I just got home a few minutes ago from our local swimming pool, where my kids were jumping off the diving boards. They have a separate dive pool there and after swim team practice, all the kids get a few turns at jumping or diving. I’m not sure of the exact measurements, but there’s one board that looks like it’s about 1 meter and a “high dive” board that’s probably about 4 meters.
I have known 3 people each of whom permanently lost eyesight in one eye. 2 of them hit the diving board, 1 of them dove onto someone else in the water. (I was told that 1 of these 3 who hit the diving board actually had his eye pop out when his head slammed into the board). I knew another who was permanently paralyzed when he dove into shallow water .
I think if you do not hit the board, do not hit anyone in the water, and do not dive too high nor dive into shallow water, and if you can swim, then a diving board is not dangerous.
My old hometown pool had a high dive and two low dives until they completely remodeled the pool in the 90s.
Poor kids have to make do with water slides nowadays.
tap…tap…is this thing on?
There is a running joke throughout this thread regarding the exaggeration of heights due to the faulty memory of youth.
However, the bridge is about 30-35 feet tall (note the lamp-post) and the river about 30 yards across. (here is another photo with a person for a bit of scale)
So from the top of the scaffolding was the equivalent of a 10 metre platform and the bit about the narrow deep channel is perfectly true. Plus it was April and the water temp. was about 10-12C…and there were killer brown trout in there.
When I was in band camp (seriously) a kid launched himself up and out off the high dive (3 meter), knifed through the water and hit the shallow to deep transition slope and broke a tooth.
Thanks, Doctor Who. I have a feeling that wouldn’t fly nowadays.
I haven’t been there in years, but from what I’ve gathered, they’ve expanded the pool, added more boards (just regular ones), and a water slide. There was never a high dive there that I knew of.
(And I wouldn’t have used it if there was – I’m terrified of heights)
My local when I was a kid still has its 10 metre tower. I used to dive head first off it, I reckoned that was safer than bombing.
Yah, but you guys in Australia start out way lower than us.
The humungous Crystal Pool at Knoebel’s, a northeastern Pennsylvania amusement park, still has 1-m and 3-m diving boards. I was there this summer and got my son to go down one of the slides in exchange for my jumping (I never learned how to properly dive) off the high-dive. As I am not a big fan of heights, this was not an experience I cared to repeat.
And, yet, he still got no respect.
(I was a student at the UW when “Back to School” was filmed there. They used the exterior of my dorm for a few scenes. But, the diving scenes were all filmed in California. You could tell because the trees were all wrong…)
We still have a high dive and a lower board at our pool in Atlanta. Great fun.
Does your lab get to join the fun (assuming by your handle that you have one)?
in my town, diving boards were banned for people with private pools because every time someone dove into the pool off one, too much water splashed out of the pool and was wasted and had to eventually be refilled and this wasted water…so diving in from the side of the pool doesnt waste water? apparently not as much
I ruptured my left calf muscle on the low dive at my then local Y. I needed help getting out of the pool, went to the ER, and didn’t involve the Y in any way with legal/insurance issues.
I splatted face first from a 5m tower while in a kayak – was bruised a bit on my thighs. I was trying for an ender, but slightly over-rotated. The bubbler was not activated (can’t do good enders if the bubbler is used). It is amazing how much difference a well timed bubler shot can make to the impact.
I hit my chin in a HS swim meet on a 1m board doing a back somersault…luckily the board was on its way down on impact and I only suffered a scrape on my Adam’s apple and a sore jaw. I knew something was amiss when I heard the crowd collectively gasp as I was in midair. Didn’t score too well on that one…
I have old 8mm footage of me jumping off a 3m board at 5 years old.
On a slightly related note to this thread, I remember my bewilderment upon gazing at the “Cannonball Loop” slide at Action Park in NJ in the 80’s. It was closed that day, although I think I had the common sense back then not to consider it.
Correction: One of TWO kids on the planet to do this.
I remember standing there for a few looong seconds, then coming to my senses and climbing my ass back down the ladder.
(I’ve also been terrified of diving into ANY water head-first since I saw the movie “Joni” as a little kid and will.not.do.it.)