Sports Injuries
I have been trying to understand how diving injuries became classified as "Sports Injuries" when almost all of them are not even related to the Sport. Was the case against NSPI placed under that classification? It was a diving accident that occurred in a NSPI residential pool from a diving board. Does the use of a diving board indicate it is a Sports Injury? Our Sport has never conducted a contest or a practice in a residential pool like the one in the case above.
As I looked at the statistics diving injuries somehow were being reported as "Sports Injuries". US Diving keeps track of our sport’s injuries and their number is not the same as those reported by other agencies. It appears to be another instance in a long line of misinformation. I believe that classification is all-inclusive for water sports.
If a swim team member dives from a starting block and gets injured it becomes a diving injury because the swimmer dived from a starting block. Hence it could also become a Sport’s Injury. It however is related to the sport of competitive swimming, which could include the Masters program. The statistics don’t make that distinction and maybe that’s how our sport keeps getting the black eye. Maybe there are other such incidents in water polo and synchronized swimming that are classified as sports injuries. Because the individual got hurt diving into the water it’s a diving injury and a sports injury because of the swimmers start or just the athletes of the other two diving in to participate. That misleading term allows people to assume that it is related to our sport, which it is obviously not.
Other water sports including water skiing could be an instance where the skier dives off the skis into shallow water. Boating might be another where after a race on a hot day the boater dives into shallow water while celebrating. The same might be true of fishing.
If this is the case, then there should be some reference to the fact that it was not related to the sport of diving. Maybe it is a "Sport’s Related Injury" but some reference to that fact should be made to help clarify what sport the participant was engaging when the injury occurred. Until there is a better way of classifying diving accidents, our sport will always be misconstrued as being unsafe and the target of the risk managers’ efforts to remove diving boards.