Number one cause of diving fatalities?

[Basking Ridge Diver]

13 Ways to Run Out of Air & How Not to

According to this article - "Even so, running out of breathing gas is the most common dive incident and the number one cause of diving fatalities."

I always was under the impression it was medical issue - as the number one cause of fatalities...

Am I missing something?

 

[2airishuman]

It depends how you count and what your agenda of the moment is.

 

[Hawkwood]

Think of the "root cause". The medical issues may be attributed to earlier events in the incident chain. Medical issues as a consequence of running out of air...running out of air as a consequence of failing to monitor the pressure gauge, etc.

 

[guruboy]

I don't think dying from a heart attack counts as a "diving fatality" since it would kill you regardless of where you were.

 

[TMHeimer]

I always hear it's running out of gas.

 

[Subcooled]

"Even so, running out of breathing gas is (...) the number one cause of diving fatalities."

Running out of gas -> panic -> inhaling water OR embolism OR decompression sickness OR hitting ones head in the hull of the boat and then drowning -> finally hypoxia -> (heart failure and) death

So, the number one cause of death is probably lack of oxygen (or running out of gas).
Closed circuit divers could also die of excessive carbon dioxide, but I guess that is more rare.

The primary cause of death is birth.

 

[WrmBluH2O]

While "panic" would never appear on a death certificate, I too had thought the "number one cause of diving fatalities" was panic. Panic arising from a # of factors and/or cascade of events.

Birth, of course, a close second...

 

[kr2y5]

I looked at the latest DAN report, and apart from the fact that about half or more of the cases fall under "unknown" or "other", there is also a distinction being made e.g., between "triggering events" (health problem being at the top of the list) vs. "mechanisms leading to injury" (rapid ascent) vs. "disabling injuries" (cardiovascular disease) vs. "causes of death" (drowning).

 

[boulderjohn]

The combined DAN/PADI study a few years ago showed that other than medical issues, running out of air followed by a panicked ascent to the surface was the most common cause of dive fatalities. Medical issues are still number one, but since there is not a whole lot we can do about them, we concentrate on the issues that can be fixed through training.

 

[Stoo]

The coroner up here is also a former Navy Diving Medical Officer and was an active diver until recently. (He's older than me!) He uses the terms "Death while diving" as opposed to "Death from diving" to summarize accidental deaths that occur while someone is diving. There have been several in recent years... primarily heart attacks as recently as three weeks ago.

I don't think he reports these as diving accidents.