Same here, it's one of those primal fears. Although I used to feel that way about skydiving as well, but once I went to watch a friend of mine do it one fine sunny day, I knew this was something that needed checking off of my bucket list, and did so the very next weekend. I pretty much faked bravery on the ride up to 13,500'/4,114 m, then became absolutely terrified sitting at the open door looking down with legs dangling out, but once we were out and there was no going back? It was by far the most exhilarating thing I'd ever done (and unexpectedly spiritual in nature to boot), I became an instant adrenaline junkie, and went on to get licensed to jump on my own.
Watching the divers frolicking with those huge sharks is terrifying in that same way: "it's cool to watch but you'll never get me to do that shit!" But after having felt the same way about jumping out of perfectly good airplanes, only to go on to loving it, it may well be the exact same type of thing where if I actually went on that dive boat just to watch with a mask from safety. "Wow, that was cool and nobody died! I gotta do it too, just once!"
So that got me to thinking about actual stats so far as fatality rates go in dangerous sports. Immediately I came across an article describing a fatal shark attack on a night dive in that same spot as the video. When the group surfaced from their dive there was one guy missing, and he was never found, just bits and pieces of his dive equipment. (Shudder...)
https://www.mensjournal.com/adventur...g-shark-diver/The search for a shark diver who did not surface with his group after a night-diving excursion Sunday in the Bahamas has ended after authorities determined that John E. Petty was attacked by a shark.
But in contrast:
http://www.tribune242.com/news/2014/...fter-fatality/Though thousands of tourists dive with sharks at Tiger Beach without incident each year, the location has been the site of several close calls and tense moments. The cageless shark-diving there remains a major draw for those wanting to hand-feed the larger sharks.
So with any high risk activity there's gonna be the occasional fatality, that's just baked into it, and it comes down to "even though the odds are extremely low of anything bad happening, do I want to risk possibly being one of those very few?"
So what about skydiving? I personally knew someone who got killed doing it, one of my instructors who went in along with his student on his first tandem jump.
https://wisconsinskydivingcenter.com...-is-skydiving/According to the most recent data gathered by the United States Parachute Association, of the 3.3 million skydives that were completed, there were 15 skydiving fatalities. Based on this data, that is a 0.00045% chance of dying on a skydive. The statistics for dying on a tandem skydive are even less. Over the course of the past decade, there has only been one tandem student fatality per every 500,000 jumps, which is a .0002% chance of dying.
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of these unfortunate deaths are not caused by malfunctioning skydiving equipment or failing parachutes (today’s parachutes are wonders of modern engineering and are very safe). Rather, many of these skydiving fatalities are the result of professional skydivers pushing the limits with advanced maneuvers beneath their parachutes. The majority of the skydiving deaths which are recorded are the result of a pilot error, not a parachute failure.
What about mountain climbing? We'll take Mt. Everest for example, even though there are others more risky:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-n...-idUSKBN25N1SBBetween 2006 and 2019, around two thirds of climbers were successful in their attempt to reach the summit, compared to around a third in the preceding 15 years, according to the study by the University of Washington and the University of California, Davis.
The risk of dying on the mountain stood at 0.5 percent for women and 1.1 percent for men, down from 1.9 percent and 1.7 percent in 1990-2005, the study said.
But then K2 is just ridiculous IMO, not my kind of odds, at all...:
https://www.advnture.com/features/mo...erous-mountainCompared to Everest’s average 1% death rate, the percentage of climbers who die attempting to climb K2 is reported by NASA to be around 25%
So to bring us on back home, if it came down to being forced to either dive with those sharks or attempt K2, I'll take the sharks any day!![]()