies are doing is good enough, and that nothing else is going to work any better, we have to stay resigned to ideas like: "No matter what happens, there will be a certain percentage of deaths no matter how long we make classes ..." which simply are not true.

 

[ScubaSteve]

I do not believe that stupid people will not always die doing stupid things. Some of these stupid things will be on SCUBA. The scientific community is such a small percentage of the worldwide diving population that comparing safety numbers and considering mass application of procedures is unrealistic IMO. The tougher or more inflexible it is to get into the sport, the more people that will cut corners to get underwater.

 

[Thalassamania]

Steve, you are missing the point.