Dyadic Adjustment & Personality Traits in Cave Divers: Link to approved dissertation

A great and very important behavioural work, very original in the respected field.
Cudos to Bill.

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Originally Posted by Superlyte27

I'd like to know where Jill got her data for this claim. By 2007, in America alone,
there were 368 cave diving fatalities (Buzzacott, Zeigler, Denoble, & Vann, 2009). The
documentary Ben’s Votex (Heinerth & McClellan, 2012) describes how cave diving has
the highest ratio of death per overall participants of any extreme sport,

Since just 2004, there have been 559 Sky Diving fatalities. Granted there are 35,000 sky divers, but 368 deaths since 1970 (Cave Diving), versus 559 deaths since 2004 (Sky Diving), I don't think the math adds up. I would really like to know where Jill's data came from, or was it just some pie in the sky made up number like, "1 in 11 rebreathers sold results in a fatality".

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I believe the quote was that cave diving has the highest fatality rate PER ATTEMPT of sports. That would be number of deaths per 1 million cave dives (vs per 1 million jumps).

The fatality numbers seem to be in line with those quoted on the IUCRR site.
http://www.iucrr.org/fatalities.pdf

It doesn't say that. It says per participant.
And I'm guessing the numbers are correct for number of deaths since the the early 60's. But, 350'ish deaths in 40+ years from what 5000+ cave divers? Or 550'ish Skydiver deaths since 2004 from 35,000 sky divers.

what the question should be is: What makes a cave diver to begin with ?
A. the Alpha Male....."I am a cave diver "!
B. The Alpha Female........."I am smarter & better than the Alpha Male" !
Besides, only she can bring a new cave diver into the world.
C. A true desire to explore ?
D. perfection of skills & mentality.
E. All the cool equipment you can use for cave diving.

In all honesty, if you are born with a desire to explore, whether above ground or below, then you eventually will seek out the skills & training to become a cave diver with the correct mentality to do it safely ! Just an opinion !

Cool study Bill....congratulations.

Many thanks to Bill for posting this, which I read with interest. I have long been curious about personality traits in caver divers / cavers though mainly from the aspect of "what makes a good cave diver" with respect to someone who will repay the investment in time and training required to achieve proficiency particularly in the context of UK sump diving rather than recreational Floridian spring diving. It has not been lost on me that many of the more "accomplished" activists in underground exploration seem to have trouble being in steady relationships and have wondered whether this is a consequence of their obsessive persuit of the sport or an indicator the people who are dysfunctional in this respect compensate by taking up cave diving ;-)