Bahamas: Missing Female Diver
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TheScubaBOB
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TheScubaBOB
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Illinois basically protects anyone who provides assistance unless their actions were wonton & careless. That protection even extends to medical professionals.
mikemath
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This thread has been sticking in my mind for the past couple days. On the one hand, there's reason to believe that the DM contributed to this incident through poor positioning (allowing her buddy to get far away) and failing to act effectively to prevent a dangerous descent. There's also reason to believe that the diver contributed to this incident, first by failing to disclose information about her stroke, then by (seemingly willingly) leaving her buddy/DM, then by ignoring advice to surface, and finally by (apparently) resisting the efforts of the DM to help her. Because of all the contributing factors, ultimate assignment of blame needs to be done on legal, moral, or philosophical grounds. Because of differences in personal beliefs and interpretation of the evidence in the case, I don't expect us all to suddenly agree on the degree of blame to be assigned and start singing Kumbayah.
Despite the thrash on blame assignment, I've really benefited from this discussion, as many topics around risk management have been discussed. The important things I'm taking away from this discussion and planning to apply are:
Despite the thrash on blame assignment, I've really benefited from this discussion, as many topics around risk management have been discussed. The important things I'm taking away from this discussion and planning to apply are:
- As a private DM for new divers, stay close and alert to the divers under your care at all times. This could go so far as holding hands/tank valves throughout a dive. Don't just apply a normal "buddy" standard of being within 2-3 kicks, and don't focus on guiding.
- As a DM in any capacity, be very explicit before a dive about not only the general dive plan, but under what conditions you will take direct action. Also, covering what you expect of the divers and what they can expect of you should be established. There should be no surprise on your part if I start hauling you up from deeper than was agreed. There should also be no surprise when I stop trying to save you when you drop below an established depth limit, so you should be careful not to allow a situation to degrade to that point.
- As a DM or even just as a buddy, be very choosy about who I elect to accompany to an advanced dive site. I *might* agree to taking a new diver who is 67 years old and just had a stroke a month ago .
- In a rescue situation, once the rescue starts, it's not over until the victim is safe on the surface. I will continue to act as if my direct involvement is required until the victim is safe on the surface or until I have reached previously-set limits to my rescue involvement (depth or air remaining being the most obvious).
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TheScubaBOB
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I was speaking in general terms regarding EFR & Rescue Diver Training.
ItsBruce
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Someone commented about the Good Samaritan Laws, though not using the specific term. Please note that they vary from place to place, and do not necessarily mean what people think they mean.
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We have many people, with very different backgrounds and experiences, all commenting on the situation from their own, often unique, perspectives. While there is, in some cases, rather great overlap concerning the capabilities and training practices of other diving communities, such knowledge is rarely reciprocal. For example: I have a lot of experience with what goes on in the scientific and sports diving communities, a fair amount of knowledge concerning commercial diving and professional PSD, and just a smattering of the military world. I'd be hard pressed to comment on training for pier construction or teaching the operation of military diver delivery vehicles. Similarly there are very few of you reading this who have any experience in the scientific diving community, so you assume that all you have to do is project your sports diving experiences, training and background ... a very risky assumption.
I doubt if many individuals in the sports community have any real knowledge of the scientific diving world. Many scientific divers are equally blind about other communities, I remember going to a dive show with 4 or 5 of my Assistant Team Leaders, these are folks whose diving knowledge and water skills would place them in the top tier of all the divers that I've known, yet one of them takes me aside and asks me if all the people here are divers? She went on to say that they couldn't possibly be, most of them did not look fit enough to pass a treadmill EKG (a requirement for scientific divers) and a lot of them smoked! She knew nothing at all about the sports diving world and was simply projecting her own experiences into places where it was not applicable.
I see a lot of that going on in this (and similar) threads. When I say that preventing a diver from going deeper should not be a big deal ... I'm not blowing smoke, the, "grab the valve and use an air siphon," approach to the problem is one that we teach in the rescue portion of our courses. Frankly, I thought that I was being generous saying that I expected the weakest Instructor I'd ever trained could pull it off, when the reality is that each and every diver I've ever trained probably could. But there's that difference in standards and training between communities, I could give you a long list of things, from a minimum two minute breath hold, to a twenty foot free dive against the buoyancy of a full 5 mil suit with no weightbelt, that we expect our people to be able to do routinely ... no fuss, no muss.
But I get painted into some bizarre, hairy chested diver, corner that really does not apply, by people who have not experienced what we do and how we train, and who assume that because it was not something they were exposed to in their sports diver training, it is not possible, or belongs in some strange realm of Dirk Pitt clones. In fact I am one of the most careful and risk adverse people that you will ever meet. We teach normal people, in many cases rather nerdy scientists, to perform at a level that is outside of what the sports diving community comprehends, its not magic, it is demanding, but it can be done with anyone who can pass a test of basic watermanship.
Epinephelus, please believe me when I say (irrelevant as I see it being to this entire conversation) that getting to the tank/valve of even someone who doesn't want you is no big deal if you can make contact with them, the only way that you're going to fail is if they swim away from you faster than you can catch up. It doesn't really matter that you might be able to keep your rescuer away from your backside, as long as that rescuer has any sort of a grip on you, you are going up.
Mrlipis, all the facts are not in, but from what is known I can not see where the DM was in any particular danger. While the tank valve is perhaps best, straps will work too. All that needed be done was to make contact, grab a hold, any hold, and establish positive buoyancy. While this may seem a daunting task to you, it really is not, and should be well within the capabilities of an Instructor. Perhaps you should defer a bit to those of us here who have considered, experimented with, practiced and teach the problem of how to handle a struggling victim underwater rather than believing that since it was not in your training it is impossible or impractical or some internet pipe dream.
The fact that dealing with a struggling victim underwater is, "certainly not a position that you would want to put yourself into," does not mean that it is in fact either a difficult problem or a dangerous one. It only means that you personally have made the decision that it is not something that you are prepared to deal with, and that's fine.
jkaterenchuk, a successful rescue with a conscious struggling victim takes a little training and practice, not much, but a little helps. You example of the incident in Thailand a month ago really just goes to show that there are likely many "diving leaders" out there who have not been trained, or thought it through, or practiced the needed techniques.
kyphur, we are clearly very different people. If a friend of mine had too much to drink and it required that I get into a physical altercation with him or her to prevent their driving and endangering them self and others, or that I park my car behind theirs, I'd do it (and have done it). But where I live there's almost no chance of seeing the police for a hour or so after you call.
I doubt if many individuals in the sports community have any real knowledge of the scientific diving world. Many scientific divers are equally blind about other communities, I remember going to a dive show with 4 or 5 of my Assistant Team Leaders, these are folks whose diving knowledge and water skills would place them in the top tier of all the divers that I've known, yet one of them takes me aside and asks me if all the people here are divers? She went on to say that they couldn't possibly be, most of them did not look fit enough to pass a treadmill EKG (a requirement for scientific divers) and a lot of them smoked! She knew nothing at all about the sports diving world and was simply projecting her own experiences into places where it was not applicable.
I see a lot of that going on in this (and similar) threads. When I say that preventing a diver from going deeper should not be a big deal ... I'm not blowing smoke, the, "grab the valve and use an air siphon," approach to the problem is one that we teach in the rescue portion of our courses. Frankly, I thought that I was being generous saying that I expected the weakest Instructor I'd ever trained could pull it off, when the reality is that each and every diver I've ever trained probably could. But there's that difference in standards and training between communities, I could give you a long list of things, from a minimum two minute breath hold, to a twenty foot free dive against the buoyancy of a full 5 mil suit with no weightbelt, that we expect our people to be able to do routinely ... no fuss, no muss.
But I get painted into some bizarre, hairy chested diver, corner that really does not apply, by people who have not experienced what we do and how we train, and who assume that because it was not something they were exposed to in their sports diver training, it is not possible, or belongs in some strange realm of Dirk Pitt clones. In fact I am one of the most careful and risk adverse people that you will ever meet. We teach normal people, in many cases rather nerdy scientists, to perform at a level that is outside of what the sports diving community comprehends, its not magic, it is demanding, but it can be done with anyone who can pass a test of basic watermanship.
Epinephelus, please believe me when I say (irrelevant as I see it being to this entire conversation) that getting to the tank/valve of even someone who doesn't want you is no big deal if you can make contact with them, the only way that you're going to fail is if they swim away from you faster than you can catch up. It doesn't really matter that you might be able to keep your rescuer away from your backside, as long as that rescuer has any sort of a grip on you, you are going up.
Mrlipis, all the facts are not in, but from what is known I can not see where the DM was in any particular danger. While the tank valve is perhaps best, straps will work too. All that needed be done was to make contact, grab a hold, any hold, and establish positive buoyancy. While this may seem a daunting task to you, it really is not, and should be well within the capabilities of an Instructor. Perhaps you should defer a bit to those of us here who have considered, experimented with, practiced and teach the problem of how to handle a struggling victim underwater rather than believing that since it was not in your training it is impossible or impractical or some internet pipe dream.
The fact that dealing with a struggling victim underwater is, "certainly not a position that you would want to put yourself into," does not mean that it is in fact either a difficult problem or a dangerous one. It only means that you personally have made the decision that it is not something that you are prepared to deal with, and that's fine.
jkaterenchuk, a successful rescue with a conscious struggling victim takes a little training and practice, not much, but a little helps. You example of the incident in Thailand a month ago really just goes to show that there are likely many "diving leaders" out there who have not been trained, or thought it through, or practiced the needed techniques.
kyphur, we are clearly very different people. If a friend of mine had too much to drink and it required that I get into a physical altercation with him or her to prevent their driving and endangering them self and others, or that I park my car behind theirs, I'd do it (and have done it). But where I live there's almost no chance of seeing the police for a hour or so after you call.
jon m
Contributor
OMG-
i can't believe i read this whole mess...
alot has been said about the DM, where in the H-E-L-L was the "buddy"??? i'll be screwed , blued and tatooed if i ever let my buddy (wife) descend, dive or ascend without me.
we dove walls in Roatan, Mexico and alone (just us) in Hawaii and i'm sorry but it is your responsability to know where YOU ARE at all times , not the DM's (even if you hired one).
maybe the DM was dealing with the husband (the reason she was 20' away?). at that point, it was the missing divers JOB to be WITH HER BUDDY. then she wouldn't have been 20' away (and falling)....
one good thing, this has us re-evaluating our buddy procedure...
i can't believe i read this whole mess...
alot has been said about the DM, where in the H-E-L-L was the "buddy"??? i'll be screwed , blued and tatooed if i ever let my buddy (wife) descend, dive or ascend without me.
we dove walls in Roatan, Mexico and alone (just us) in Hawaii and i'm sorry but it is your responsability to know where YOU ARE at all times , not the DM's (even if you hired one).
maybe the DM was dealing with the husband (the reason she was 20' away?). at that point, it was the missing divers JOB to be WITH HER BUDDY. then she wouldn't have been 20' away (and falling)....
one good thing, this has us re-evaluating our buddy procedure...
TheScubaBOB
Contributor
Thalassamania,
That last one was probably the best post I've seen in this whole thread.
Yes, we each bring our unique background & history into every situation we encounter.
I appreciate that your training is to a much higher standard than mine, in fact I respect it.
Regarding the intoxicated friend driving, I know from personal experience that anything I do no matter how well intentioned that puts me in a physical confrontation with an impared person or restrains another person against their will puts my freedom in jeopardy. Illinois has some very stupid laws (unlawful restraint is a sex crime requiring Sex Offender Registration & Sentencing and yes there is at least one case where a guy was convicted & sentenced as such when common sense says he did nothing wrong). If my friend chooses badly I will do everything I can up to the point where I risk being taken from my 3 children who still need me very much.
The same holds true in diving. I want to build the knowledge that my training has given me into skills that might make a difference in a real life situation if I ever encounter one but again my ability to act will be limited up to the point where I risk being taken from my 3 children.
I'm glad there are professionals who have a deeper skill set than I ever will.
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