Lifejackets: lifesavers? Or not?

[timbartlett]

Despite all the heat generated about lifejackets and the RYA/RNLI/MCA advertising campaign, there doesn't seem to be a lot of hard evidence on offer. And as one of those who gets pretty p155ed off by simplistic comments such as "a lifejacket would have saved his life", I thought I'd look into it.

More boaters die in the USA than in the UK, so although their circumstances are not the same as ours, they do give us a lot more data.

In 2008, they had 709 boating fatalities, of whom 90 were wearing "PFDs (personal flotation devices). So the "A lifejacket will save your life" claim falls at the first hurdle.

610 were not wearing PFDs, and 9 were "unknown". So it seems likely that 12.9% of fatalities were wearing PFDs, 77.1% were not.

The same year, a US-wide survey showed that 23.4% of boaters were wearing PFDs. So if wearing a PFD made no difference to your chance of survival, you'd expect 23.4% of those 709 corpses to be wearing lifejackets.

In fact, the proportion was just over 50% of this, which rather suggests that wearing a PFD does increase your chances of survival, but not by the huge proportion that you might expect or that some people would have us believe. A PFD almost doubles your chance of survival, but doesn't guarantee it.

Of course, there are all sorts of factors that might distort the calculation -- maybe more children wear PFDs than adults, but don't die because they don't do such dangerous things, for instance, or because they tend to go out only in warm, settled weather.

But I found it interesting -- not least because last time I did the same calculation, about five years ago, the answer was that PFDs made virtually no difference!

 

[Coaster]

So it seems likely that 12.9% of fatalities were wearing PFDs, 77.1% were not.

What happened to the other 10%?

 

[GrahamP]

lifejackets

Surely a large number of people that ended up in the water wearing a lifejacket and were recovered alive is significant and not considered in these figures?

 

[Solitaire]

In the USA, the term PFD covers a multitude of "jackets". So the statement

So the "A lifejacket will save your life" claim falls at the first hurdle.

Is in my opinion misleading in the first instance.

If we are going to use US figures then I think more clarity is required. A quick search on Google brings up the following.

http://www.pfdma.org/choosing/types.aspx


I think we need to understand what we mean by the term "life jacket". I work on the basis that an LJ should be at least 150N and be able to turn the casualty into a face up position.

PFD's cover anything from a basic ski impact jacket right up to a 275N LJ if we want to use the US terminology.

 

[gunman]

Surely a large number of people that ended up in the water wearing a lifejacket and were recovered alive is significant and not considered in these figures?

Most excellent point! You'd need to find the total figure for accidents, not deaths.

 

[Doghousekeeper]

Tim, thanks for introducing a sensible discussion.

I can't find where I filed the full article with 2009 USA stats (I'll keep looking), but I did find this snippet from it that I emailed to a colleague the other day ...

"The data in the 2009 publication echoes the message that life jacket wear is critical," said Rear Adm. Kevin Cook, the Coast Guard's director of prevention policy. "Nearly 75 percent of the 736 people who died in boating accidents in 2009 drowned and 84 percent of those victims reportedly were not wearing a life jacket. The two most important things boaters can do to prevent the loss of life is to wear a life jacket and take a boater education course"

 

[fireball]

<snip>The two most important things boaters can do to prevent the loss of life is to wear a life jacket and take a boater education course"

hmm. Picky I know. But as tb says above, wearing a PFd does not protect you from death. It only improves your chances if you end up in the water.

 

[Bassplayer]

I lost a significant ammount of use in my right shoulder in an accident 18 months ago, which turned me from a bad swimmer into a non swimmer effectively. So what chance woould I have if I fell overboard? I always wear a lifejacket.
You can always prove a lot with statistics - but don't people want to improve their chances of survival by wearing a lifejacket?
There are parallels here with seat belts /motorcycle crash helmets / cycle helmets perhaps?

 

[timbartlett]

What happened to the other 10%?

They were what is known as a typing mistake.
The figures should be 12.9% and 87.1%
Thank you for spotting it.

 

[AndieMac]

I lost a significant ammount of use in my right shoulder in an accident 18 months ago, which turned me from a bad swimmer into a non swimmer effectively. So what chance woould I have if I fell overboard? I always wear a lifejacket.
You can always prove a lot with statistics - but don't people want to improve their chances of survival by wearing a lifejacket?
There are parallels here with seat belts /motorcycle crash helmets / cycle helmets perhaps?

Thing is BP, where would you swim to anyway?
Lets face it, the ageing male is possibly not the picture of fitness he once was, and when combined with the paralysing nature of cold water, after a short time submerged would find it difficult to even climb up a boarding ladder, let alone swim to shore.

 

[timbartlett]

In the USA, the term PFD covers a multitude of "jackets". So the statement "So the "A lifejacket will save your life" claim falls at the first hurdle."
Is in my opinion misleading in the first instance.

It's not meant to be. But if you don't like the US data, how about Case 24 in www.maib.gov.uk/publications/safety_digests/2006/safety_digest_3_2006.cfm, where a man died despite wearing an 150N lifejacket? There are countless others.

I think we need to understand what we mean by the term "life jacket". I work on the basis that an LJ should be at least 150N and be able to turn the casualty into a face up position.

You might, (TBH, so do I) but that isn't the official definition: what you or I might call a "buoyancy aid" is legally a "lifejacket" so long as the adult version offers 100N of buoyancy or more (children's versions can be very much less). FWIW, the americans are even more suspicious of our standards than we are of theirs: the long and the short of it is that the US and the EU have standards that are written in different ways, but both describe a range of garments that are intended to keep people afloat.

And although the "turn the casualty face up" idea sounds reassuring, it only applies if the casualty is naked. Fine for nudists -- not so good for anyone wearing waterproofs!

Surely a large number of people that ended up in the water wearing a lifejacket and were recovered alive is significant and not considered in these figures?

I'm not at all convinced that they are any more significant than the people who wore a lifejacket but didn't end up in the water, or those who didn't wear a lifejacket but didn't drown despite ending up in the water, or those who didn't end up in the water but still died anyway etc. etc.
I would say that my comparison is valid (so far as it goes) because it compares one group of people who went boating and came back alive with another group who didn't:-

You can always prove a lot with statistics - but don't people want to improve their chances of survival by wearing a lifejacket?

Actually, I'm not trying to prove anything: I'm just trying to provoke an informed discussion.
One aspect of that discussion may well be whether wearing a lifejacket really does improve your chances of survival.

In the little creek that runs past my house, I suggest that it makes very little difference, because the water is so shallow that any conscious casualty could simply stand up (or even sit up in places) At the other extreme, a single hander in mid ocean gains nothing by wearing a lifejacket: if they end up in the water, the lifejacket just means that they die of hypothermia instead of drowning.
Canoeing on a river, I (personally) favour a buoyancy aid.
Ribbing across channel, I wear a lifejacket.
On a 10m motorboat? Probably not.
On a 20m motorboat? Almost certainly not.
On a 100mm motorboat? You've got to be joking!

 

[paultallett]

In my book it's like wearing your seat belt in the car. It won't gaurentee to save your life, but it will stack your odds in your favour DEPENDING on the type of acident you have....IMO. That's why nobody goes to see on our boat without wearing one, no ifs no buts.

 

[timgriffin]

Canoeing on a river, I (personally) favour a buoyancy aid.
Ribbing across channel, I wear a lifejacket.
On a 100mm motorboat? You've got to be joking!

100mm motorboat you must have shrunk since I last saw you
Tim

 

[gjgm]

whether wearing a lifejacket really does improve your chances of survival
******
Well, assuming that you still need to be afloat to be rescued, I would assume anything that keeps you afloat longer, from a log to a lifejacket, must therefore increase your chance of survival.
Of course, you can always find a circumstance where staying afloat longer was not enough change in circumstance to mean that you survive.

 

[Nick_H]

A PFD almost doubles your chance of survival, but doesn't guarantee it.

Well I suppose doubling your chance of survival is worth having, but as you acknowledge in your post, there's lots of things that can distort the numbers. Firstly how many of the 12.7% who died whilst wearing a pfd didn't drown. My guess is quite a lot of them - fire on board, hit by propeller, boom to head etc, it's quite obvious that a lifejacket doesn't save you from these events, or maybe that was your point? Then I think boating areas in the US are generally warmer than the UK? Lifejackets get proportionately more important the colder the water gets IMO, as most boaters can swim, but not when they're unconscious through the effects of cold water.

Still, it's an interesting question, and always good to challenge the perceived wisdom.

 

[PaulGooch]

IMO, the figures in the OP are totally meaningless, as are any "conclusions" drawn from them. You need to look at how many people ended up in the water in total, not how many died. The figures given exclude all the people who went into the water and survived, whether they were wearing a life jacket or not.

As for comments made about being able to swim, or not, the ability to swim is also totally meaningless in the majority of cases. How far can an Olympic swimmer swim, against a 3 knot tide, to get back to the boat ? How far could he swim after his boat has sunk ? Would be make it back to shore, two miles away, in a fast flowing tide ?

 

[Nick_H]

As for comments made about being able to swim, or not, the ability to swim is also totally meaningless in the majority of cases.

No it's not. Most people don't boat single handed, and (my guess is) most people who fall overboard are still conscious, so it's a case of staying afloat for the time it takes for someone to turn the boat around and find you, or to call for help. That could be as little as a few minutes, and would often be less than an hour or two, so in many cases being able to swim could be the difference between drowning or not, if the water was warm enough.

Even single handed, I can't really think of any situation where you'd have to swim against a 3 knot tide to get back to the boat, because the boat would either be drifting at the same 3 knots, or under some form of sail/power in which case you're stuffed.

 

[PaulGooch]

No it's not. Most people don't boat single handed, and (my guess is) most people who fall overboard are still conscious, so it's a case of staying afloat for the time it takes for someone to turn the boat around and find you, or to call for help. That could be as little as a few minutes, and would often be less than an hour or two, so in many cases being able to swim could be the difference between drowning or not, if the water was warm enough.

Even single handed, I can't really think of any situation where you'd have to swim against a 3 knot tide to get back to the boat, because the boat would either be drifting at the same 3 knots, or under some form of sail/power in which case you're stuffed.

If you are wearing your life jacket, being able to swim is neither here nore there, in fact you advised not to waste your energy trying to swim, wait for help.

As for swimming against the tide, what happens when you go over the side whilst at anchor ? Come to that, what happens if it was under power or sil, as you say, and you go over ? You now have to swim against a 2 knot tide, trying to catch a boat doing 5 knots.

 

[gjgm]

If you are wearing your life jacket, being able to swim is neither here nore there, in fact you advised not to waste your energy trying to swim, wait for help.

As for swimming against the tide, what happens when you go over the side whilst at anchor ? Come to that, what happens if it was under power or sil, as you say, and you go over ? You now have to swim against a 2 knot tide, trying to catch a boat doing 5 knots.

Well having just watched The Perfect Storm (no, I dont know why I bothered either), I can tell you that even in 50m waves and million mile an hour winds, its perfectly possible to swim hundreds of metres and climb aboard enormous Coastguard vessels while wearing a lifejacket.
Unfortunately, I dont think the said LJ are EU approved.
And its all based on true facts, the credits told me.

 

[Nick_H]

If you are wearing your life jacket, being able to swim is neither here nore there, in fact you advised not to waste your energy trying to swim, wait for help.

That may well be true, but it's a completely different point.