Like one, I assume tandem has a higher incident rate, and also that first time divers has a higher rate as well.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9859333/#:~:tex...
As I understand it, single beginner jumps are more dangerous than tandems with experienced jumpers which are more dangerous than experienced singletons. However, I don't think there is a significant difference overall. But in this study, there is no such data other than the overall statistics.
When I skydived it was tandem, so at least I would be going out with someone who was experienced. I would probably do it again if I wasn't married with a child.
For skydivers in the sport - this task is not terrifying anymore. It is the same as driving a car. You know shit can happen, but the more open you keep your eyes and check everything, the less likely anything is going to happen.
> For skydivers in the sport - this task is not terrifying anymore.
Yes, I understand. I meant that the stranger who you are strapped to is inevitably, unavoidably terrified.
Like this jump location, for example.
This suffers from the same issue as saying "200 years ago the life expectancy was 35".
Most of the people who die skydiving are inexperienced, reckless, or both. They are not the sort of people who are likely to make it to 1700 jumps.
If you say "among people who have survived 1700 skydives, how many died skydiving before reaching 3400?" I bet you will find it to be even safer.
https://www.uspa.org/about-uspa/uspa-news/uspa-posthumously-...
Edit: If the statistics held the same for him, at 46,000 jumps he had a 99% chance of dying from a failure.
A big problem is that when numbers change quickly, median numbers, or even average numbers, don't immediately capture that change. It can take YEARS for the real stats to come out.
That being said, it is absolutely ridiculous that this has become the drama it has. Federal departments should be given lawyers and be allowed to go after people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1nXjPhGrwY&t=2943s&pp=ygUZb...
That sounds implausibly high to me? When I click through I see:
There are general risks of surgery: wound infection 7%, bone infection 1%, painful scar (5%), blood clot in the leg or lung 1%, Complex regional Pain Syndrome(lasting debilitating pain) 1%, bone healing problems 1%, amputation 0.01%, death 0.01%.
Amputation and death are really both 0.01%?
Even mild may involve removal of bone and realignment of muscles, tendons, and ligaments surrounding the joint.
Source: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-t...
6 weeks later, he was getting amputated above the knee due to sepsis - had he left it another week or two, he’d be dead.
I've had some ankle fractures I didn't know about in the past, thankfully they didn't lead to more than a few weeks of inactivity, but have had absolutely miserable infections from a mild shin scrape and achillies cut.
Tragic really, he worked in a sharpening factory and spent his life doing this as a career, had many cuts and wounds over his years and a completely invisible injury took almost his entire leg.
I'm a skydiving instructor, btw, with about 2,000 jumps.
Skydiving is remarkably safe considering all the factors involved. That's primarily for two reasons: The gear and the training
* Like anything in aviation, the gear has iterated over the years to be very safe. Skydiving in the early days was less safe. We have better gear now that has made it much safer. Same for aviation: Airplanes have a lot of safety features that they didn't have decades ago, and fatalities and incidents in general are extremely rare.
* Training has come a long way as well, with a more standardized curriculum and like the gear, iterations over the decade to address weak points. Procedures have been developed so when faced with a situation, we can react instead of analyze. Problem solving in the sky is not a good option. So the likely things that could happen, we have procedures for that we memorize. They're simple for solo skydivers, and a bit more complicated for a tandem instructor.
With well maintained gear and proper currency on procedures, skydiving is very safe. The most common issues are sprained ankles or broken wrists from band landings.
So what causes the deaths?
Like the rest of aviation, we are the biggest risk factors: Human error.
One of the leading reasons why skydivers are killed is a sport called "swooping", which is spinning a parachute to build speed and planning out right above the ground. It's a sport with very little margin for error. 10 feet can meant the difference of dragging your toe across the water for an epic video clip or a broken femur (or worse). In skydiving, femur is a verb. "I heard so-and-so femured". Do a Google search on it and you can see both why swooping is appealing the practitioners and also dangerous as fuck.
A tandem jump doesn't involve swooping. So by virtue of being a tandem passenger, the leading cause of death of skydivers is eliminated. Lumping all skydives together from a risk perspective doesn't make much sense, given the wide variety of risks associated with various types of skydiving. Tandem skydives, while not risk free, are among the least risky skydives done.
The death of the 18 year old tandem passenger at Lodi was essentially human error. The tandem instructor had a malfunction (the drogue didn't inflate) and didn't react according to the training developed. There was a whole controversy about how the instructor examiner didn't train the new instructors correctly and just signed them off anyway. The death was sadly mostly a failure of training and procedures. The gear malfunctioned, as all gear can, but the proper procedures likely would've resulted in a mildly interesting story told over beers instead of a tragedy.
If better data collection was mandated, similar to GA pilot logbooks, we would be able to back up your personal knowledge with hard figures. However, we are stuck using general epidemiological data.
You are definitely right about swooping though.
https://parachutist.com/Article/rating-corner-why-are-tandem...
However, there is definitely the possibility of death from jumping out of an airplane and I don't think any reasonable person would think there isn't.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9859333/#:~:tex....
https://edinburghorthopaedics.org/media/cfikoe2l/bunion-corr...