DIVING

1. Dive Fatalities
Discussion
Hunters were younger on average, compared with non-hunters. Hunters more commonly ran low-on or out-of breathing
gas and hunters had slightly more AGE related causes of death than expected. Solo diving was also more common in
hunters than in non-hunters. A picture emerges of a young, male diving hunter not paying attention to his submersible
pressure gauge until it is too late.
Fatalities involving hunters showed a higher prevalence of the fatal dive being at night than among non-hunting fatalities.
This is the converse to what is found in other parts of the world where lobster are permitted to be hunted only during
daylight hours.
No denominator has yet been established in order to estimate the absolute risk of dying while hunting underwater.
Compared with non-hunters, however, some relative indicators suggest possible targets for safety interventions, specifically
the need to monitor one’s gauge while hunting. Most fatalities involving hunters occurred in Florida and California,
therefore safety interventions should target those two states.
In addition to fatality data collection, in the future more injury data (incident reports, diver surveys, Emergency Department
admissions, etc) should be collated, both to better identify hazards particular to hunting and to quantify the burden
of diving injuries attributable to underwater hunting.
Case 13-94: Spearing fish leads diver to run out of air
This 43-year-old man had an unknown certification and experience level. He and his buddy were spearfishing in warm
water in the daytime (conditions not otherwise reported). The diver signaled that he was ascending; his buddy went to
chase a fish. Shortly after, the diver approached the buddy in a panic signaling that he was out of air. The diver and buddy
struggled over the buddy’s regulator. The buddy pulled away and ascended via a line. The diver’s body was recovered
on the bottom with an empty tank. The cause of death was listed as drowning.
1.9 Freshwater diving fatalities
Each year, as the sun heads north and many divers prepare for the summer season, attendance at freshwater dive
parks, quarries, lakes and rivers steadily increases. These sites often have no current, they do not involve a boat trip,
the entry-exit may be diver-friendly and, as an added bonus, if a diver can stay off the bottom then the dive gear may
not even need washing afterwards.
But appearances can be deceptive and each year DAN receives reports of divers suffering diving injuries and even
deaths in sites that might otherwise appear relatively safe. Over the period 2010-2013 DAN received reports of 51 US
and Canadian freshwater diving fatalities, 22 of those in what are commonly known as dive parks, scuba parks or underwater
parks. In the rest of this section we will refer to them as dive parks and the definition we used to classify a dive
park, or a non-dive park, was that a dive park had underwater attractions deliberately placed to attract divers, whereas
any objects in non-dive parks visited by divers were not placed there for that purpose. A ‘typical’ dive park might be a
local quarry with steps into the water or a dock for stepping off, buoys and descent lines down to a platform at 10-20
feet depth for practicing dive skills, with horizontal ropes for navigation between one attraction and another. A survey
of mines converted into dive parks noted such attractions included sunken aircraft, small boats, cars, buses, exercise
equipment and various other man-made objects to offer divers more novelty underwater than they might find in non-dive
park quarries. Non-dive park sites may well still include stolen cars, old mining equipment and other objects that divers
might find interesting enough to visit.
Many US dive parks also offer above-ground facilities such as on-site air-fills, picnic tables, toilets, sun-shelters, large
signs showing a map of the quarry and more. A perception exists that dive parks may attract students participating in
open water diver classes and divers who have not dived for some considerable time, possibly following a change in
medical fitness for diving. Accordingly, given the relatively significant number of freshwater diving fatalities between 2010
and 2013 inclusive, we decided to look back over ten years of data to identify if diving fatalities in dive parks differed in
any substantial way to fatalities in other freshwater sites. It should be remembered though that how many divers visit
dive parks and non-dive parks each year remains unknown, as does how many dives are made in each type of dive site.
Annual Diving Report – 2012-2015 Edition
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