My Interpretation of the Past Safety Effort
It is my opinion that the National Governing Board for Diving used its authority to promote the interests of a few at the expense of the activity. Its efforts did nothing to prevent the near extinction of the activity. The safety dilemma we face is a good example of this. I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I have continued to question the safety and statistics for 27 years now. How can the person in charge of safety and education look at statistics and never seem to question their validity? Anyone who has taken a statistics class can tell you that statistical evidence can be shaped to support almost any issue. That’s how/why actuaries came into existence.
Liability was and still is a major issue. That National Governing Board had 2 lawyers involved during this period and they didn’t do much to help. Why didn’t they use their connections to clear up this safety discrepancy? After all each of them did have a stake in the organization.
I am extremely wary of any diving statistics reported to various agencies because the most serious statistics were involved with the NSPI’s cover up. Other agencies just used the statistics as fact and never investigated them independently. I fail to understand how these agencies could leap to conclusions that are not true. Researchers were bunching apples and oranges together without distinction. How can one conclude that shallow water diving injuries are remotely related to the use of diving boards? Also how do diving board injuries occurring in residential pools become "Sports Injuries"? If we really fear the "potential for injury", then nothing we do would be safe. If we leave this issue to the legal profession, breathing would have the potential for serious injury. Does that mean you would stop breathing? That’s just as ridiculous as what is happening now.
When someone is seriously injured, the legal profession wants to hold someone accountable. We may never know that individual, but everyone will be paying those bills in the form of higher prices for goods, services and insurance. That’s where the rub is and so are the deep pockets for lawyer’s contingency fees.
My Involvement in Diving Safety
The objective of this article is to show some history of one person’s struggle to keep diving boards on the deck of swimming pools. I never realized that I would be the only person in competitive diving that would continue the search to prove that all diving was safe except in residential pools and shallow water. Now that more of the truth be known, I fail to understand why the diving community remains silent on this issue. I will try to keep it as brief as possible. The most recent article that appeared in the Aquatics International Magazine would be the place to start.
In Sept –October of 2003, I received a call from AmyJo Brown asking for information and sources because she intended to write the article, "Taking a Dive" which finally came out in the March 2004 issue. The article was well written and described why the National Swimming Pool Institute (NSPI) claimed all diving was unsafe unless there was proper training. It produced a "Steer up" campaign and sucked US Diving and an Olympian into the confusion. Competitive divers had been using underwater saves for years prior to these events. This diversion was orchestrated simply to keep NSPI from being sued for diving board accidents in their residential pools.
With that in mind let’s go back to the beginning. My safety efforts began after reading a Chicago Tribune article in theTempo section, "Preventing diving accidents is simple ---- Recovery is the hard part" August 24, 1977. It described two diving accidents that didn’t even happen in swimming pools. However with the Labor Day weekend approaching a doctor who was treating one of the victims advised readers not to dive alone in swimming pools. That raised a red flag because the victim he was treating injured himself in the natural environment, not in a swimming pool. Thus began 27 years of collecting information to defend the safety of the sport. Several other articles began appearing in the news and again none happened in swimming pools or from diving boards.
It was a few years later that the National Federation and the Illinois High School Association began questioning the safety and liability issues. This began with injuries from the use of starting blocks and then turned to the diving boards. In 1982 I discovered that the IHSA Executive Secretary had band together with the Wisconsin High School Association and placed diving and pole vault on their endangered sports list. Their reasoning was that diving had the most "potential for serious injury". My argument was that diving may have the potential for serious injury because of the head first entry but the statistics at that time didn’t support that perception. I also brought attention to some facts that kids were not only getting seriously injured but were dying in some sports. At one point the numbers were rather large. Those activities not only had the "potential for serious injury" but also had the statistics to back up that perception and nobody was talking about putting them on the endangered sports list. Here I was at the beginning of my career in teaching and coaching and might be witnessing the demise of the sport that got me this far. In a discussion with my school district administrator I informed him that if the district were to drop diving, it could do so because they couldn’t afford to run the program and not because it was unsafe as some articles implied. I intended to fight for the safety of the sport since I was a product of the old shallow pools with low ceilings and no uniform equipment standards. Even so I was never aware of any serious injuries in those pools. Diving eventually was maintained as a competitive event in the Illinois High School Association. Wisconsin reduced high school diving to a non-scoring event and Iowa followed by dropping the activity totally.
I began writing articles for the Illinois Swimming Coaches Association covering some of those issues. At the same time I was writing letters to see if I could acquire some of the articles written about the diving safety. We even had an electronic search of medical files by the Rockford School of Medicine. Some of those earlier articles are still being quoted or misquoted to this day. The following study appeared and had the potential to cause the most damage to the future of diving.
There was a lot of controversy with this study. 89 errors were discovered after publication with members threatening to pull out of this organization. Major revisions were made and a clarifying statement was added which read, "Opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and not necessarily that of the CNCA." To his credit, Gabrielson did the most exhaustive study ever of this issue but he really never made the connection of diving board injuries to residential, apartment complex pools.
At the same time I began collecting articles referring to diving accidents including charts and statistics that displayed the most dangerous sports with injury statistics. I even sent for the National Safety Council’s "Accident Facts" booklet, which seemed useless at the time. Around this time I was asked to write a statement that eventually was credited to Ron O’Brien in defense of the sport. Eventually he and Todd Smith wrote letters to the Illinois High School Association and the National Federation in an effort to keep the diving event.
I got together with Jim Blickenstaff and developed a "Diving Fact" sheet that was shared with school administrators and coaches and US Diving so that everyone had the most up to date information regarding the safety of the sport. It was printed in the Illinois Swim Coaches Association newsletter. My High School District (214) now had the most complete Diving Safety information on file in the Nation. At the same time the National Federation of High Schools did their own survey of diving accidents. No catastrophic injuries were occurring in their pools.
About this time the liability crisis was in full swing so I joined the American Tort Reform Association to be informed about the latest litigation and the things that were or weren’t being done at that time. I was also looking into product liability at that time. I joined another group named Save Our Sports that addressed sports and activities in the liability situation.
Along the way, I contacted Ben Harris Water Safety Services and member of the National Safety Council. He led me to additional information that would be useful in defending the sport. After hours of interesting phone conversations over a few years I asked if he would help in clearing up the misinformation. He agreed and wrote me a letter November 7,1984 that I used and passed along. In that letter he examined the statistics and water depths and found no catastrophic injuries in pools with depths between 10 and 12 feet. I asked if he had the time to help further this cause. He agreed and eventually US Diving called on his expertise and used the contents of that letter.
In 1986 I turned all of the references and some copies of info I had collected to Barb Gemmill of US Diving thinking that US Diving would get more actively involved and have more credibility than I to get something done. After a couple of years and a change in personnel that information was used as the basis for US Diving’s Position Paper (1988) and its Safety Training Course (1988). At this time a lawyer friend contacted one of our State Senators about our diving dilemma. The result ended with the Illinois Board of Health setting standards for the swimming pools they oversee. I even wrote the President of the United States (Ronald Reagan and later Bill Clinton) expressing my concern over the liability crisis and the affect it was having on the sport. I received a positive reply but no real action occurred. Then I wrote Richard Stone a note to ask for his help clarifying the issue. I never got a response probably because of his association with NSPI.
In 1996 I was asked to be an expert witness in a case where a park district was being sued because of a recreational diving injury from the high board. There were 12 allegations in the suit of which I was able to satisfactorily address six of them. In March of 1999 I received a letter thanking me for the information I provided. The park district was granted summary judgement because "the judge believed there was no genuine issue of material fact and the park district was entitled to prevail as a matter of law, without the necessity of trial." This was my first case. It was a recreational injury from the high board that I had hoped would help clear up the misconception involving diving boards and recreation. I felt that if we lost this case, it would set a precedent that might cause the removal of high boards in recreational facilities.
Things seemed fine for a while until the Certification requirements expanded upon the suggestion of the USOC and became in my opinion unwarranted and burdensome. Fees increased tremendously and more was being demanded by the organization in the name of safety. In 1997 I started a web site, as a way to voice my opinion against the progress US Diving was not making on the safety and other issues. I used it as a way to build consensus among the coaches. I was getting mixed reactions from various US Diving administrators and office holders that in 1998 I decided to go to the National Convention, to air my views regarding the Safety of the sport and the increase in Safety Certification. While listening to the Safety Committee justify lifesaving and deep water back boarding I heard two things that upset me. The use of the phrase "Potential For Injury" brought back the arguments that I heard years before that I thought were cleared up. The second was the use of a situation from 1955 to justify new lifeguard certifications. That led me to believe that USD had an agenda and found that statistic to rationalize their position. Needless to say my thoughts were passed off as irrelevant. I let my membership lapse and continued to voice my opinion to the powers that be in an effort to change their minds. Maybe as a non-member they would see that my suggestions were in the best interests of the sport and not me. That effort obviously didn’t work. At that time I was informed that the NCAA was still being haunted by a shallow water accident.
I was getting no where fast so I decided to re-research the Diving Safety issue. Since I was able to access the Internet at home and school, I decided to explore some of the web sites by many reporting agencies. Some of the sites included the National Safety Council, National Spinal Cord Injury Association, NEISS, National Swimming Pool Foundation and a host of others including the Consumer Product Safety Commission. It seemed that there was less information out there than back in 1977. It was interesting because most of the statistics were identical as if the source was the same. I began questioning the accuracy of the reported statistics because most reporting agencies linked residential injuries to the sport. That’s when I decided to call my local Board of Health and then my State Board of Health. I discovered that there was a law in Illinois that if any catastrophic injury occurred in a swimming pool under their auspices, the injury had to be reported to them. They couldn’t find or even recall any catastrophic injuries for at least the last seven years, which didn’t correspond to the statistics those web sites gave. Aquatic International Magazine ran an article "Springboard to Extinction" (Feb. 1999). I responded in an effort to show that diving was disappearing recreationally not only because of the safety issue but also with the rise of leisure pools and that was having a direct effect on the sport. That article inspired me look into the disappearance of high boards. Close to that time, CBS II "Deep Impact" was televised and I wrote for transcripts of the program. The incident in that piece occurred in a NSPI residential pool. It was later cited as one of the cases against NSPI and the reason NSPI clouded the whole issue of safety.
My search for answers couldn’t find much information on diving accidents yet alone high board related statistics. That changed the direction of the search to recreational diving into municipal pools. US Diving had its statistics covering the competitive aspect so I didn’t feel it was necessary to cover the same info. I didn’t agree that all pools with diving boards had to meet US Diving or FINA depth standards. The reason was simple. No one knows what a safe depth is or even guarantees the depth they recommend. Also, how could local organizations afford to build pools that deep? I placed an article on my site "How Deep Is Deep Enough?" hoping for a re-evaluation of the depth issue. Richard Stone’s studies of underwater turning radii were the basis for my opposition to the FINA and US Diving’s depth recommendations. I felt that the governing bodies were helping to push diving boards off the deck of local swimming pools. Leisure pools at that time were seen as a moneymaker and many of them didn’t include diving boards. I use to play "Where’s WALDO" when pictures of these pools appeared in industry magazines.
As I looked at the statistics, I noted that many of these new studies were quoting the old statistics dating back to the 1970’s and 80’s. Another red flag popped up with a reference to some "80% of all diving accidents involved alcohol use". To me that vindicated municipal pools because alcohol was not readily available. Thank goodness I didn’t throw out all of those old studies. I eventually went back and looked at them more closely. I ordered a new "Accident Facts" 1999 from the National Safety Council. It contained no diving injury statistics and didn’t even contain a reference to diving at all. I did find that they identify a number of injuries in one region of a state or the country and project or estimate it to include the entire country. That alone raised suspicion. These were estimates not actual or factual. It seemed rather erroneous to make estimates/projections, which point to injuries in a region that didn’t have any.
I received a few studies from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which referred back to some earlier studies and contained statistics going back from 1988. Even the abbreviated SCI (Spinal Cord Injury) was being confused with Spinal Column Injury in the CPSC reports. There is a difference and neither was linked to paralysis in the situations described. I went back to the original studies and looked at some of the actual injuries. Diving injuries described were shallow water and diving board instances occurring in residential pools where the diving envelope was extremely small. Teens and adults could easily miss the deepest part of those pools. These are also the pools where alcohol is readily available to the user.
When that research was finished I sent it to National Spa and Pool Institute and placed it in the National Safety Council and Prima Central libraries. "The Diver" Magazine printed my research in 2 consecutive issues. Later I received a letter from NSPI essentially saying that they concurred with my findings but didn’t agree that diving into residential pools was dangerous or unsafe. That’s when they asked me to participate in their standards review process. I agreed so that I could see the process and maybe make suggestions to make those pools safer. The process took a few years to complete but didn’t include any of the recommendations I made.
I also sent a copy of my research to US Diving. Its president thanked me and said that they had something in the works that to this day has not appeared anywhere. Because of that lack of producing any safety information I decided to see if a publication of some sort would be interested. I was able to write 2 articles for two different magazines. Aquatics International "Do or Die For Diving" July-Aug 2000 and Prima Risk Management Association "What’s Forcing Diving Boards Off the Deep End?" July 2000. I found that PRIMA was the largest Risk Management organization in North America. They included some of our local risk management agencies like PDRMA (Park District Risk Management Assoc.) and MRMA (Municipal Risk Management ASSOC.). That same summer the Chicago Tribune ran a piece "Coach Defends Safety as His Sport Takes A Dive." The investigative reporter sent me a copy of the resources he used to write the article. My interest at that time was to get the information out to as large an audience as I could.
This all transpired over 27 years from the basement of my home. It is still my view that it is in the best interest of the activity to get that latest information out to as large an audience as possible. I called it to the attention of the PDCA, National Federation of High Schools, the Illinois High School Association, The Illinois Swim Coaches Association, and The National Interscholastic Coaches Association. I e-mailed the editors of the Chicago Tribune, the Daily Herald and Prima Central to call attention to the recent article. US Diving was interviewed in the article but I believe that we can’t rely on them to do much in this area because they never questioned any of the statistics thus far. If they are left to defend the sport, all pools will be so deep that many organizations will not be able to afford to build them. I believe their emphasis is solely at the National and International competitive levels. The other levels exist for financial purposes and the safety of the pools they train in are not a part of US Diving’s attention. The National Governing Board only wants to have deeper pools even though most divers are not as skilled as our Olympians. The original reccommeded depths were a wish list for the upper level coaches. Since that time depths have become the rule. No one ever thought about the local pools where kids get their start. Those pools have a spotless safety record even though they may not meet the recommended depths.
In closing one can see that I’ve spent most of my life attempting to clear up the safety issue that keeps giving Diving a black eye. Many of the safety articles are on this web site and are there to bring awareness to safety misinformation. First it was shallow water injuries and now it’s injuries from the use of diving boards in residential pools which are governed by the NSPI - ANSI review process. Now is the best time to clear up this whole mess but I can’t do it alone. It’s time for the rest of the diving community to get involved.
woras.geo@yahoo.com