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About the Author: Modern Diver

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  1. Cave diving is safe as long as you follow the rules, just like flying an aircraft is a safe hobby if you get the proper training and follow rules generally it shouldn't go bad, there are adherent risks going below certain depths

  2. Cave diving is risky but how safe is it relatively to other sports? And why do we seem to think that cave divers are a suicide cult?

    The reactions that most people have to cave divin in general are based on 1) Ignorance and 2) fear

    But what are the actual statistics?

    There's been studies done from reports by DAN showing that actually trained cave diver fatalities are extremely low between 01 July 1985 and 30 June 2015 – 167. From which only 67 are for trained cave divers.

    Note that the first book on standardizing cave diving techniques and knowledge came only in 1979 in the "Basic Cave Diving: A Blueprint for Survival" handbook by cave explorer Sheck Exley. Since then training, procedures, equipment have improved dramatically. Around 70s, diving was the wild west in general. People did all sorts of crazy stuff like dive on air way past its safe limits.

    Nowadays, cave diving is very safe. In fact, safer than many other sports like american football which if not kills then injures millions. Nobody watches an american football video and says “there’s nothing in this sport worth injuring oneself for”

    Also, I want to point out that this grim reaper sign is a thing mostly in the US. In Europe, as far as I know and the caves that I have been to don't have any signage.

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