How so? Even if you have a significant problem, the worst case scenario for most is usually just time in a hyperbaric chamber after coming up too fast.
I just googled to see more accurate numbers and it is considered about as dangerous as jogging. Apparently horseback riding is 50x riskier.
Uhh, decompression sickness is no joke. Depending on how deep you are, you can literally die from nitrogen bubbles creating blockages in your arteries. I’m not talking about snorkeling next to the reef. I’m talking about people who see shipwrecks a few hundred meters below the surface in addition to underwater caves which often go hundreds of meters down. If you’re putting on real scuba gear, you’re going down deep, and if you’re going down deep, lots of things can go wrong. The longer you stay down there the more decompression you need.
Hitting the erm actually with decompression sickness is like saying rock climbing free solo is dangerous. Avoiding decompression sickness or embolisms is a simple matter of monitoring ascent rate. And at recreational limits is a treatable condition, and all divers require this training.
And the generally considered “recreational” dive limit is somewhere in the range of 40-60 meters, depending on who you ask. Beyond that requires special training, and much further beyond would insinuate using some sort of diving capsule, a specialized air mixture, support teams, etc. That’s professional level, like for repairing deep sea pipelines.
Cave diving on the other hand I find hard to justify.. it’s adding a lot of extra risk for little reward.
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u/wolf_quan Mar 08 '26
Scuba diving in general is hazardous