The report for 2011 covers incidents which involved sport divers of all affiliations in British coastal or inland waters, and incidents globally which involved BSAC members.
The incidents year runs from 1 October 2010 to 30 September 2011.
Incidents are categorised under fatalities, decompression illness, injury/general illness, boating and surface, ascents, technique, equipment and miscellaneous.
There are analyses from which lessons can be learned, and an overview highlighting trends in relation to previous years.
The report covers 375 incidents which, it says, is “in line with recent years”.
Three incident categories involved substantially larger numbers than any others. Most prevalent of these were boating and surface incidents, followed by decompression illness and injury/general illness.
There were 11 deaths, below the average of nearly 15.8 for the past 10 years. However, any real trend in fatalities is difficult to quantify, as annual levels can vary markedly.
The average age of divers who lost their lives was 54 against an average age for the sport diving population of 38, suggesting that age-related health issues may have contributed to some of the deaths.
The 2011 report can be downloaded as a PDF from the BSAC’s Annual Diving Incident Report webpage.