Divemaster Responsibilities

[pilot fish]

Old age and treachery will overcome youth and enthusiasm.

I thought it was: maturity and wisdom will overcome yute and folly?

 

[dumpsterDiver]

You bear out what has been asserted many times on this board by people that have observed this quick transformatin - DM to DG in an instant. You give proof that it does happen. Thank you very much for your honesty in setting the record straight.

Let me ask you this, do you think there was anything you might have done differently, aside from hold the deceased in your arms, that would have had a different outciome on that dive.

Let me point out, I think you now know this, that making a statment that you are NOT an employee, when in fact you are, is fraud and is making a material mistatement?: A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.:

You seem to be implying that I engaged in fraud? I thought this was a kind and friendly forum?

I can call myself anything I want. I was NOT PAID and for obvious reasons I indicated that I was simply leading the dive for 10 people. I accepted no money and no tips on that day. I categorized myself as a volunteer, maybe I was an employee, but that is something for the lawyers to argue.

I answered each and EVERY question honestly! I made extensive efforts to ensure that all members of the crew also answered each and every question honestly. I told them that the last thing you want to do is tell lies in a homicide investigation. It was incredible, but another dive instructor wanted us all to lie about what depth we had dived because HE had violated PADI standards with his open water students that day. (He was an idiot and went on to die with two other people in a dive accident a few years later himself).

Nevertheless, if you are ever involved in a situation like this, you might be surprised how clueless the police and USCG are in these matters. They ask many stupid and irrelevant questions and it is not my responsibility to help them out when I have some potential liability.

With regard to this accident, my concious is clear. The diver did not stay with me (the leader of the dive) and he died as a direct result of his failure to do so (it is also relevant that he was also a member of the crew).

 

[Thalassamania]

Your role was a matter of record ... right there on the manifest. This is something all diver leadership personnel should know, many charters want to list you as crew so that you don't go into the passenger count ... this is especially true of 6-packs.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Your role was a matter of record ... right there on the manifest. This is something all diver leadership personnel should know, many charters want to list you as crew so that you don't go into the passenger count ... this is especially true of 6-packs.

Yeah I guess that is true but was I a DG or a DM?

 

[Thalassamania]

If your were manifested as a passenger it does not matter if you were God Allmighty, if you were manifested as crew, you were what ever the captain said you were.

 

[pilot fish]

You seem to be implying that I engaged in fraud? I thought this was a kind and friendly forum?

No, did not mean YOU were perpretating a fraud but that the Dive Op was. You were very honest about what your role became, post accident.

I can call myself anything I want. I was NOT PAID and for obvious reasons I indicated that I was simply leading the dive for 10 people. I accepted no money and no tips on that day. I categorized myself as a volunteer, maybe I was an employee, but that is something for the lawyers to argue.

Why were you not paid? Why would you take that responsibility for nothing?

I answered each and EVERY question honestly! I made extensive efforts to ensure that all members of the crew also answered each and every question honestly. I told them that the last thing you want to do is tell lies in a homicide investigation. It was incredible, but another dive instructor wanted us all to lie about what depth we had dived because HE had violated PADI standards with his open water students that day. (He was an idiot and went on to die with two other people in a dive accident a few years later himself).

Could you tell us how he and two others died on a dive? That sounds like a very intersting story. Maybe there are some good "take aways" from the incident?

Nevertheless, if you are ever involved in a situation like this, you might be surprised how clueless the police and USCG are in these matters. They ask many stupid and irrelevant questions and it is not my responsibility to help them out when I have some potential liability.

With regard to this accident, my concious is clear. The diver did not stay with me (the leader of the dive) and he died as a direct result of his failure to do so (it is also relevant that he was also a member of the crew).

Police clueless, yeah but USCG too? That's surprising. no, it is definitely NOT your place to help them in the investigation and maybe pinning it on you. I hear ya.

 

[pilot fish]

If your were manifested as a passenger it does not matter if you were God Allmighty, if you were manifested as crew, you were what ever the captain said you were.

Does the Capt dictate the responsibilty of the person leading the dive too?

 

[boulderjohn]

Does the Capt dictate the responsibilty of the person leading the dive too?

A person leading a dive can do so under any of a number of possibilities. It can be a private arrangement with individual divers. More commonly, the operator who runs the charter makes the arrangement. Frequently the captain is also an employee of the operator. If there is any kind of compensation understanding, whether the person leading the dive is being paid, simply receiving tips, or receiving some other kind of compensation (such as an gear, tank fills, instruction leading to a higher certification, etc.), then that guide is working in a professional capacity

 

[Thalassamania]

Even if the person is unpaid, if they are manifested as a mate or as crew they are "working in a professional capacity." If they are manifested as a passenger, they that may or may not be the case.

 

[boulderjohn]

Even if the person is unpaid, if they are manifested as a mate or as crew they are "working in a professional capacity." If they are manifested as a passenger, they that may or may not be the case.

agreed.