non-fatal incident statistics

[veter_ 0]

Is there any? We all know the fatality rate is about 1 death in ~100K jumps. How many jumps, on average, end up in broken bone(s)? How many leave the jumper crippled for life?

This statistics would be especially useful for newbies, since we tend to persuade ourselves that skydiving is "safe".

My impression is that about 50% of skydivers have broken bones. What's you guesstimate?


PS. I have my both wrists and the tailbone broken by hitting the edge of the runway on my 42nd landing. The irony is, I persuaded my whuffo colleagues and friends how safe skydiving is just the day before.

But I'm back

[billvon 2,435]

> Is there any?

Nothing formal. USPA does not push very hard for reporting of minor injuries, and the only forums that record such data are informal ones, like the Incidents forum here.

>My impression is that about 50% of skydivers have broken bones.
>What's you guesstimate?

Sounds about right.

[BIGUN 1,075]

Of that 50%, probably 95% of them were preventable.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[tombuch 0]

Quote

Is there any? We all know the fatality rate is about 1 death in ~100K jumps. How many jumps, on average, end up in broken bone(s)? How many leave the jumper crippled for life?

PS. I have my both wrists and the tailbone broken by hitting the edge of the runway on my 42nd landing. The irony is, I persuaded my whuffo colleagues and friends how safe skydiving is just the day before.

But I'm back

Sorry about your accident, and sorry you were not active when The Ranch had their Safety Day early in the season. I presented some interesting statistics at that meeting that address your question about injury rates.

First, national numbers are very tough to come by. USPA has a question on the membership renewal form asking about doctor visits in the past year. The USPA membership reported a four year average of one doctor visit related to skydiving for every 22 members.

My drop zone keeps careful records of total jump numbers broken down by either members (experienced jumpers) or students, with student participation further broken down by tandem or IAF. We also know how many members the club has, and the average number of jumps each member makes. In addition to all that, we know how many ambulance calls we have.

I have not compiled numbers from 2004 yet, so what I'm presenting here are the numbers from the 2003 season, as discussed at our Safety Day last April. Statistics will vary between drop zones.

In 2003 the national fatality rate was 1:83,468 jumps (estimated by USPA), and the rate per member was 1:1,305.

In 2003 our drop zone reported an ambulance call for every 2,989 jumps. That is about 1 ambulance call for every 149 Otter loads. When students are filtered out of the jump numbers and ambulance calls (an inexact process), we find an annual ambulance response rate of roughly 1 for every 41 registered club members (experienced jumpers).

Another interesting statistic was developed based on 2002 accident data reported by the local rescue squad. According to their run sheets, 27 percent of our ambulance calls were for accidents off the drop zone. Of course only a very tiny percentage of our jumps involved landings off the drop zone, so we focused on off-field landings as an area that needed specific improvement. The 2003 numbers showed some progress, and I think our 2004 numbers will be even better. For a quick review of the hazards of off field landings, please see article 16 at http://ranchskydive.com/safety/index.htm. You will probably find many other topics of interest in the collection of S&TA features.

In 2004 we seemed to have a large number of landing related injuries in the student and recent graduate categories, including your butt strike on the edge of the runway. I think part of that may be related to the use of tandems as training jumps, or more specifically, it may be related to the way we integrate tandems into our training program. While I can’t comment directly about the specific fatality or your accident, I did look at canopy control instruction as a contributing factor in many student accidents and fatalities at our DZ and around the country. I touched on some of the training issues in a thread at http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=1317166;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_collapsed;;page=unread#unread. I think some of the training issues discussed may be relevant to your accident too.

So, there you have some quick statistics about injuries, buried in a much longer post about safety in general. I may offer a statistical review of 2004 at The Ranch Safety Day this spring, or I may instead focus on aircraft and airspace issues.

Tom Buchanan
Instructor Emeritus
Comm Pilot MSEL,G
Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

[veter_ 0]

Tom, thanks a lot! Very interesting numbers. Looking forward to Safety Day :)