Report on Decompression Illness, Diving Fatalities and Project Dive

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4. Dive FatalitiesDeath while diving is most often classified as dro w n i n g .Recreational scuba drowning deaths represent a small fraction ofthe 5,600 drownings per year in the U.S. Scuba fatalities are rareevents and do not occur as a significant problem on the nationallevel. For scuba divers who are directly concerned with the possibilityof death in diving and for the friends and families of divers,the problem is always there and cannot ever be small enough. Tohelp learn why divers die and how deaths can be prevented, DANhas maintained a recreational diving fatality surveillance systemsince 1989.Section 4 - Dive FatalitiesThe DAN fatality surveillance system consists of two components:an external voluntary notification system and an active in-houseinvestigation process. Voluntary notification comes from diverswho may have witnessed the accident, family members, dive businesses,investigative agencies, and government agencies. DAN alsoactively monitors newspapers and the Internet for news on fatalaccidents. Once the notification has been received, DAN researchersstart an inquiry in order to collect all available relevant data. Theinquiry is limited to recreational scuba diving fatalities that occur inthe United States and Canada or that involve U.S. citizens divingabroad. Despite all investigative efforts, information on fatalities isoften incomplete, especially in cases that occurred abroad.The major purpose of this collection and analysis system is to identifypreventable deaths and avoid repetition. Some sudden deathsare not attributable to diving. Some risk factors may be controllableby better understanding of the environment, better dive preparation,safety checks and better training. The data are not always adequateto distinguish between preventable and random deaths, or toevaluate suspected risk factors. As there are more possible causativeand contributing factors to explore than there are accidents, a separatereview of each accident is useful. In this chapter, we present thefatality surveillance in three ways: a) basic descriptive statistics as inthe PDE and Injury chapters; b) an analysis of situations and hazards;and c) a case summary of each fatality.DAN’s <strong>Report</strong> on Decompression Illness, Diving Fatalities and Project Dive Exploration: 2005 Edition 67
Section 4 - Dive Fatalities4.1 Fatality StatisticsIn 2003, DAN received notification on 153 deaths during diving.Follow-up was completed in 109 of these. Among the 44 cases rejected,there were seven cases involving commercial divers. Twenty ofthe cases occurred in freediving or snorkel swimming. These casesare described in Chapter 6. The others excluded either involvednon-U.S. or non-Canadian citizens or failed to meet the other criterialisted above.Eighty-nine cases are thus reported in this chapter, 24 women and65 men. Autopsy reports were available for 47 cases, not available in21 cases and unknown or not performed in 11 cases. There were 10cases where the body was not recovered. In 48 percent of the cases,there were no witnesses of the critical event.A forensic pathologist who is trained in dive medicine has reviewedall the cases. Since drowning is basically a diagnosis of exclusion, itis important to look at all of the circumstances surrounding thedeath of a diver. The autopsy itself was inconclusive in severalcases. By putting the autopsy findings together with the circumstancessurrounding the death, it is possible to elucidate the mostlikely sequence of events that resulted in the death of the diver.Sixty-three percent (n=56) of these cases occurred in the U.S. and 37percent (n=33) abroad. Geographic distribution of U.S. fatalities byregion is shown in Figure 4.1-1. Thirty-seven percent occurred in theSoutheast Region (North Carolina to Florida, including Tennesseeand Alabama). DAN regions and the states they represent are listedin the front of this report.Figure 4.1-1Regionaldistributionof fatalitiesin the U.S.68DAN’s <strong>Report</strong> on Decompression Illness, Diving Fatalities and Project Dive Exploration: 2005 Edition
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GlossaryRepresentative SampleA grou
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NotesDAN’s Report</strong
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The only 24-hour, worldwide dive em
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Report on Decompression Illness, Diving Fatalities and Project Dive

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