Mortality rate during professionally guided scuba diving experiences for uncertified divers, 1992–2019

Abstract

Introduction: The aim of this study was to re-examine the mortality rate among participants in the Professional Association of Diving Instructors’ (PADI)’s Discover Scuba Diving (DSD) programme. Methods: Fatalities reported to PADI as having occurred during DSD scuba dives were counted for each year between 1992 and 2019. DSD participant registrations were also counted for each year. The data were conveniently divided into two equal 14-year periods, 1992−2005 (‘early’) and 2006−2019 (‘late’). To smooth out the year-to-year variation in raw rates, Monte Carlo simulations were performed on the mean rate per 100,000 participants per year during each period. Results: There were a total of 7,118,731 DSD participant registrations and 79 fatalities during the study period. The estimated overall mean mortality rate in the early period was 2.55 per 100,000 DSD registrations whereas the estimated rate of 0.87 per 100,000 DSD registrations was significantly lower in the late period (P < 0.0001). Conclusions: PADI’s contemporary Discover Scuba Diving introductory scuba experiences, at 0.87 fatalities per 100,000 participants, have a calculated mortality rate that is less than half that calculated for 1992−2008. The late period’s rate improvement appears due either to significant under-registration in the early period, or to significant safety-performance improvement in the late period or, more likely, some combination of the two.