I’m on a phone so it’s not convenient, but the first study I found showed like 3 cave diving deaths in 2007 (most recent year they showed), although the trend seemed to be for it to get lower. Still, this year we are at 6 already just from this incident, so let’s purposely overestimate and say 6 per year. As for the total number of dives, there are extremely famous caves all around the world that get year round activity. It’s hard to find hard data, but if we play it conservatively we can estimate and say 10 per day, that’s like 3650 per year. So 6/3650 -> 0.16 divers die in each cave dive.
There might be unreported deaths, but there’s also a lot of unreported dives in caves people don’t really know of and in remote areas. This dive might have gone unreported if not for the deaths (it was illegal for them to be there at that depth). And it’s important to remember, if early reports are accurate, these people were clearly not qualified to be diving at 50m, much less in a cave.
Now free diving:
Number of fatalities in 2007 was 42, and the number seems to have increased slightly (52 in 2017). Data is easier to find for some reason, and plenty resources seem to indicate that the rate of death in recreational free divers is 1/500, so 0.2 deaths per each dive.
So despite inflated number for cave diving deaths, and low estimate of cave dives in a year, free diving is still more deadly.
It’s not too hard to figure out why. It’s still scuba. When cave diving you can recover from mistakes. You have information on how much air you have left, and multiple of everything you need as redundancy, and so you can sort any problems you have. There are drills you do in case you lose the guide line, for example. In free diving you are just going by feeling. If you miscalculate how much air there is in your lungs and how long it will take you to resurface, you’ll pass out and probably drown.
To be clear, I’m not saying cave diving is without risk. I myself have no interest in it because caves are boring to me, and so it’s not worth the risk which does exist. I just don’t like the over the top fear mongering I see whenever there is a story like this.
I think you should actually talk to some cave divers and I think you’ll find you are misinformed. I have and it’s ridiculously dangerous and I even had a friend who died doing it. There is a reason you have to get a separate certification for diving with structures overhead.
The only way this makes any sense to me (on a per capita basis) is because cave divers probably are way more careful because they are aware of the challenges vs. open water divers who probably find it routine and make mistakes.
You seem to be completely missing the point I was making, I just don’t know if it’s because you are just looking to argue or what.
I have talked to cave divers. All of them said these cave diving deaths were 100% human error.
I never said it’s not dangerous. Ever. I specifically said it is dangerous. Which is why you do need training, like I also mentioned… But if you are trained and have the proper equipment, then (depending on the cave) it’s not as dangerous as people make it out. The cave which lead to this conversation specifically, is also not that dangerous as far as cave diving goes. It’s “only” at 60 meters, only has 3 chambers, does not seem to have tight places you had to squeeze into. The divers who recuvered the bodies have been in caves that were 150+ meters deep, hundreds of meters long, with tight openings. But these victims went with no training, no guide line, and one tank of air. That is suicide.
Is driving a truck on a busy highway dangerous? Sure, there’s many blocks of steel weighting tons and wheezing by at very fast speeds, and it’s a more difficult vehicle to control. And there are accidents and roads deaths everyday. But if you have the training and take caution it’s relatively fine. What the cave divers here did is the equivalent of driving a heavy truck in a highway, but with no driver’s license, the truck hasn’t passed inspection, and they’re not wearing a seat belt. If someone does that, and then someone else comes along trying to use it as an excuse to talk about how dangerous it is, that would be sensationalism and fear mongering.
I’m on a phone so it’s not convenient, but the first study I found showed like 3 cave diving deaths in 2007 (most recent year they showed), although the trend seemed to be for it to get lower. Still, this year we are at 6 already just from this incident, so let’s purposely overestimate and say 6 per year. As for the total number of dives, there are extremely famous caves all around the world that get year round activity. It’s hard to find hard data, but if we play it conservatively we can estimate and say 10 per day, that’s like 3650 per year. So 6/3650 -> 0.16 divers die in each cave dive.
There might be unreported deaths, but there’s also a lot of unreported dives in caves people don’t really know of and in remote areas. This dive might have gone unreported if not for the deaths (it was illegal for them to be there at that depth). And it’s important to remember, if early reports are accurate, these people were clearly not qualified to be diving at 50m, much less in a cave.
Now free diving: Number of fatalities in 2007 was 42, and the number seems to have increased slightly (52 in 2017). Data is easier to find for some reason, and plenty resources seem to indicate that the rate of death in recreational free divers is 1/500, so 0.2 deaths per each dive.
So despite inflated number for cave diving deaths, and low estimate of cave dives in a year, free diving is still more deadly.
It’s not too hard to figure out why. It’s still scuba. When cave diving you can recover from mistakes. You have information on how much air you have left, and multiple of everything you need as redundancy, and so you can sort any problems you have. There are drills you do in case you lose the guide line, for example. In free diving you are just going by feeling. If you miscalculate how much air there is in your lungs and how long it will take you to resurface, you’ll pass out and probably drown.
To be clear, I’m not saying cave diving is without risk. I myself have no interest in it because caves are boring to me, and so it’s not worth the risk which does exist. I just don’t like the over the top fear mongering I see whenever there is a story like this.
I think you should actually talk to some cave divers and I think you’ll find you are misinformed. I have and it’s ridiculously dangerous and I even had a friend who died doing it. There is a reason you have to get a separate certification for diving with structures overhead.
The only way this makes any sense to me (on a per capita basis) is because cave divers probably are way more careful because they are aware of the challenges vs. open water divers who probably find it routine and make mistakes.
You seem to be completely missing the point I was making, I just don’t know if it’s because you are just looking to argue or what.
I have talked to cave divers. All of them said these cave diving deaths were 100% human error.
I never said it’s not dangerous. Ever. I specifically said it is dangerous. Which is why you do need training, like I also mentioned… But if you are trained and have the proper equipment, then (depending on the cave) it’s not as dangerous as people make it out. The cave which lead to this conversation specifically, is also not that dangerous as far as cave diving goes. It’s “only” at 60 meters, only has 3 chambers, does not seem to have tight places you had to squeeze into. The divers who recuvered the bodies have been in caves that were 150+ meters deep, hundreds of meters long, with tight openings. But these victims went with no training, no guide line, and one tank of air. That is suicide.
Is driving a truck on a busy highway dangerous? Sure, there’s many blocks of steel weighting tons and wheezing by at very fast speeds, and it’s a more difficult vehicle to control. And there are accidents and roads deaths everyday. But if you have the training and take caution it’s relatively fine. What the cave divers here did is the equivalent of driving a heavy truck in a highway, but with no driver’s license, the truck hasn’t passed inspection, and they’re not wearing a seat belt. If someone does that, and then someone else comes along trying to use it as an excuse to talk about how dangerous it is, that would be sensationalism and fear mongering.