Some thoughts on danger. Two me there are two kinds of accidents that happen in every sport or activity. #1 I will call stupid accidents from doing something stupid yourself like deciding to go for max dynamic in a pool with no buddy and no lifeguard, or speeding late at night after a few drinks of alcohol. #2 I will call random accidents from something happening to you beyond your immidiate control, like having a drunk driver cross into your lane right towrd you or renting SCUBA gear and having the regulator which checked out fine on the boat freeze up underwater.
I have found it very useful looking at how dangerous overall an activity typically is like how many people die per year per 1000 participants (sometimes you have to take and educated guess about this) and then look at what % of accidents are stupid and what % are random. I am a very careful person so my risk of stupid accidents is say 100 times less than typical person. My risk of random accidents is the same as for others (maybe a bit less if I am more prepared).
So when I look at different sports and their dangers I look at my own risk from above. For example I no longer white water kayak as I have seen many expert kayakers being very careful drown and feel 50% to 75% of kayak deaths are mainly random causes. I also don't parachute as though this sport is statistically much safer than kayaking the risks are almost 99% random (assuming you have someone else pack your parachute). Freediving is the exact opposite, it is fairly dangerous though 99% of deaths are from doing something stupid (not that the people who died were stupid, if you could ask them after they died or not was what they did was stupid/ignoratnt I think 99% of them would say yes). So for me being very careful freediving is much much safer than for the typical person. It may seem wrong for me to say this and claim I know this as maybe I am wrong and aren't being careful and will die tomorrow freediving and there is not much way to say for sure that I am right or wrong as there is very limited data for freediving, however from kiteboarding I know that my carefulness has helped me avoid many serious injuries and accidents that my friends who were less careful had while kiteboarding.
So the point of all this is that if you are a very careful person you will greatly limit your risk of stupid accidents and if your are more casual you will increase you risk of stupid accidents while both will have the same risk of random accidents. So figure out which you are or want to be and look at your activites and evaluate risks from this. Another little story here, Chuck Yeager was an US Air Force test pilot which was probably the most dangerous job ever, the average test pilot died after 3 years or something like that. Chuck was very very careful and was injured only once when he ejected and the explosive charge randomly fell on him while he floated down on his parachute and burned his face. While Chuck was flying backup in another plane for others (like being a buddy freediving) none of those people he was safety for ever were injured either. This is statistically amost impossible so proves to me that most accidents being a test pilot are not random but stupid (though this is different than many people's viewpoints).
Another point of this is that if most freediving accidents are stupid than most are avoidable as well so seems very good this talk of safety protocols we all should follow and develop. Cheers Wes
I have found it very useful looking at how dangerous overall an activity typically is like how many people die per year per 1000 participants (sometimes you have to take and educated guess about this) and then look at what % of accidents are stupid and what % are random. I am a very careful person so my risk of stupid accidents is say 100 times less than typical person. My risk of random accidents is the same as for others (maybe a bit less if I am more prepared).
So when I look at different sports and their dangers I look at my own risk from above. For example I no longer white water kayak as I have seen many expert kayakers being very careful drown and feel 50% to 75% of kayak deaths are mainly random causes. I also don't parachute as though this sport is statistically much safer than kayaking the risks are almost 99% random (assuming you have someone else pack your parachute). Freediving is the exact opposite, it is fairly dangerous though 99% of deaths are from doing something stupid (not that the people who died were stupid, if you could ask them after they died or not was what they did was stupid/ignoratnt I think 99% of them would say yes). So for me being very careful freediving is much much safer than for the typical person. It may seem wrong for me to say this and claim I know this as maybe I am wrong and aren't being careful and will die tomorrow freediving and there is not much way to say for sure that I am right or wrong as there is very limited data for freediving, however from kiteboarding I know that my carefulness has helped me avoid many serious injuries and accidents that my friends who were less careful had while kiteboarding.
So the point of all this is that if you are a very careful person you will greatly limit your risk of stupid accidents and if your are more casual you will increase you risk of stupid accidents while both will have the same risk of random accidents. So figure out which you are or want to be and look at your activites and evaluate risks from this. Another little story here, Chuck Yeager was an US Air Force test pilot which was probably the most dangerous job ever, the average test pilot died after 3 years or something like that. Chuck was very very careful and was injured only once when he ejected and the explosive charge randomly fell on him while he floated down on his parachute and burned his face. While Chuck was flying backup in another plane for others (like being a buddy freediving) none of those people he was safety for ever were injured either. This is statistically amost impossible so proves to me that most accidents being a test pilot are not random but stupid (though this is different than many people's viewpoints).
Another point of this is that if most freediving accidents are stupid than most are avoidable as well so seems very good this talk of safety protocols we all should follow and develop. Cheers Wes