As many of you know (and for those of you who don't know), I'm the Forensic Consultant to the L.A. County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner for scuba fatalities. And we are DELIGHTED to report that within the Coroner's jurisdiction (which is all of Los Angeles County), there were NO DIVE FATALITIES REPORTED for calendar year 2019. Our reliable records about scuba fatalities go back to 1994 and this is the FIRST TIME that we've ever recorded ZERO deaths-while-diving for a calendar year. The previous low was 1 in 1999 and again in 2018. (The average is a little over 4 fatalities per year. The most ever was 10 in 2012.)

Hopefully, this happened (or didn't happen) because people are diving smarter, paying attention more (out-of-air contributes to a disproportionately high % of scuba deaths, as much as 45% of the time according to one study), monitoring any medical conditions that might affect their ability to dive, changing behaviors as they get older, or better/more training.

Whatever the reason, let's hope this trend continues into 2020. Good job everyone!!!