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brodg

Is skydiving really safe?

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dthames


You can find the numbers on a "micromort" chart. 9 micromorts per jump by US stats. 230 miles per micromort, driving....if you can believe the Internet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort



Against all odds, I learned something in a DZ.com thread! Thanks dthames, I never had heard of a micromort, and that wikipedia article is a great and valuable starting point for any discussion of relative risk. The skydiving numbers in the article (both USPA and BPA) seemed reasonable.

I thought it interesting that the US DOT prices a micromort at $6.20

I also wondered about the micromort of a single tandem skydive. If that was only 1 - 2 micromorts, I think you could call a tandem skydive safe, because it close to the baseline of 1 micromort of all non-natural deaths we face every day.
It's flare not flair, brakes not breaks, bridle not bridal, "could NOT care less" not "could care less".

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I couldn't be bothered to read this entire thread as I have a 'significant' dislike against statistics in skydiving. So my apologies if my point has already be made:

It just isn't that easy.

The risk depends not just on the number of jumps, but also on a lot of other factors. Examples:
The weather conditions, the currency of the jumper, the type of canopy, the time in the sport, wingloading, experience in the type of jump, jumper personality, knowledge of local hazards, the complexity of the jump, the number of others involved, fatigue, etc.

For instance, a jumper has 2000 jumps. The last 250 are spread out over five years and are all small way CReW on a Lightning 160. Now they are going for their first WS jump and they have to travel to a DZ they have not visited before in oreder to get the necessary coaching. A buddy loans them a Katana 126, packed in a rig on which the handles are located just this much higher than the CReW dog is used to. It's a swooping rig, so there is no RSL or AAD. The winds are high and the spot is long and off heading. The jump takes place over hilly terrain with small outs.

This is entirely fictional and hopefully quite far-fetched, but I've heard about shit that's way more stupid than anything I could come up with.

On the other hand a 100-jump wonder on student gear makes a jump at their home DZ, which boasts a huge landing area. It's going to be a two-way coaching jump with outside video.

Who is taking the bigger risk? And how are you going to factor in all the possible variables in these precious statistics?

Skydiving is what it is; Awesome, but there is risk involved. All you can do is use your common sense and try to mitigate part of that risk as best you can.
"That formation-stuff in freefall is just fun and games but with an open parachute it's starting to sound like, you know, an extreme sport."
~mom

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http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States

http://www.uspa.org/AboutSkydiving/SkydivingSafety/tabid/526/Default.aspx


Ok so it's closer than I thought, but with 1.5 deaths per 100,000,000 miles driven on average. If my wife and I drive 65 miles each way to the dz, that's 130 miles. (130/100,000,000)x1.5 gives you the statistical probability of dying on the way there or back. .0000013

Then in 2013, you have 24 skydiving deaths out if 3.2million jumps.
So 24/3,200,000 gives you .0000075.

So I stand corrected. You'd have to drive roughly 400 miles to equal one jump statistically.

However I think there are a number of fucking morons and people committing suicide that can more easily skew a smaller sample. So if only 24 people in 2013 died skydiving, (I'll have to look this up) how many were suspected suicide no pulls? How many were low cutaway, reserve not quite open? All I'm saying is if you stack your cards right I fell the risk can be substantially smaller. If I go in, it'll be a dust devil at 100 ft or something I couldn't have thought of. Not because I wanted to pull low for fun(like an AFF student this weekend, that the instructor pulled for him, and then he chopped because he wanted a little more free fall, oh and he had line twists. No joke. These people skew statistics. He landed off and left the rig and reserve there. Yeah)

Bottom line, i misspoke and, yes statistically driving is safer than skydiving. But wouldn't that take the fun out of it if it wasn't?
I was that kid jumping out if his tree house with a bed sheet. My dad wouldn't let me use the ladder to try the roof...

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Alexg3265

However I think there are a number of fucking morons and people committing suicide that can more easily skew a smaller sample. So if only 24 people in 2013 died skydiving, (I'll have to look this up) how many were suspected suicide no pulls? How many were low cutaway, reserve not quite open? All I'm saying is if you stack your cards right I fell the risk can be substantially smaller. If I go in, it'll be a dust devil at 100 ft or something I couldn't have thought of. Not because I wanted to pull low for fun(like an AFF student this weekend, that the instructor pulled for him, and then he chopped because he wanted a little more free fall, oh and he had line twists. No joke. These people skew statistics. He landed off and left the rig and reserve there. Yeah)



Thanks for the reply. I've said all I'm going to on this topic, but thought I'd leave the annual fatality reports here for anyone interested. The USPA provides a detailed report annually on the circumstances surrounding each fatality: http://parachutistonline.com/category/tags/fatality-summary. Definitely good to read over each year's report to get a feel for what circumstances lead to fatalities, and to think about how you might handle being in the same situation. You might also be able to get a feel for the numbers involved in possible suicide/intentional no pull incidents here.

Has that AFF student been banned from the DZ? I wouldn't want to be anywhere near them in the air if that's how they behave while still in training.

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Skydiving is not safe. People die. Naked skydiving is safe. No one has ever died on a naked skydive. This makes naked jumping infinitely safer than textiled jumping. ;)

Peace,
-Dawson.
http://www.SansSuit.com
The Society for the Advancement of Naked Skydiving

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SansSuit

Skydiving is not safe. People die. Naked skydiving is safe. No one has ever died on a naked skydive. This makes naked jumping infinitely safer than textiled jumping. ;)



Good point. However I did have to carry one very busted up naked skydiver down a mountain once at Lost Prairie, but that's a story for another day.:P

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Your Math is simply wrong.
According to your Math the Risk of dying would be higher each jump until it reaches 7.5% on your 10000th Jump. That is not the case, its still the same risk from the first to the last Jump.
You can try it by throughing a dice. The statistics tell that you have chance of getting one 6 out of 6 tries. This would mean if you have 5 times a 1,2,3,4 or 5 the chance rises to 100% on the 6th try. This is obvisouly not true. QED

Martin

Take care up there!

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brodg

If everyone has the same chance of dying per jump and you want to do 10.000 jumps in your life, you have a 7.5% chance of getting killed! How fucked up is that?

Another funny way to see it is that by every jump you make you are buying 1.950 lottery tickets, if one of them hits the jackpot you're a goner. We can put it a million different ways, but you get the idea.



Your chance of death remains at .0000075, for every jump.

Every time you buy your lotto ticket, your odds are the same. Your chance do not increase as you keep on playing.

Over the years I have made the rough calc that a person dies for every 100 000 jumps, and mainly nowadays due to canopy flight. (My opinion)

As for insurance, how they calc it I don't know, but.... When asking for prices on life insurance, it actually increases the higher the rating. Thus, the student pays less than the c-lic. Why I don't know.

The real answer: It's not safe. (Thats why there is 3.2 million jumps every year.):D:D:D
You have the right to your opinion, and I have the right to tell you how Fu***** stupid it is.
Davelepka - "This isn't an x-box, or a Chevy truck forum"
Whatever you do, don't listen to ChrisD.

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skyjumpenfool

I drive my ZX14 to and from the DZ. Can one of you "number cruncher" type dudes please access the probability of me living to age 60? B|

according to my calculations, you died 6.3 years ago
scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

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cgriff

What are the odds of people reading the discussion before responding to the OP?



What are the odds that the OP has decided that "Dorkzone is nothing but a bunch of tools, jerks and assholes.
He hasn't posted in any other threads and hasn't posted in this one in a while.

Of course, HE is the one who came on here, and in his first post decided to lecture everyone on "How dangerous it is" using really faulty statistics and even more flawed premises. 10000 jumps is 3 or 4 times a "normal" career and no two jumpers are facing the same level or risk, even the same jumper faces different levels of risk on different jumps.

He seemed a bit "put out" that we didn't fall at his feet, thanking him for pointing out these really important things that we didn't have any idea of (we really need a "sarcasm font).
"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

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skyjumpenfool

I drive my ZX14 to and from the DZ. Can one of you "number cruncher" type dudes please access the probability of me living to age 60? B|



According to this link provided earlier in this thread.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort

You get one micro-mort per 6 miles of driving a motorcycle. So it really depends on how far you travel. 54 miles on a motorcycle equals one skydive.

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The downfall about the micromort (and any descriptive statistics) is that it assumes equal risk and no influence of that risk.

The wiki article couldn't have summed it up better: "Micromorts for future activities can only be rough assessments..."

Personally I think the better way to look at it is by thinking, "which of the factors within the sport influence risk the most?" rather than trying to just assess general risk.

You can't really analyze this stuff scientifically, because I doubt anyone would want to do low turns just to find out how many it takes before s/he dies :P. But you can categorize historical data if you have it and get an idea of what's contributing most to the risk.

So I've attached several categorical histograms. It's not an analysis, just a representation of numbers and anyone can interpret it differently.

Data from USPA (years not known)
number of fatality reports: 106

***
I drive my ZX14 to and from the DZ. Can one of you "number cruncher" type dudes please access the probability of me living to age 60? Cool


The magic 8-b.... I mean the statistics say it isn't good. xD
"I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather be a majestic eagle riding a missile across the sky with sparklers than be an old couch potato." - Jack London (paraphrased)

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I .... Cannot. My head hurts. The math fail just hurts so terribly. ;)

I have cancer, and I jumping my way through treatment. I just had a bilateral mastectomy August 18th, so I am out for 6 weeks, but I am still jumping through chemo. Drs give me a 95% chance of living 10 years. My prognosis is excellent.

There is a 100% chance I will die in this lifetime. I do not know when, where, or how, most of us do not. ALL I know is that I can die from cancer, cancer treatment, skydiving, walking through a darn wal mart parking lot...

While all of these things are trying to kill me, I am going to LIVE. I will make the best choices I can each day, do my best to increase my safety, and have zero regrets.

Skydiver Survivor; Battling Breast Cancer one jump at a time. DX June 19th 2014
I have been jumping since October 5th 2013.
https://pinkribbonskydiver.wordpress.com/

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FreefallingCari

I .... Cannot. My head hurts. The math fail just hurts so terribly. ;)

I have cancer, and I jumping my way through treatment. I just had a bilateral mastectomy August 18th, so I am out for 6 weeks, but I am still jumping through chemo. Drs give me a 95% chance of living 10 years. My prognosis is excellent.

There is a 100% chance I will die in this lifetime. I do not know when, where, or how, most of us do not. ALL I know is that I can die from cancer, cancer treatment, skydiving, walking through a darn wal mart parking lot...

While all of these things are trying to kill me, I am going to LIVE. I will make the best choices I can each day, do my best to increase my safety, and have zero regrets.



Love the outlook! There are those that say you only live once; but I'd disagree - you only die once! You get to live every day have no clue if some evil disease is gonna nail you, some fucktard on the highway is gonna wipe me off my bike, the building is gonna collapse or a zombie apocalypse is gonna happen. As many have said, no its not safe, but then again nothing is - so live your life, enjoy and treat others with respect - even if they are a zombie fucktard reaper! When I arrive at my destination one day, I know I'll arrive having lived my life to the max

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