I have had many disagreements with US Diving and its policies. The issue of Safety has been my most bitter one. Most people are aware of my safety investigations but may not be aware of the following.

I have no argument against emphasizing safety for all participants. However that is not the reason that Competitive Diving has had such a spotless record for so many years. In all aspects I believe Diving is an inherently safe activity. Let us assume that in the first 80 years of the sport that there were a number of unqualified people coaching by today’s standard. Divers also under this assumption were not as skilled. Information was not as free flowing as it is today and coaching was really a trial and error process. Facilities and diving equipment were also well below today’s standards. Even with all of this, Diving still had a spotless record.

As US Diving developed the information I gave them the emphasis on safety began to change. I believe that emphasis changed for a number of reasons other than for the basic idea of safety. US Diving began to claim that the reason the activity was safe was the safety certifications they developed/required and the pool depths they endorsed. That was not true because the spotless safety record was established before US Diving ever came into existence. I believe that the certifications eventually became the justification for the Safety and Education Director’s job. From there it became a way to make more money from the membership by adding more required classes.

It was part of the Education and Safety Director’s job to keep track of the safety issues and put information out that was timely and useful for the membership. Unfortunately I didn’t see that happening. Nothing safety related went out publicly unless someone asked for particular information. In 1999 I completed my second search into the safety issue. After filing it with two safety agencies I gave it to Bill Walker, who was the US Diving President at that time. He was very interested and asked if he could pass the information on to two Phd’s that he had asked to do something related to the safety issue. My understanding is that he mentioned it at one of the conventions but nothing ever came out on that information.

My expectation was to put the most current information out on safety. I didn’t want recognition because I felt that the sport was disappearing from local pools across the country. With the disappearance of diving boards I could imagine the sport disappearing completely and through no fault of its own. I had some success getting that information out myself but I felt it would be more effective if it came from US Diving. Again nothing came out of US Diving. I would have thought that it would be in their interest to slow down or stop the diving board disappearance but apparently it wasn’t.

I received a phone call during the 2004 Convention from a friend of mine who was in contact with the current President of US Diving. I was asked, if there was something I wanted to tell him. I mentioned the diving board issue and that US Diving has to start getting involved publicly. They had to have a lot of information but it needed to be conveyed to people outside of US Diving to be effective. A few hours later I got another call asking me for the addresses of the places I sent my information to because it appeared that US Diving was going to start something. After the convention was over I received another call from my friend and he said that he was instructed to give those addresses to the Education and Safety Director. I asked if he did and he said yes. The timing was great because a new set of statistics was about to be released, which would give the most recent accurate data. My friend added that when he handed the addresses over, the Director looked at them and asked what she was supposed to do with them. I was very disappointed but it really does say a lot about the lack of interest and initiative by the Director and US Diving.

The following are a few red flag issues that could have been used to set the record straight.

• In its attempt to avoid a lawsuit NSPI began emphasizing a steer up campaign so divers would not injure themselves by hitting the pool bottom. US Diving and Gregg Louganis got sucked into that campaign and endorsed it having no idea they were supporting NSPI’s effort to avoid a lawsuit and were responsible for helping cloud the whole issue for that reason.
• Studies by the Consumer Products Safety Commission that made no distinction between spinal chord injury and spinal column injury when using the letters SCI.
• CPSC made note of the potential for more serious injury in the cases they studied but no paralysis was noted.
• 80% of the diving injuries were alcohol related.
• Diving board related injuries were occurring in residential/apartment complex pools but not in the public/municipal pools where most people develop their interest in diving.
• The National Safety Council’s "Accident Facts" revealed that statistics were a sampling from various areas of a state or regions the country and then estimated to include the entire/state or country. That is not an accurate way to demonstrate statistical evidence.

What appears to have happened is that the Director of Safety and Education looked at the statistics and accepted them at face value while knowing that the activity was getting a black eye through no fault of its own. Why wasn’t this scrutinized more carefully? Why has US Diving chosen to sit quietly while diving boards disappear in pools used by their Junior and grass root programs? It has been almost 6 months since the convention and almost 6 years since I gave them my last information and the safety issue still has not been addressed. If you are a member, who jumps through all those hoops and pays all that money just to be a member, you should be curious to know those answers.

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