BSAC Incident Report

[Adrian Kelland]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (John Nortcliff @ Dec. 03 2003,23:55)]Do the figures include the total number of dives in the UK for the year?

That could only be a guestimate.

Who do you report all your dives to so they can tally them? Do you even log them all? How many divers are there?

And so on.

I'm a little surprised the report is not online by now, but I can't find it.

Adrian

[John N]

I guess, but perhaps we can have a go.

In another post, someone reckoned there were 200 000 divers in the UK, but only 25 000 dived regularly.  I have no idea whether this is correct, but (using last years figures) it places the odds somewhere between 11 in 100 000 and 88 in
100 000 (per diver)

The UK figures for road traffic fatalities are 6 per 100 000 (head of population).

I don't think that our chasing pleasure in this way is selfish.  We only have one shot.


UK figures
http://www.statistics.gov.uk

US figures:
http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm

[Adrian Kelland]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (John Nortcliff @ Dec. 04 2003,10:02)]The UK figures for road traffic fatalities are 6 per 100 000 (head of population).

The fun we can have with stats.

As you are 2.5 time more likely to die on non M,A(M) and A roads than the faster roads, I could conclude it is safer to drive at 70 on a motorway, than 30 around the town...The stats

Back to us. I am always bothered by head/population stats. With us we have a, thankfully, small set of deaths to work with. And some may only be indirectly related to diving. The trailer incident comes to mind. Depending how you include such deaths distorts your final result.

And we are a self selecting set of the population. So we already distort the stats. Not everybody dives, but nearly everybody has been exposed to risk on the road.

The BSAC stats have a go at quantifying depth or experience in relation to incidents. I don't know how grade is normalised, ie there may be more lower grade divers than higer grade, so just a higher number of low grade incidents may not mean anything as a figure on its own.

Adrian

[Dr Stevil]

Very sobering reading.

But I agree with Adrian, stats  looked at in isolation can be very misleading and I've known a fair few divers who are reasonably sensible suddenly adopt behaviours that contradict all their training, so "grade normalisation" could be seen as somewhat immaterial as there's nothing to stop someone who should know better from following through on ill-concieved dive plans.

Personally, when heading off diving, I always like to bear in mind how my sister would feel if she had to bury another one of her brothers, tends to keep me in the realms of SDPs.

[John Gulliver]

For comparison, and bearing in mind the limitations of statistics already mentioned, you might be interested to know that here in Sweden we have had on average 3-4 deaths a year for the last 10 years. It is estimated that we do about half a million dives a year, so the fatality risk is of the order of 1 per 125 000 dives, making diving a low-risk pastime cpmpared to many others (e.g. horse-riding).

[John N]

I know statistics aren't perfect, but I think it is important to have some sort of estimate.
I used per head to compare to the traffic stats, but also had a go at per dive.  I reckoned 650 000 dives a year (25 000 divers doing 26 dives per year) - quite a conservative estimate I think.  Fatalities would be around 1 in 30 000 dives.

The point is that it's not a high risk activity, contrary to what some people might feel.  There is in fact a worry in the industry that diving is now seen as too safe to attract thrill seekers.

[Paul Oliver]

Guys

I missed this one and i have added it to the original listing:-

A diver entered a part of a wreck that had previously been inaccessible. Once inside the visibility quickly reduced and he was unable to find his way out.

With regard to the breakdown of incidents Brian Cumming includes a lot in the report and shows many of these on his presentation. I could not do them justice here but many areas are hard to clearly define.

There is a baseline of 2 deaths a year that will always be there as this is due to natural causes during a dive.

It is very hard to break down by skill level as this would require comparisons of accurate figures for each level.

A rough guide in one of his graphs too levels involved covers those incidents involving BSAC divers by grade:-

Novice = 10, Ocean Diver = 25, Sport Diver = 54, Dive Leader = 46, Advanced Diver = 44, First Class Diver = 2.

So it looks like SD has the highest risks, but this is also the highest membership level, so is it a higher risk group?


DCI Incidents

122 Reports which featured 132 cases of DCI in the 2003 report year. (168 in 2002, 116 in 2001, 134 in 2000, 86 in 1999).

33 involved repeat diving.
32 involved diving deeper than 30m
31 involved rapid ascents
18 involved missed deco stops
Some involved more than 1 of these causes.

The main cause of these is poor buoyancy control resulting in rapid ascents and missed stops, and poor DSMB deployment.

The other two notable factors are dehydration and not taking an off gas break/day on multi-day dive trips.

Dive Safe

Paul

[Adrian Kelland]

The Incident Report is now online. Have a good read.

BSAC Incident Report 2003

[peter k]

I know of 5/6 DCI's that don't get a mention in there. All of which I would instantly recognise. Mine(SSAC) is nowhere to be seen, Dee's(SSAC) is maybe there but some of the info. doesn't add up, the incredible CF at the (SSAC) training day isn't mentioned and that ended up with 3 AFAIK, at least 2, chambered and another 1 from (SSAC) on the same day as the CF.
 I can see a definate trend there. I wonder if;
(a) The info. isn't being asked for by BSAC from SSAC or
(b) SSAC is burying it's head in the sand and trying to sort it out "in-house".

Seems odd though!!!!!

Peter

[Adrian Kelland]

Perhaps they just don't report them well. What is SCOTSAC's reporting procedure? I can't find a form on their website. Could be decause they don't have one...

BTW, how do PADI,TDI et al divers report incidents when not diving with a business? BSAC members have a form they are supposed to fill out. As the other organisations are not member based in the same way as BSAC/SAA/SCOTSAC, I wonder what you do apres shit/fan interface?

Adrian