Training Scuba Ranch TX Diving Accident

[boulderjohn]

Risk management in the 'training system' is all about liability transfer: agency to instructor/dive centre, instructor/dive centre to student/client/instructor, instructor/dive centre to insurance company.

I have written about this in other threads. The problem here is that you are writing "instructor/dive centre," implying they are in essence a single entity. They are not. The dive centre controls the conditions of employment for the dive instructor, and the two often have conflicting beliefs.

As an instructor who has conducted training dives in low visibility, I have fought with dive shop management to provide (and pay) an adequate number of certified assistants needed for the conditions we normally face, let alone for the days conditions might be worse.

As the dive manager of the last shop I worked for told me (just before I left), instructors are a dime a dozen. Someone is dropping off a resume about every other week, so an instructor who does not like shop policies can be replaced in a heartbeat.

What needs to happen is to develop the competencies and knowledge of the instructors so that they can recognise the situation and call it, and can then explain to the students/clients clearly why the dive has been cancelled.

That explanation will be a lot easier than the explanation provided for the dive shop owner who sent the instructor, assistants, and all that equipment out to the site to certify those students. It will be easier than the explanation to the assistants as to why no one is getting paid for the work they did that day.

I once asked in a thread why 90% of the instructors listed as being expelled from PADI in each issue of the Undersea Journal was Asian, and I got a private reply from someone clearly in the know. He explained that the supposed PADI shops throughout Asia frequently have no official relationship with PADI. They are illegally using PADI's name for the shop because they have PADI instructors on their staff and can offer PADI certifications. The dive shop, not PADI, defines the conditions of employment, and they require the instructors to violate agency policies. If the instructors want a job, they have to do it. When something bad happens, the shop says, "Not my fault." The instructor is expelled, and the shop hires a replacement.

That's Asia. Things are not that different in the rest of the world.

 

[dmaziuk]

This is a much better worded version of the point I was trying to make. It really baffles me how so many divers don't understand this concept that is generally common amongst all other hobbies...

People are weird. We had two kids(*) -- not one -- in my OW class who actually couldn't swim. As in they failed the float test. The thought process that leads to paying money for a diving class while not being able to swim is beyond comprehesion.

*) University-affiliated class so the instructor, my wife, and I were the only "grown-ups" there.

 

[GLOC_The Human Diver]

The problem here is that you are writing "instructor/dive centre," implying they are in essence a single entity. They are not. The dive centre controls the conditions of employment for the dive instructor, and the two often have conflicting beliefs.

I write that because an instructor can also be a freelance instructor, not all instructors have to be affiliated to a shop. Maybe it should have been 'instructor and/or dive centre'.

The point you make is very valid about professional/commercial relationships between shop/centre owners and their diving staff (instructors and DMs) and the tensions/conflicts that exist. Owners might not even be divers and so don't understand the risk management issues at hand.

Regards

Gareth

 

[Nick_Radov]

The investigation will go forward and a report will be made and it will be accurate.

Could you explain why you believe that? Who is conducting the investigation? When and how will they release a report? How do we know it will be accurate? I suspect your confidence might be misplaced.

I've been diving for decades now and seen a lot of news stories about incidents. In the majority of cases the only official report that ever gets issued is a vague coroner's report that essentially just states the cause of death was accidental drowning with no real analysis of the root cause. Those coroner's reports are often written by investigators with zero knowledge of diving and usually not even released to the public in an easily accessible way. So they're not actionable and the diving community learns nothing to improve safety. The training agencies usually brush things under the rug and either do nothing, or if they take any disciplinary action or settle a liability lawsuit the details are kept secret. So we have only rumors and hearsay.

DAN has done some good work with their Annual Diving Reports (although those have fallen off in recent years). But the reports only cover a fraction of incidents in any detail, and DAN even states that they were unable to find primary source details on many fatalities.

 

[texfox98]

Could you explain why you believe that? Who is conducting the investigation? When and how will they release a report? How do we know it will be accurate? I suspect your confidence might be misplaced.

I've been diving for decades now and seen a lot of news stories about incidents. In the majority of cases the only official report that ever gets issued is a vague coroner's report that essentially just states the cause of death was accidental drowning with no real analysis of the root cause. Those coroner's reports are often written by investigators with zero knowledge of diving and usually not even released to the public in an easily accessible way. So they're not actionable and the diving community learns nothing to improve safety. The training agencies usually brush things under the rug and either do nothing, or if they take any disciplinary action or settle a liability lawsuit the details are kept secret. So we have only rumors and hearsay.

DAN has done some good work with their Annual Diving Reports (although those have fallen off in recent years). But the reports only cover a fraction of incidents in any detail, and DAN even states that they were unable to find primary source details on many fatalities.

As someone very familiar with law enforcement, that is my expectation in this case. An investigation, such as it is, will be conducted to show with reasonable certainty that there’s no criminal action occurred, most likely cause of death will be accidental drowning, the officers will have neither the knowledge nor the need to get into it more deeply. And in their defense, it’s not their job to understand all the hows and whys, just to investigate a crime if there is one (at this point I have no reason to think there is one).

So if not them, who? While I hope the facility, dive company, and instructors will do some reflection, that’s not likely to ever be made public due to liability concerns.

That leaves the dive community in general to glean as much useful info as they can.

 

[lizardland]

People are weird. We had two kids(*) -- not one -- in my OW class who actually couldn't swim. As in they failed the float test. The thought process that leads to paying money for a diving class while not being able to swim is beyond comprehesion.

*) University-affiliated class so the instructor, my wife, and I were the only "grown-ups" there.

It really shocked me when I used to teach how often this would happen. OK, it maybe wasn't frequent but it was a lot more than never. It happened enough to say "jeezus, not another one". I once got asked to supervise the pool test for a family of four. Not one of them could swim. Looking back, that no-one in the shop ever thought to ask when they were selling the courses in the first place really should have been a red flag too.

 

[wgw04024]

I hate to say this, but unless I know personally the instructor, I can't imagine not being in the water with my kid at that age. I took OW with my youngest when he was maybe 15 or 16. My oldest did OW years later, and I was not in the water with him, and did not like the experience being on the sidelines even though he was an adult and with an instructor I knew personally.

 

[HiddenDiver]

I just heard from one of the paramedic that was investigating the issue that shocked the f out of me.

This may just be another one of Linnea Mills type accident. We, as an industry, didn't f*ckin learn and a 12 year old girl paid with her life. Breaks my heart.

 

[auto]

Thank you so much for expressing why the response to this situation is not sitting well for me. It just feels off. Almost my entire diving community is centered around shops that use this location every weekend so I've been a bit hesitant to really say much. And I I get that it was an absolutely horrific day for a lot of people. But the silence and people saying "Stop. Don't talk about it. Just stop." and "Take our class next month" feels a little... ehhhh... also not how it should be handled.

But hey, I am not a lawyer or PR professional so I guess my opinion is worth as much as this post.

Thus why I never took another class in DFW, and shockingly enough it was with Scuba Toys. Not only was there a shouting match on the surface, he basically told me "I will sign off on your certification, good luck when you actually go to blue water". I told him to stick to recovering bodies, he was also a public safety diver. Pure assclowns.

Now my group only trains in Jupiter. Took an Aqulalung Legend in for the wife into a shop, got it back not a word was said. As were heading out we did a quick check out in the pool, it was hissing and leaking somewhere. Called said shop, "oh yeah, forgot to mention we had some parts that were not available so we used the old ones. You are not diving deep are you?" Another shop could never get a Scubapro reg to breath right after servicing. Lets not mention another shop and their dickish behavior towards booking Goliath Aggregation trip and then cancelling the entire boat with very little notice. So now my local shop is in Jupiter, Florida, training, service, gear and support of Jupiter charities they support. DFW and scuba is not word that should be used together. The one thing I can say, the new owner of Scuba Ranch is awesome and he definitely has upgraded the place.

 

[kammel78]

I just heard from one of the paramedic that was investigating the issue that shocked the f out of me.

This may just be another one of Linnea Mills type accident. We, as an industry, didn't f*ckin learn and a 12 year old girl paid with her life. Breaks my heart.

Care to share?

Thus why I never took another class in DFW, and shockingly enough it was with Scuba Toys. Not only was there a shouting match on the surface, he basically told me "I will sign off on your certification, good luck when you actually go to blue water". I told him to stick to recovering bodies, he was also a public safety diver. Pure assclowns.

Now my group only trains in Jupiter. Took an Aqulalung Legend in for the wife into a shop, got it back not a word was said. As were heading out we did a quick check out in the pool, it was hissing and leaking somewhere. Called said shop, "oh yeah, forgot to mention we had some parts that were not available so we used the old ones. You are not diving deep are you?" Another shop could never get a Scubapro reg to breath right after servicing. Lets not mention another shop and their dickish behavior towards booking Goliath Aggregation trip and then cancelling the entire boat with very little notice. So now my local shop is in Jupiter, Florida, training, service, gear and support of Jupiter charities they support. DFW and scuba is not word that should be used together. The one thing I can say, the new owner of Scuba Ranch is awesome and he definitely has upgraded the place.

I keep telling people this about the E Texas/NW Louisiana/SW Arkansas area and people don't believe me. If the scuba industry is a barrel of apples, and there are always bad apples, this part of the barrel has an overwhelmingly large portion of bad apples. I'd honestly say about 30% of the instructors I know are actually qualified to be instructors. And speaking from direct experience, the good ones end up going independent or stop teaching because we refuse to be part of the lowest-common-denomiator-scuba-mill. Add in local sites that are horrendously challenging - vis that on a good day is 10', drops to 5' with no light penetration, and shallow thermoclines that sit right at training depth and drop 10 degrees, then another 10 degrees at the 2nd thermocline with kids kitted out in just board shorts, shorties, or 1mms. Even IF we say this is all normal and within industry risk standards, it's an absolute sh*t experience we're giving divers and no f'ing wonder the industry is dying.