To assist in the promotion of safe and enjoyable diving, New Zealand Underwater collects, analyses and reports on diving incidents and accidents in New Zealand, and uses the information to monitor trends, identify common factors and improve diver safety through education. All information received by New Zealand Underwater is strictly confidential. No individual names, contact details or information that would lead to a person being identified will appear in any report or publication.

New Zealand Underwater works closely with other organisations with similar goals in diver safety. The information collected on the incident report forms is also sent to the international dive safety organisation Divers Alert Network South East Asia, to assist them in their mission to improve diver safety in this Region. For the purpose of maintaining as complete and accurate records as possible, information on diver fatalities collected by New Zealand Underwater will be shared with information received by Water Safety New Zealand.

Reporting An Incident
If you are involved in a dive incident, such as decompression illness or a diving fatality we would be grateful if you would click on the "Report An Incident" icon. Under this icon there is an initial report form which can be downloaded as a PDF file to print and then return to us via fax or post. In cases where it will be helpful to have more detailed information, a follow up report will be sent to you.
NZUA Incident Report Form

Statistics and Reports
This is where you will find 'real time' summaries of actual incident reports. For example, how diving incidents relate to diving experience and level of training.

Case Studies
These are a selection of 'real cases' that have been reported in the New Zealand Underwater database that exhibit some of the common themes reported in similar cases. These can be used by dive stores, instructors or charter boat teams to discuss the key learning's from each case, including how the incident could have been prevented. A suggestion of how these could be used in the form of educational workshops is given. All personal details and factors that would enable the 'victim' to be identified have been removed.

This section also has links to the Medical & Educational section where real case studies have been used alongside an informative article about a particular topic relating to diving safety.