Error A Story of Poor Judgment

[rjack321]

Based on the analytical quality and reasoned conviction of your posts on SB and that you’re aware of the “trust me” factor in the local + visitor dive situation, I suspect your assessment of the risks would be far more transparent and forthcoming such that the visiting diver can make an informed decision.

Well I appreciate that. I do try to explain the "what ifs" to guests who might never have done a site before or in some cases have limited experience on dives anything like what is planned. And I do try to make contingencies for "what do we do if XYZ happens"

I'm not seeing any coordination between the local diver, the visiting instructor and clearly most experienced of the 3, the charter skipper. So I'll go out on a limb here and say it's not solely on the local student here. The visiting instructor was privy to the briefing too and should have said "this is more than I can supervise class-wise" and tempered the depth, time, deco, work objectives to match conditions. Even if they misinterpreted the captain's briefing or thought they could handle the conditions and still properly supervise the student - the dive could and should have been abbreviated or thumbed earlier.

 

[sharkhugger]

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.

Possibly, but its unethical to not disclose those past incidents on a medical waiver. The diver is a technical instructor themselves and should know better. @The Chairman put it well:

Denial. Hubris. Inconsideration. Inconvenience. A habit of lying and convincing others of his delusions. The need to be a Diving God.

The issue that is concerning is the ability to teach if one's self can't be trusted to follow the rules themselves. Divers break rules all the time, but does an agency really want an instructor who's going to break rules and teach things apart from the agencies standards? What about setting a good example as an instructor? "Well, my instructor didn't disclose so I won't either, and they lived to tell the tale..." - not exactly the types of divers we should want out in the world buddying up with us on vacations.

"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 only people who know the details of those medical conditions are the diver himself and his doctors. But, it sounds like the medical conditions contributed to the situation and could handicap the divers ability to teach in the future and be responsible for others. It seems very reasonable for all agencies who allow the diver to teach to perform a medical investigation and also ethics investigation to confirm the diver is both fit to teach, as well as able to follow the rules and regulations set by the agency. The very rules the diver broke when they were a student themselves

 

[sharkhugger]

It's my understanding that he was purged from the ranks of RAID. He's still an instructor for another agency.

Bottom line, he had been bent twice before and thought he might have a PFO. None of that was indicated on his forms. The issues are did he lie on his medical form to get to take the class and is that OK to do? It's a matter of trust, or lack thereof.

This is scary. Do you know which agency? One would hope that the other agency launches their own investigation considering a RAID instructor found his students decision making so completely appalling that the instructor went to RAID, shared what he saw, and it resulted in the student being purged as an instructor.

Don't all agencies teach to the same standards, give or take?
So shouldn't they all reasonably share similar stances on bans from teaching?

 

[NothingClever]

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

I concur with your interest in analyzing what led an instructor to think it was OK for him to avoid disclosure of basic information at multiple moments when he was duty-bound. I reckon the list of reasons would be pretty short but I sincerely concur it's worth pursuing. In my previous career where I was an investigating officer for a wide variety of breaches or the appointed authority to adjudicate the findings, a chance to hear from the individual under investigation was paramount to reaching a durable conclusion about culpability and appropriate redress.

Given that RAID declares in a very central manner that:

"Our focus is to bring positive change to the scuba and freediving industries. Safe, inclusive, no shortcuts: a thoroughly modern approach… The RAID Way™"

I'd be very interested (if I were a senior at RAID) in learning from the instructor on why he took actions that directly contravene an important ethos of the company and core principle. I'd want to understand how my otherwise healthy organization (assumption) became susceptible to a stark violation. That doesn't necessarily mean a face-to-face interview but rather simply having an unpressurized testimony.

With regards to individuals that blame and shame, I haven't had any experience in that (yet). If it's an unprovoked hit, then the joke's on the immature individual doing the naming and shaming and I think it's pretty easy to put that in its place. I think on the boat, at the chamber or in the shop, this is something that's easy to nip in the bud but he who speaks up has to speak with the authority of knowledge and experience. To simply say, "That's not nice." isn't going to cut it. Nipping it in the bud here on ScubaBoard? Highly unlikely.

As far as a broader-reaching effort to change the industry, RSTC could advocate for including your very language in coursebooks and through CD emphasis to instructors - "e.g, An unprovoked case of DCS is akin to a sports injury and shouldn't be construed as a failure in planning or skills". Of course, there would need to be more amplification than that but that's the essence.

If it's a provoked or predictable hit, well...that's a different story and as much as we don't like it, boys are going to be boys.

 

[rjack321]

Don't all agencies teach to the same standards, give or take?

LMAO you're new here eh?

 

[cerich]

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"?

That is beyond selfish if an instructor and teaching when you KNOW you are more likely to get a bad hit, have had them before and you having another while teaching puts your STUDENTS in the position of having to rescue you. It's unethical and irresponsible. WE know that especially in tech that the attempt to rescue fails much more often than not and that FAR too often the rescuer also becomes a victim. So, teaching when you are more likely and have a history of getting bent, especially tech, means that you are willing to have a student die or have trauma from watching you die/be badly injured. You REALLY think that's OK? REALLY???!!!

You think that maybe airline pilots should lose their career when they are medically unfit? Just saying

 

[rjack321]

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"?

Medical retirements are a thing in MANY industries including many military MOS, the peace corps, pilots, firefighters and more. Steve Bogaerts gave up teaching and eventually diving because he was at high risk for DCS.

Being at high risk as an instructor, and continuing to do technical teaching dives supposedly providing oversight to paying students... yeah that is unfathomably bad. Probably commercially uninsurable if disclosed to the agency underwriters.

 

[Underwater Tourist]

continuing your career and ignoring medical issues brings germanwings flight 9525 to mind where the pilot had mental issues for months, hid it from everybody, and then one day decided to run the plane into a mountain just for the kicks

different story, but same story

 

[NothingClever]

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?)

Based on past responsibilities, I can't help but look at this through a different lens.

I think the senior instructor exhibited deference to a trained medical provider making the final diagnosis when he stated "possibly neurological".

I'd rather that an instructor have a confident orientation derived from his required medical training (as an instructor) to conduct a rudimentary field diagnosis (based on an agency-approved, medically-based algorithm) so that he can provide the best possible casualty hand-off to a medical treatment facility. I think we should WANT instructors properly trained to serve as proactive participants in field diagnosis to help take slack out of the treatment process.

I agree that an instructor bombing in, especially here on ScubaBoard, to say somebody has a PFO is probably demonstrating a metric tonne of enthusiasm with less than an ounce of expertise.

 

[NothingClever]

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"?

You better believe I want an instructor who lies to his own organization about risk to go find a new vocation.

Your postulated conclusion - "so we can keep telling ourselves it is safe" - is a strange perspective to me. I'll admit that my perspective on risk assessment and mitigation and leaders/instructors having a very real responsibility in accident prevention is borne from nearly three decades of training it, doing it, leading it, and conducting investigations when we got it wrong.

Just a reminder, too - this is the leisure and recreational industry we're talking about here. This isn't the case of a major mutual fund manager who finds out a close family member spent time in prison for money laundering and now he has deep questions about his own legitimacy in the financial world and has to contemplate a career change from the financial industry to something else. We're talking about a Florida dive instructor who probably has hot chicks, bragging rights and Instagram on his mind rather than a career progression plan to someday land in the senior IT role at RAID Headquarters.