Thalassamania:Hey guys, fatalities are only one measure, that others, and likely more sensitive, injuries and dropouts are completely unknown.
There are a lot of things that don't get counted or published. I've seen as many as half a dozen divers hit the surface with free flows and without their buddies in a single weekend at a local quarry. Buddy seperation, rapid ascent, no injury (this time) and it doesn't get tracked.
I was out in Lake Michigan and another boat on the same wreck had an AOW group diving. Half the group poped to the surface unintentionally and none too slowly from 75 ft. Capt, wouldn't let them back down and diving was over for the day. No one got hurt but they sure could have and DAN did not record the incident.
On one trip, I was DMing and another boat dropped a bunch of divers on the same wreck. They must have literally dropped them because they landed right on me. I got smacked in the head by a tank and shoves into the wreck where the zebra mussles cut me to pieces. BTW, DAN did not record my wounds or the fact that there was a boat load of people that had no clue how to descend.
My wife and I were on another trip with 4 other divers. One pair was a newly married couple who just got done with AOW. The girls tank sliped out of the bc (at the surface), pulled the reg out of her mouth, she got a little water in her mouth, paniced and smashed her finger some how trying to get up the ladder. They were done for the day. The other two guys who were diving together almost got in a dive. They got in before we did. On the way down to the wreck we passed them at about 20 ft. the one guy was carrying his weight belt in his hand. As they told the story, they had made it down to the wreck and his weght belt came off or something. He decided to go to the surface to put it back on...sure, go the the surface where you can put it on with the waves beating you to death instead of doing it down on the wreck where things are nice and quiet. LOL On each dive of that trip we cut our dives very short because having no one else show up down on the wreck, made us worry that there might have been a problem top side.
I could give lots more examples but the short of it is that we don't go out there on recreational charters anymore unless we can fill the boat with our own group. It just costs too much especially considering that you don't get to dive and if you do, you'll probably have to spend the whole time rescueing other divers.