highest probability emergency situations?

[--tom--]

So my take away from all of this is: The most likely emergency is from the skills you don't practice. The simple things, have you practiced an out of air drill since your OW class? Have you practiced disconnecting your low pressure hose? Have you practiced the three primary ways of establishing buoyancy at the surface? Do you remember the steps of a controlled emergency swimming ascent? Do you perform a buddy check every time you go in the water? (You know the list, and it's in your book if you can't remember.)

The open water class covers quite an array of techniques and tasks that will apply to many situations, unfortunately I have seen some who perform the tasks in class, but never attempt to practice the skill ever again. Practicing basic skills several times every year will prevent the majority of problems ever becoming an emergency.

Following that, get training at least as far as Rescue. The Rescue class will reinforce the skills you are practicing and put the skills into an application context.

Good question!

 

[WhiteSands]

The only incident I have had is a boat ran over my SMB and tank as I was surfacing.
Good thing I did not ascend head first, else I might not be posting this today.

 

[mi000ke]

Thanks to all for the great responses. Also gives me some comfort in that my training did cover these things.

 

[diver 85]

Starting from the 'other end'---I'd have to put 'air hose cutting' as a 'least common emergency'.......Now, Mike Nelson might disagree........Did read somewhere that free-flowing of reg happens most often the dive after it was serviced-------hmmmmm, put 2 & 2 together on that one....

 

[Storker]

Thanks to all for the great responses. Also gives me some comfort in that my training did cover these things.

You might want to read BSAC's incident reports. Although UK-centric, they give a good impression of what emergency situations and incidents/fatalities are most probable (in the UK). You might also want to read up on the "Incident pit" concept.

A couple of my pet safety-related peeves are ensuring positive buoyancy on the surface, including ditching weight before it's too late, and avoiding complacency when conditions appear benign (e.g. after surfacing).

 

[mi000ke]

You might want to read BSAC's incident reports. Although UK-centric, they give a good impression of what emergency situations and incidents/fatalities are most probable (in the UK). Y..

Nice resource, thanks.

Here is my rough analysis of incident categories by percent (had to manually categorize overseas incidents, which they describe but do not include in their statistical breakdown), for about 250 reported incidents. (These are their categories, not mine.) Getting bent is the most common in-water issue, followed by abnormal non-DCI ascent, then equipment failure.

Deaths were not broken down as to cause, but in reading the reports many were: found unresponsive, no idea why.

Decompression illness - 26.6%
Miscellaneous illness/injury (seasickness, dropping tank on foot, etc.) - 20.6
abnormal ascent (non-DCI) - 16.7%
equipment problem - 12.3%
lost diver - 11.9 %
death - 8.3%
boat problem (out of fuel, etc.) - 3.6%

 

[Storker]

I did a similar analysis on the 213 fatalities from 2000 to 2013. Of those,

64 (30%) involved buddy separation
36 (17%) involved deep diving (deeper than 50m)
30 (14%) involved threesomes
28 (13%) involved medical complications (heart attack etc.)
26 (12%) involved rebreathers
23 (11%) involved OOG incidents
17 (8%) involved buoyancy problems
15 (7%) involved solo diving
9 (4%) involved uncontrolled ascents
4 (2%) involved diving in overhead environments

Obviously, in several of the fatalities, more than one factor was involved. And equally obviously, the root cause of many of the fatalities wasn't uncovered. DAN has done a good job in analyzing the "incident pit", dividing a fatality into four phases: Trigger, disabling agent, disabling injury and cause of death. That article is also well worth reading. What's quite interesting is that while DAN identified OOG as the trigger in 41% of the fatalities they analyzed, OOG was involved in only 11% of the British fatalities. That indicates some differences in diving practices across the pond.

 

[Freewillow]

Hi Sorker. I understand from your comment that the data comes from a UK group of divers diving in the UK?. Can you confirm? Thanks

---------- Post added April 17th, 2015 at 11:49 PM ----------

Read something on the article that storker refferred to. DAN study. Pretty surprising. Any tought on that one?

Experience

The value of experience cannot be overstated. Divers with limited experience, including those returning to the sport after a long absence, are at greatest risk. According to the DAN fatality data, 88 percent of the divers died on the first dive of their dive series. Consider that the number of dives in your logbook or the date on your certification card do not automatically qualify you for greater challenges. To truly be prepared for more advanced diving, slowly and methodically increase the complexity and task loading of your dives. Expand your horizons gradually, making sure you don't outpace your training and your level of comfort. Certification is not the same thing as proficiency. Don't dive your C-card, dive your experience.

 

[Storker]

Hi Sorker. I understand from your comment that the data comes from a UK group of divers diving in the UK?. Can you confirm?

Um, yeah. It's BSAC's incident reports. AFAIK BSAC only get reports about UK incidents...


--
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Typos are a feature, not a bug

 

[TSandM]

I'm surprised at the percentage of DCS cases, unless they are including DCI and air embolism is accounting for a number. On the other hand, there are a LOT of technical divers in the UK, who are at higher risk for DCS.

My guess is that, if you looked at the population of people with fewer than 50 dives, DCS wouldn't figure very prominently in causes of death at all. There, you'd be looking at running out of gas, and buoyancy problems with embolism, as the primary sources of fatalities.