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Is freediving dangerous? In this Complete Guide Video, WR holder Carlos Coste looks into many of the dangers associated with the sport
(lung & ear barotrauma, blackouts, LMC, fauna, currents, DCS, boats) and provides valuable advice on how to mitigate risk.
First of all, I wanna say that freediving is more than a simple sport. It's a discipline, it's a lifestyle, and it has different levels, different styles, and different uses as well. The dangers in freediving will depend on what kind of freediving you are doing, where, and what is your level.
The simple answer is it just depends. It depends on where are you practicing freediving, are you practicing in a swimming pool? It's lower risk. Are you practicing in a cave with limitations on the roof? Are you practicing in a frozen lake? Are you practicing in tropical waters? Or are you practicing in the North Seas? These factors affect the level of danger. What is your level? Are you a beginner doing snorkeling and you are first stepping into freediving? Or are you a competitive freediver looking for world records? Also, another important factor is how are the factors around you. Are you practicing freediving in wavy conditions, with rough seas, with currents? Are you practicing freediving in a lake with totally still water? All of these affect the risk of freediving. Let's start to analyze these risks in a more specific way.
I wanna simplify the analysis and say, we have internal risks that come from us and our practice and we have external risks that come from the environment or the terrain, the place in the ocean where we are practicing. Let's start with the internal risks.
The most simple and common risk you can have with practicing freediving, from the internal point of you are your ears, ear barotrauma. It's when you push the equalization to a level that you are not ready for at that moment. Maybe you are going too deep and your ear doesn't help you, or you are a little bit sick and you are pushing the equalization. My experience is this is one of the most common risks we have, all level freedivers suffer from this. It can finish with a simple pain, or it can finish with an injury, that sometimes can last years or forever. The way to avoid this risk of ear barotrauma is to just practice the right technique, it's knowledge. Have the knowledge and the practice to control the technique, never force your ears when your ears are not equalizing at that moment or during a period of time. If it's necessary go to a doctor to treat the problem. Keep practicing the right technique, and the right exercise to improve your equalization performance.
Another possible internal risk is lung barotrauma or lung squeeze. At this point, we are talking about more advanced freediving levels. This is for freedivers who go beyond 20, 25, 30 meters depth. This risk can be avoided as well with proper technique, experience, and proper gradual progression in the depth. If you allow your body, your lungs to adapt, and your muscles to adapt to the new pressures, you will reduce the risk of lung barotrauma. This is the best way to avoid lung barotrauma risk.
Those kinds of situations happen when you push your limits beyond your level at that moment or because external conditions made you spend more energy underwater. The important factor here is to first have a good buddy with you that knows what to do and is ready. And to have communication with this buddy. Because if you are in coordination and you have communication and your buddy knows what you are doing then it's easier for that person to help you in the right moment. With that help or support that is in freediving and is obvious and fundamental, it reduces the risk of a lot of freediving practice. From a freediver's point of you, when you train, you should train gradually and not always push limits. You need to train as well to be comfortable with your technique and with the depth that you are managing. And when you are ready to take the next step it's because you already control this level that you have. One of the reasons of the blackout and loss of motor control, is a freediver that every time they go in the water they just wanna push for a new PB. And this is not a good approach. You need to give a chance to your body and your physiology to adapt to this level of hypoxia and CO2.
There are a lot of myths about this. People thing that the fauna is dangerous but most of the time it's the opposite. My advice to you is always to first have the knowledge of where you are going to freedive. What kind of fauna can be a problem if you act not correctly. Let's say you step over a scorpion fish or you put your hand on a venomous animal underwater. You need to understand what kinds of animals are on the rocks, on the reef, and the general advice is never touch anything. Watch your step when you go in or out of the beach, it's important,
There are other types of fauna, for example sharks, barracuda, and with those animals what you need to do is respect, observe and enjoy. But you shouldn't be afraid that they are going to chase you. In most cases it's the opposite. Of course, there are places where the sharks can be a little bit riskier for you. The way to avoid this is to have the proper knowledge and the proper guidance in the place. How to move in the water, and how to avoid situations. Remember that they live in the ocean, we are visitors. We need to respect their space.
If you are going to freedive in the open water, in the ocean, then you need to understand the place where you are going to practice. If this is your home freediving spot, then it's easier, you already know. You always though need to be aware of the weather forecast, if the wind will change or the waves will be bigger, then avoid that kind of situation. If you are exploring new places, you need to contact local people, local divers or freedivers to understand the logistics of the water and the currents. There can be under current that brings you down or one that pushes you far from the shore or beach you start. You always need to calculate what you are going to do and have a plan b, in case that the current pushes you far from the beach and you can't come back. Those kinds of situations can be dangerous. Just plan it and have the knowledge to understand how to deal with that and be safe. How to avoid risk is knowledge and practice.
I want to mention the possible problem with decompression sickness & illness. The way to reduce this risk is by respecting your surface intervals, if you freediving on a certain level or if you are a competitive freediver doing big dives deeper than 60 or 55 meters, you should do only a big dive per day. Always have proper hydration and oxygen around, if you are training at that level.
In my opinion, this is one of the most common problems a freediver can have. One of the reasons is that freedivers are more exposed to boat traffic as we spend more time on the surface. We need to be more careful with this by having a proper buoy, and proper visual help for the boat driver. You need to imagine a boat driver who is maybe distracted, talking and having freedivers around. You need to be visible. My advice is to have a snorkel with a clear color at the top, and have a buoy around you. Still, this is not enough. You need to be always in communication with your partner so that when you are down and your partner is getting ready your partner needs to check what is going on around the area. Because sometimes you can't hear the boat's engine on the surface. You need to have a buoy but you need to be always careful.
Finally, is freediving dangerous? What do you think? In my opinion, first, you need knowledge and practice. If you practice with your manual and your instructor, then you will have experience and this is the best way to reduce the risk. Practice your skills. Not only the performance but also your safety skills. A very important piece of advice is to have a good buddy that practices with you. Find a good partner that practices with you or become a member of a freediving club or a community where you always have people to share this passion with you.
And finally, freediving is beautiful and safe, when you keep practicing on a regular basis. I know a lot of people who are weekend warriors. They stay all week in their office, work on the computer, and then they go one Saturday every two weeks to the ocean all day and they go to 40, 30 meters and the rest of the week they don't do any other activity. My advice is to keep (at least) minimal physical conditions. You can swim, you can go to the gym, and you can do yoga, but you need to train your muscles and your cardiovascular system to be in the ocean and feel strong, and feel happy and feel safe.