Psychology of Risk Scuba/Skydive

[blkhwk91b 0]

For shits and giggles I did a rough search of scuba diving fatalities per annum and then loosely crunched some numbers, one can deduce that scuba is equivalent or even more dangerous than skydiving.

My point is not that one is more dangerous than the other but that they are both considered high-risk due to the occurrences of fatalities.

So I ponder this: Why do you think people, generally without any hesitation, will scuba dive; but the second you try and convince them to take a tandem jump they freak out about possibly dying and there is no way in hell you could even get them close to a DZ.

I have my theory but am interested in what other perspectives are floating around out there.

"Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way." - Alan Watts

[JohnDeere 0]

I would think that most people perceive that scuba is not as dangerous as skydiving...."Whats the worst that could happen, I can swim back to the top" The ignorance of uninformed consumer

Nothing opens like a Deere!

You ignorant fool! Checks are for workers!

[skyjumpenfool 2]

Actually, I’d venture to guess (NO, I’m not doing the research) that many other sports such as Mountain Biking, and Skiing are also as dangerous if not more than sky diving.

Birdshit & Fools Productions

"Son, only two things fall from the sky."

[mrbiceps 0]

The figures that i found were that scuba has a fatality chance of 1 in 50000 dives where it seems that skydiving is 1 in 100000. So this would seem that scuba is actually more dangerous than skydiving.
Of course like any odds There is more to the picture than just numbers and if u play it safe u can obviously work the odds to your favour. The odds for me dying scuba diving are obviously different if i dive the coolidge at 70 meters on air racking up over an hour deco compared to me doing a 8 meter dive at terrigal.
Same thing goes for skydiving. The odds of me dying during a skydive are obviously different if at my jump numbers i stay on a nice big 190 canopy or if i decide to try and be a legend in my own mind and get a crossfire 109 and start swooping on it.

[spootch 0]

+1

[wmw999 2,514]

A skydive takes a minute. A scuba dive takes a whole lot longer. The first thing you have to do when defining something like risk is to define "opportunity" in a way that makes sense, and that allows an honest comparison.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[Harmless 0]

I've always thought a skydive took a half hour... and have always felt that the take off was the most dangerous part. I still get nervous when I have to land in the plane

"Damn you Gravity, you win again"

[NWFlyer 2]

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I would think that most people perceive that scuba is not as dangerous as skydiving...."Whats the worst that could happen, I can swim back to the top" The ignorance of uninformed consumer

Yep. I tell people I scuba dive and they think it's cool and not out of the norm at all. I tell people I skydive and they think I'm some sort of crazy-ass daredevil.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[blkhwk91b 0]

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Yep. I tell people I scuba dive and they think it's cool and not out of the norm at all. I tell people I skydive and they think I'm some sort of crazy-ass daredevil.

Exactly what I was trying to get at. The perspective of the average Joe on the street that has probably done neither.

"Scuba! Hell Yeah let's go!"
"Skydiving!? WTF, you are out of your damn mind!!"

"Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way." - Alan Watts

[riggerpaul 1]

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Yep. I tell people I scuba dive and they think it's cool and not out of the norm at all. I tell people I skydive and they think I'm some sort of crazy-ass daredevil.

Exactly what I was trying to get at. The perspective of the average Joe on the street that has probably done neither.

"Scuba! Hell Yeah let's go!"
"Skydiving!? WTF, you are out of your damn mind!!"

I think that you have to look at the whole "fear of falling" issue.

Scuba diving is related to swimming. And lots of people swim, and so are not wildly fearful of water. In addition, some will tell you that our prenatal immersion helps us to handle fears of water. (I don't know, but it seems plausible to me.)

Not saying this is a correct attitude. Only saying that it is common.

But, fear of falling is big for most people.

Though you can acclimate to it to a great degree, look what happens when you take a break from skydiving. The fear of falling issues come right back.

Most of us likely had fear of falling issues in our first few jumps, or even more than the first few.

It just goes to show how ingrained the fear of falling is, and overcoming it is a pretty big deal.

[fasted3 0]

Here we go with odds again...
All things being equal, then...
But they are not equal with either activity. Scuba can vary even more than skydiving, IMO, depending on what your 'discipline' is, yet the numbers all drop into the same hat. Cave diving, deep and mixed gas, going in wrecks, all much more dangerous than average SCUBA, and possibly riskier than average skydiving, but if you keep it shallow and simple, it's really pretty safe compared to skydiving. Weather is a major factor in both activities as well, as are gear choices and attitude.

But what do I know?

[skydiver30960 0]

I've been a skydiver for 13 years and a scuba diver for about two. One observation I've noticed so far:

While it may be a greater or lesser phenomenon depending on what DZ you go to, being a skydiver immerses you in what I have come to call a "culture of safety." Skydivers are taught from the beginning of their careers to make safety something that absolutely permeates their sport. Our training, our rituals, even our discussions while hanging around the DZ between jumps often have to do with the safety of our sport. We work very hard to assess and mitigate risk in this sport. When I started scuba diving I expected the same thing, and was disappointed in what I found. Without a doubt, I feel I received good and safe training from my scuba instructors, and I don't feel my dive buddies are absolutely unsafe, per se. But I find that scuba diving has a much less permeating culture of safety that what I have found in skydiving.

People I dive with push the limits on depth, they disregard their computers or tables, they are shoddy in their equipment checks. And I see it everywhere I dive and everyone I dive with; it's not just the local folks. I, being such a detail oriented bastard from over a decade of skydiving, instructing, and rigging, often find myself being the bad guy by reminding my wife that the examples set by our dive buddies are not good ones. But I can think of specific examples from my skydiving career where something as simple as a gear check may have saved a life that I refuse to allow me or my wife to be lost to complacency.

Elvisio "in either sport, running out of air sucks" Rodriguez

[andyvaughn 0]

I'm the exact opposite of the post above, I've been a scuba diver for 16 years, and skydiving for about 3 nanoseconds - it never once sent shock waves of terror spinning thru me to get underwater, under any conditions. But I go thru severe psychological warfare trying to get myself out the door of the plane. Like it was mirrored before, most people swim, are familiar and comfortable around water. And, they aren't informed, unless they scuba dive, on the risks. It's so against our instincts to leave a plane and fly, yet it's built into our very body makeup to be attracted to water. I noticed after my first tandem and my first AFP, I had a very hard time remembering what the hell had happened, and I may be wrong about this, but my theory is my nervous system couldn't recognize the events as it had no frame of reference, and was desperately just trying to compute WTF was going on! And I couldn't even imagine in my prejump fantasy what it was going to be like, my brain wouldn't allow it.

[fasted3 0]

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scuba diving has a much less permeating culture of safety that what I have found in skydiving.

I agree with you. Commercial divers do have the safety culture, and when I'd go Scuba diving for fun I'd be amazed at what those crazy suckers would do.
To the next post: I did manage to scare myself that bad underwater a time or two, but I agree with you too.

But what do I know?

[novacaine 0]

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I've been a skydiver for 13 years and a scuba diver for about two. One observation I've noticed so far:

While it may be a greater or lesser phenomenon depending on what DZ you go to, being a skydiver immerses you in what I have come to call a "culture of safety." Skydivers are taught from the beginning of their careers to make safety something that absolutely permeates their sport. Our training, our rituals, even our discussions while hanging around the DZ between jumps often have to do with the safety of our sport. We work very hard to assess and mitigate risk in this sport. When I started scuba diving I expected the same thing, and was disappointed in what I found. Without a doubt, I feel I received good and safe training from my scuba instructors, and I don't feel my dive buddies are absolutely unsafe, per se. But I find that scuba diving has a much less permeating culture of safety that what I have found in skydiving.

People I dive with push the limits on depth, they disregard their computers or tables, they are shoddy in their equipment checks. And I see it everywhere I dive and everyone I dive with; it's not just the local folks. I, being such a detail oriented bastard from over a decade of skydiving, instructing, and rigging, often find myself being the bad guy by reminding my wife that the examples set by our dive buddies are not good ones. But I can think of specific examples from my skydiving career where something as simple as a gear check may have saved a life that I refuse to allow me or my wife to be lost to complacency.

Elvisio "in either sport, running out of air sucks" Rodriguez

I've spent 15 years working in the scuba industry, and I have seen much changes in the sport. The biggest problem I see, is the lack of respect for safety.
PADI does acknowledge the need for more focus on safety. Yet, it is still not a topic that PADI likes to discuss, sometimes comparing the safety to Golf.

Here is a thought for all you scuba divers out there; How many O-Rings does your 1st Stage have? 2nd Stage? SCR/CCR?

I take comfort in knowing, that I can inspect about 90% of my Vector during packing. Whereas, in scuba I can do about 20% without the need to strip it down, a task that does have its risks.

To the OP, both sports have risks. Until people get over that initial fear of falling, I don't think scuba & skydiving will be on the same level of acceptance.

[Travman 6]

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The figures that i found were that scuba has a fatality chance of 1 in 50000 dives where it seems that skydiving is 1 in 100000. So this would seem that scuba is actually more dangerous than skydiving.

Number of skydivers per day 6-8
Number of SCUBA per day 2 maybe 3

With skydiving you put yourself in a fatal situation when you exit the plane.
With SCUBA the risks increases as you descend, if there is an issue early on it is easy to abort.

Skydiving - bad staff happens quick! The difference between fatality and perfect landing is not that much.
SCUBA - bad staff happens more slowly. More time to think, react. If you get the bends you go in a re compression chamber for a few hours or so.
If you get stuck in the corner of a swoop you go to hospital for a few months, or worse.

I think you are probably more like to get injured playing rugby, ice hockey etc but certainly more likely to be killed skydiving or SCUBA diving.

[Squeak 17]

that's not hard to figure out.

Personal references, and identifiers

Most people have been in water deeper than they can stand, so they have a reference.
Very few people have any form of reference for skydiving.



It's like motorcar racing Vs Motorbike Racing.

Car racing is far more popular as there are far more people who have a reference for cars, less so for motorbikes.

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[blkhwk91b 0]

My theory was also along the line of familiarity with water as a human.

I find it interesting the blindness to fatality statistics when the average Joe wants to Scuba but in the same breath that will be the first thing they use to rebut going skydiving.

Maybe it's just how my brain functions when I'm bored at work but if you have a 1 in whatever chance of dying..........your still dead no matter the delivery method.

Right, wrong, or indifferent, I thought it was an interesting thing to ponder.

"Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way." - Alan Watts

[Travman 6]

Yeah I agree with what you are saying. If wind tunnels were common place and cheap enough that people were as familiar with them as going to the beach to swim and snorkel (we can only dream) then perhaps skydiving wouldn't seem as extreme.

[RustyOats 0]

I'd rather go SPLAT than drown!!

[BIGUN 1,388]

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Why do you think people, generally without any hesitation, will scuba dive; but the second you try and convince them to take a tandem jump they freak out about possibly dying and there is no way in hell you could even get them close to a DZ.

It's an associative process. For most, there is a frame of reference between all the memories of swimming and scuba.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[Guru312 0]

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My point is not that one is more dangerous than the other but that they are both considered high-risk due to the occurrences of fatalities.

What may amaze everyone here is that cheerleading is MUCH more dangerous than either sky or SCUBA diving.

My daughter does competition cheering. I researched both cheering and skydiving. I was very surprised that many more deaths and serious injury from cheering.

Of course, she has my D4DR genes so she'll be doing skydiving, SCUBA, BASE and all the other crazy shit that I did, or still want to do.

It was difficult watching her cheer; it'll be difficult watching her jump in 11 months.

Guru312

I am not DB Cooper

[Martini 0]

Most people seem surprised when I say that between skydiving, BASE, SCUBA, climbing and snowboarding that SCUBA seems for me to be the highest risk. Statistics aren't neccessarily useful, how do you compare one five-minute skydive to one hour-plus SCUBA dive? Are you an "average" Joe? Complex sports, simple perceptions. In any case it ain't tiddlywinks kids.

Sometimes you eat the bear..............

[halorob 0]

Some peoples bodies handle diving alot better than others too. As long as you follow the charts and have a plan diving is pretty safe. As soon as I strap on a closed circuit rig thats when I start to worry. I often find myself thinking that I'd rather be skydiving when I'm underwater. If people understood skydiving gear better they would probably feel more comfortable. By the way I am in Aqaba, Jordan right now and the Red Sea is rediculous! Beautiful diving.

[remibond 0]

+1

i'm fairly new to skydiving and i don't claim to know much about SCUBA, but i find the idea of jumping out of a plane a far less terrifying one than going SCUBA diving. it may just be the thought of a watery grave, but i'm far happier in the air than in the water...though i can't swim so that could have something to do with it

either way, assuming gear is good for both sports, you have a lot less time to fuck shit up during a jump, which to me means less opportunity to die through human error.

so for me, skydiving = , SCUBA diving =