Error A Story of Poor Judgment

[iointerrupt]

If "bent twice" is a scarlet letter for someone with as many dives as a "Technical Instructor" surely has, then the lesson is now clear to me: Never ever tell anyone you've been bent, there is no upside.

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

Is it? Consider this excerpt from the linked article:

"The required reports were filed and during the resulting investigation, it was discovered the student had a history of DCS and other medical challenges including a suspected PFO. However, these episodes were never mentioned in medical waivers, or pre-course conversations, or dive briefings. Nor had incident reports about them ever been submitted to the agency."​

The diver has come out on Facebook, also citing this article. I'm not impressed. He was bent multiple times and thought he might have a PFO before he made this dive. No, I don't know who it is, but certain parties have contacted me about it because he shared it on Facebook and they're worried that could be carried over here. Apparently, he's not happy with RAID and others for his predicament, so the facts seem to be changing. Meh. It's human nature to justify your bad actions.

If you're bent more than once, and they're neuro-hits, get checked for a PFO. If you think they have a PFO, don't do those kind of dives until you are sure you don't have one or you have it closed. FFS, get it closed. Don't put yourself or your buddies at risk until you do. Don't be cavalier about it, AND tell your dive buddy and trainer of your medical issues before you splash. I told tech dive buddies that I had no idea if I had a PFO. "Why do you think you have one?" "I don't. I just don't know." They would ask me a few questions, like Doug Ebersole asked me when I confessed my fears. They all allay my fears and tell me I don't have any of the symptoms so relax. Two years ago, a slight heart murmur was heard, so off to the cardiologist I went. Guess what I had him check? Yah, whether or not I had a PFO or not. No, I don't. It's my unschooled opinion that all tech divers should be checked for that.

So, at the risk of sounding like a broken record: Know your limits. Honor your limits. Then communicate those limits to your instructors and buddies. Diving is optional. There's nothing down there worth dying for.

No argument that there is some individual accountability if the events happened as described, which seems to be in question given @boulderjohn 's post above.

The devil might be in the details here. The article says, "Back on the surface, the student showed signs of a serious, possibly neurological, (emphasis mine) DCS hit. Evacuation ensued followed by recompression and a hospital stay. (My thoughts: possibly neurological? Who assessed the diver and made that call?)

The required reports were filed and during the resulting investigation, it was discovered the student had a history of DCS and other medical challenges including a suspected (emphasis mine) PFO. However, these episodes were never mentioned in medical waivers, or pre-course conversations, or dive briefings. Nor had incident reports about them ever been submitted to the agency."

How many times have well-trained divers, some of whom are probably instructors, jumped into the medical forum on SB and advised other divers who've had DCS to get a PFO test when there was no medical indication? There's no clinical information here nor (at the risk of sounding snooty) is there any indication that the author is medically qualified to suspect PFO in a DCS hit. The only firm conclusion that one can draw from this article, which again seems to be suspect, is that the diver had been bent before and didn't disclose it.

Even if the article is completely accurate, after the individual accountability element, the question does need to be asked, what made not disclosing the truth on a medical form seem like a good idea? There's a culture of machismo in diving that tends to blame and shame divers who've had DCS as if they're somehow not as skilled. Tech diving is an advanced practice that is seen as loftier than no-decompression diving thus sometimes contributes to this culture. What can we all do to change the culture so that DCS is viewed rightfully as a sports injury rather than a failure?

Best regards,
DDM

 

[The Chairman]

My thoughts: possibly neurological? Who assessed the diver and made that call?

His instructor made the initial assessment and initiated EMS based on imbalance and reduced cognitive abilities. The hospital confirmed that.

the question does need to be asked, what made not disclosing the truth on a medical form seem like a good idea?

Denial. Hubris. Inconsideration. Inconvenience. A habit of lying and convincing others of his delusions. The need to be a Diving God. I don't know the diver in question, so these are more generic in nature. There's a problem in our industry that we excuse bad behaviors with an "it's OK, because everybody does it" attitude. I've seen others get away with lying on their medical forms, even to the point of them laughing about it. I've had students note a problem which precluded me from teaching them, only to ask if they can have a do-over. Sorry, no can do. Instructors are acutely aware of this and know how to gloss things over. No, not all or even most instructors will do this, but I certainly know those who have. In this case, his instructor made an incident report based on his being deceived and the agency subsequently pulled his rights to teach under their aegis. I've heard about this from more than one source, and it saddens me.

 

[tursiops]

Yes it does

If it didn't the british isles would be near arctic conditions. Most seem to not understand how far north they are.





View attachment 855724

You are conflating the warmth of the British Isles with the warmth of the Gulf Stream. Here, from Gulf Stream - MeteoSwiss.:

"The Gulf Stream is part of two larger circulation systems in the North Atlantic: the AMOC and the North Atlantic Gyre. The Gulf Stream is largely driven by winds and only to a lesser extent by the density-driven AMOC. The AMOC is the current that is largely responsible for the warm climate in Europe and is often mistakenly equated with the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream transports around 90 million cubic metres of water per second (= 90 Sverdrup) eastwards. At around 15 Sverdrup, the AMOC accounts for only a small part of its volume. However, the AMOC turns northwards off Europe, while the continuation of the Gulf Stream, the North Atlantic Current, turns southwards. The AMOC releases a lot of heat into the atmosphere in the colder north and consequently warms (northern) Europe. The North Atlantic Current also transports most of the heat it brings along back to the south."​

See also:

https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-source-of-europes-mild-climate

That image you show is not correct. A bit better is this one:

 

[boulderjohn]

The Gulf Stream has only a marginal relationship to what actually happened here.

The currents on the reefs in South Florida can run either south or north, or they might not move at all. I remember one day when the DM tried to hook onto a wreck but came back saying the current there was too strong for a moored dive. We moved to another wreck--same story. The captain suggested that with the currents so strong, we abandon the wreck dive plan and switch to a reef drift dive, and we agreed. He moved to the nearby reef, and when we reached it, we honestly had trouble telling which way the current was going; it was close to nonexistent.

This is close to what the captain said happened in this case. The current was too strong for a moored wreck dive, so they went to the reef and did a reef drift dive instead. He judged the current to be "moderate." It was going north.

 

[The Chairman]

If "bent twice" is a scarlet letter for someone with as many dives as a "Technical Instructor" surely has, then the lesson is now clear to me: Never ever tell anyone you've been bent, there is no upside.

I disagree. Just be honest. Putting your instructor and or students in a schitt situation is not a good deal. His dishonesty was outed by this incident. His dishonesty put him in jeopardy and it bit him in the butt. There's just no need to be dishonest. Not everyone can dive. Not every diver can do every dive. Diving is purely optional. Don't lose sight of that.

I must admit, that I've never been bent. I've actually been made fun of for having 50+ years of diving and have yet to be bent. I don't take needless chances. I don't push deco to the max. In fact, I see deco as being the minimum time needed, so I always spend another 5 minutes at my last stop. Why not? I've blown off deco only once due to aggressive sharks. That was a couple of minutes on a Suunto, which is the most conservative of all PDCs. All the other PDCs on that dive had cleared.

 

[Cthippo]

To me there is a deeper moral question here, and this is going to be controversial...

What I am hearing a lot of other people say is that a diver should give up both their hobby and , when an instructor, their career because they discover they might be at an undefined greater risk of DCS. I hear an expectation that we give up the things we care about because at some point it might kill us. This sport is inherently dangerous, especially in the tech aspects, yet we are willing to exclude people from it because they are at a higher risk so we can keep telling ourselves it is "safe"?

 

[sharkhugger]

To me there is a deeper moral question here, and this is going to be controversial...

What I am hearing a lot of other people say is that a diver should give up both their hobby and , when an instructor, their career because they discover they might be at an undefined greater risk of DCS. I hear an expectation that we give up the things we care about because at some point it might kill us. This sport is inherently dangerous, especially in the tech aspects, yet we are willing to exclude people from it because they are at a higher risk so we can keep telling ourselves it is "safe"?

Unfit to dive and unfit to teach are two different things IMO.
When you're diving, you're buddy is equally responsible for you, and you for them. You're both trained for the level of diving in which you're doing.

When you're an instructor, you're responsible for your student because you're taking them beyond their current qualifications.

In this case, it appears as if the decision to continue diving is a personal choice in which each diver must assess their own ability to handle the conditions that they are willing to jump in the water for.

But the decision to continue teaching is up to the agency to determine if the instructor is fit to teach, lead, rescue and fit to be responsible for divers diving beyond their current limits of training.

I would not want to risk my life with an instructor such as this.
I would not recommend this instructor to any future student given the decisions they've made in this instance and their inability to disclose their own medical limitations. They broke trust, got caught, and should be banned from future teaching.

 

[iointerrupt]

I would not recommend this instructor to any future student given the decisions they've made in this instance and their inability to disclose their own medical limitations.

And what exactly, are those medical limitations? Did a doctor diagnose them as having incurable Nitrogen Sponge syndrome?

From the information we have, all we know is "bent twice". We have no idea for what the reason for those past DCS incidents were. They could be entirely incident-specific, and have no underlying medical cause at all.

 

[tursiops]

They could be entirely incident-specific, and have no underlying medical cause at all.

Yep, and they could have entirely medical causes. What is your point?