The Scuba death rate...

[frankc420]

You do realize that forum is dedicated to, Accidents.. You will only see deaths and or accidents in there! To me, that's no surprising at all

 

[jviehe]

DAN has the best accident reporting and their annual report is free to DAN members. The most recent report had about 100 fatalities a year, about 1000 incidents. The rate has been declining while number of divers has increased. Most injuries were caused by ascending too quickly, or medical issues under water of people over 40.

 

[Thalassamania]

1 in 10,000 and that includes medical problems. Not much at all. The only thing we as divers like to keep informed about all things diving. Just think when you opened your local newspaper and it had every accident that happened yesterday, end the US then on to world wide. Starting to get a picture? It looks major but we are talking big areas.

One in ten thousand is the risk of DCS per "recreational" dive, as contrasted with a record that is an order of magnitude worse for commercial diving and an order of magnitude better for scientific diving.

 

[UWSojourner]

1 in 10,000 ...

I think the tendancy, misguided in my opinion, is to try and justify diving as "safe". Just assume 1 in 10,000 is close to a correct figure for a serious diving mishap.

That means if you plan on doing 1,000 dives in the next few years, you have a 10% chance of a serious problem. That's pretty high.

Safer than driving? The fatality rate for vehicles in 2004 was 1.46 per 100 million miles traveled. I'm planning on driving about 315 miles for a dive trip this weekend. That puts my risk at about 1 in 110,000 of death on the road. If 1 in 10,000 is "about right" for diving and I plan 4 dives, then the risk of serious problems while diving would be 1 in 2,500 or about 44 times the risk of driving. Don't even ask about flying on a commerical aircraft - the risk is far less.

The point? Spend more time thinking about stacking the odds in your favor. Better bouyancy control, better buddy skills, better fitness, better maintenance of equipment, better dive planning, better redundancy, better self-awareness. We do the same for cars (don't drink and drive, don't speed on slick roads). It seems to work.

 

[lamont]

I think the tendancy, misguided in my opinion, is to try and justify diving as "safe". Just assume 1 in 10,000 is close to a correct figure for a serious diving mishap.

That means if you plan on doing 1,000 dives in the next few years, you have a 10% chance of a serious problem. That's pretty high.

1,000 dives is a pretty decent lifetime dive count. I hope to hit 3,000+ total dives in my whole career because I have trouble getting over 100 dives / yr and I dive more often than a lot of divers do. That means that in your entire life you have about a 10% chance of suffering DCS. And if you've got good diving practices the DCS that you suffer will likely be some kind of joint pain or skin bends or something which goes away with a chamber ride or two. Its expensive to treat, but its comparable to injuries sustained while doing other activities like running or climbing or weight-lifting.

 

[H2Andy]

That means if you plan on doing 1,000 dives in the next few years, you have a 10% chance of a serious problem. That's pretty high.

no ... this means that one in 10,000 active divers will die on any given year. with about 2,000,000 active divers estimated in the US, expect to see around 200 diver deaths per year

much lower than the 190 in 10,000 drivers who will die on a given year

(again, i am assuming that the LA County Coroner's Office figures are correct)

 

[UWSojourner]

And if you've got good diving practices ...

That's really my point. Diving is much safer with "good diving practices". I'd hesitate to simply deem it "safe".

 

[fisherdvm]

I think it is like saying, a soldier is more likely to die from automobile accident on base than dying of enemy fire on the field....

But if you weren't in the military, you wouldn't get shot or blown up.

I think you are more likely to get killed driving to your dive site than diving... But, we still have to focus on safety, both as a driver and as a diver.

 

[H2Andy]

I think it is like saying, a soldier is more likely to die from automobile accident on base than dying of enemy fire on the field....

no, i don't think so, because we don't have a comparable for the soldiers dying of enemy fire

for example, we would need to know (in a 1:10,000) ratio, how many soldiers per total soldiers involved in combat are killed

my guess is that it will be much higher than the diver ratio, given the much smaller overall numbers involved

for example, with 2,000,000 acative divers, 200 dead in a year is low (1 in 10,000)

but with 150,000 soldiers deployed, 1,000 dead in a year is high (150 in 10,000)

(but note that this estimate is lower than the 190 in 10,000 driving ratio)

 

[UWSojourner]

no ... this means that one in 10,000 active divers will die on any given year. with about 2,000,000 active divers estimated in the US, expect to see around 200 diver deaths per year

much lower than the 190 in 10,000 drivers who will die on a given year

(again, i am assuming that the LA County Coroner's Office figures are correct)

You forgot to quote

"Just assume 1 in 10,000 is close to a correct figure for a serious diving mishap."

The rest was just to make a point about safer diving.