A divers arrogance and ignorance

[cornfed]

gedunk once bubbled...

How bad did the fires look to you?

Honestly.... I'm surprised the death toll wasn't higher.

I heard that after the bombing in 1993 (in which the evacuation was a really CF) they took a close look at the evac. plan. Apparently people took the fire drills more seriously after '93.

Look guys, I'm not down playing what FFs did at the WTC. I don't think this sorry (a DM retrieving a reckless diver, or a squirrely dive team member) compares to what happened in NY.

Cornfed

 

[Zagnut]

and I didn't really mean to hijack this thread and turn it into a discussion of firemen.

I will just add that the DM's effort was galliant and successful (and probably foolish) however it could just as easily have gone bad. I would hate to think what narced at 250' is like or how much of your air would be used up with each breath at that depth ...especially seein as this happened midway thru the dive so it wasn't even a full tank he was wearing.

 

[cornfed]

diverbrian once bubbled...


Actually, that is standard procedure in my manual for leading large groups. The idea is that if someone has a "normal" problem (ie. equipment, stress starting) that one DM can pick it up and help the person to the point of taking them to the surface if necessary and the other one can be the dive guide and possibly deal with the rest of the group if the "rescue" will be a problem (as the lead DM did in this case). It is not required, but is helpful. At the very least the other DM can keep "tabs" on the other divers so that if a search is needed somebody has a good idea where a diver or buddy team was actually last seen in the confusion that a "rescue" sometimes entails.

It is not intended to make up for divers who flagrantly disregard the safety briefing and put the DM's and rest of the group at risk. DM's are not scuba police. If the diver chooses to do something extremely stupid once in the water, that is the diver's responsibility.

I still don't understand the level of responsiblity the DMs had to the divers.

Some said this wasn't a resort course but a groups of certified divers. Therefore they are expected know the risks and take care of themselves. Then you say that the DM will help someone out if they get into a "reasonable" problem. But aren't these certified diver? Shouldn't their buddy be expected to handle these problems?

If you expect the DM to handle these issues then you would also expect them to be in a physical position to do so. How can the DM handle an equipment issue or recognize the onset of stress if they are 200+ ft (horizontal not vertical) away? If you they are expected, as you say, to help in certain areas then shouldn't they keep the divers close enough that they can do so?

I have two problems with this whole scenario. First, the guy's buddy let him get away. Didn't he notice that his buddy was gone. Shouldn't he have notified the DMs that his buddy was "lost"? Second, why didn't the DMs realize he was gone until he was 200+ ft away. If you hold them to assisting with "normal" problems then they need to be near the divers to do so. The fact that the seperation distance was vertical instead of horizontal just makes the problem worse.

Having said that, I don't dive with DMs so I don't understand how the system works. I generally dive in the mid-Atlantic off VA and with the lower viz we don't get leading and tailing DMs, it just wouldn't be practical.

To recap, you say that the divers were certified and the DMs shouldn't have to babysit them. Then you say that they are expected to help with problems. I find these statement to be inconsistant. If you expect people to help clean up problems shouldn't you expect them to prevent them?

Cornfed

 

[Zagnut]

How did the diver get so far away before he was noticed?

Also, with that post earlier about the diver in the Blue Hole in Belize. The DM had to bring him up from extreme depths twice and the third time they let him keep on going and the body was never found.

After pulling him up twice, you would think that the DM would not let this guy get out of his sight...clip him off to your D ring or something if you have to. Granted the DM shouldn't have to babysit somebody like that but if I was a DM stuck in that situation, if that diver got more than 10' away from me after hauling him up twice, I'd yank him back by his BC or tank valve or something, but I wouldn't have let him venture off a third time.

 

[diverbrian]

If the diver needs help and ASKS FOR IT, the DM is in a position to help in the scenario that I refer to.

If the diver drifts away from the group (like when I went off to take pictures at 100 ft. when the group was diving at 80 ft. and then met the group back at the safety stop), they must feel capable of handling the situation and are on their own. It is no longer the DM's responsibility. In other words, I would treat that diver the same the as a diver that showed up on another boat and happened to be in the same area as the group. It is the diver's call to stay with the DM or not as the diver isn't doing certain Caribbean diving where there are laws about diving below a certain depth for environmental reasons.

The buddy situation: Hey the guy was a drug dealer. Maybe he wound up with a buddy who was a cop and thought it would be a good way to close a case, LOL. Seriously, on these cattle group trips, the only assigned buddies that I saw (from my time in Provo) were family groups. His "buddy" was probably the fact that he was in a group.

You are right! Many charter ops. up North will not provide DM's for the reasons that are mentioned. If they don't provide a DM, the divers are clearly responsible for themselves and the boat turns into a taxi out to the wreck site. Their is no "fuzzy" liability that way. I actually prefer that to having a DM lead a large group around. That way we don't have twenty divers trying to look at the same thing at the same time.

 

[MikeFerrara]

gedunk once bubbled...

Well Mike, not all teams are this way.

First, do you pay taxes in this county? I would be opening a case of wup-arse on my county representative for letting my tax dollars get out of my county when there was options to spend the money with a county tax payer.

Of course not all teams are this way. And in the case of the ones that are it only makes things hard on the divers and most don't know any better so they go along.

My business is in the county so I guess I pay lots of taxes but I live in a different county. Shoot every year I have to pay property tax on everything in the store, not to mention property tax on the realestate which I of course pay through rent. I think this is a good ol boy setup and raising a stink might be a good way to find trouble of some kind. BTW, the shop that was in town for 20+ years before me never got any of this business either.

Some of the guys who are joining the team are pretty pissed and are buying some stuff through us. They don't have a choice where they do their training. BTW, one of the guys told me the OW class is a two day class. The guy about fell over when I explained our class to him. It's a racket and there's lots of money to be made so it attracts all the slugs.

This is a good business to get out of and now is a good time to do it.

 

[srobins]

dad6b once bubbled...


If this is true I was unaware. I was under the impression that they called for all FFs to evacuate the north tower after the first collapsed.

Cornfed

I call sockpuppet..

 

[cornfed]

srobins once bubbled...


I call sockpuppet..

I started an account (dad6b) with a username I've used before.

I decided to change my username for reasons that don't matter to you.

I used my wifes computer which automagically logged me in under my old account. I talked to some adminstrators about deleting that account. Apparenlty they haven't done it.

If I cared enough about my "mistake" I would have edited or deleted that post.

If you cared enough you could figure out that Drew A. Dunn, dad6b and Cornfed are the same person. Other people already have.

Now... do you have anything useful to add to this discussion? I still haven't had the DM / Buddy responsiblity issue addressed to my satisfaction. Care to address that or would you rather talk more about FFs? Both topics are of personal interest to me so I'll let you pick.

Cornfed, aka dad6b

 

[Big-t-2538]

well, my experience with DMs is this....

They are there to lead you around or to a dive site.....

They brief you on the site....tell you what is/isn't safe there....what potential dangers are, what conditions are, etc. They give you minimums and maximums (if they feel it is warranted) for dive times and surface intervals.

they oversee the operation of the dive itself. Sometimes they dive, sometimes they don't.

As far as liability is concerned, I feel if they have done something to affect the decision of a diver (follow me over here to this depth) and something happens, they are responsible. IF they decide to drop a group in knowing that conditions are too risky, they are responsible.

Once the diver themself does something stupid...the DM is really no longer responsible b/c s/he sore of becomes a rescue diver. Thus you would want to try to resolve the problem, but sometimes, you just can't.

Yes, everyone knows that prevention is the first step.....but sometimes stuff happens and Responsible individuals have to put themselves at risk to save person X. If they decide to take that risk, it is calculated......and this not not just true of the dive industry...it is rock climbing, fire fighting, police work, rafting, etc.

 

[Nightshade]

I've noticed a trend in the discussions of "heroes" and "fools" both here and in other literature that I have read. Now when reading this keep in mind that this may not apply to all situations, rather it is a generalization of my observations. (And Cornfed touched on this before)

Essentially, (as seen by society) a "hero" is someone who does an act, under circumstances that is against all odds (such as the diving incident), and SUCCEEDS. A "fool" is someone, who may have done the same thing and FAILS. It would be interesting to see how people would have reacted to this posting had the circumstances been different (i.e. both people had died).

To this end I would say that as a community, we are grateful that the diver did what he did. No long term effects were inflicted on either party, and both people survived (again, despite the odds). He was to some of us, a hero. A previous posting by MikeFerrara told of an officer that went into the ice to find someone, despite having no training. He came out alive, and was given a medal. Therefore, I postulate that there is evidence of this that can be seen in the actions of people in society. For those of you researchers out there, I realize that two anecdotes do not constitute data, but it might give us a lead on where to start looking.