Accident at Lake Rawlings Sunday 05/27/2012

[tomfcrist]

The police investigate crimes, they don't issue "reports" regarding scuba deaths. Have you ever seen an official report of a scuba death? I know of many deaths in the last couple years and not one has an "official" report...especially from anyone "official".

Sir, the final police report will have both detailed accounts of the incident and the Med Examiners findings. They do investigate ALL deaths(even diving accidents) to determine cause of death and to rule out homicide.......therefore the poilice investigation report will be much more comprhensive than you think.

 

[t4e]

Jim, I understand your point of view, but think you may be seeing with tunnel vision.
Even if I have only 2 students, there are times( touring dives) that I am not going to be in direct eye contact with my students. Being the instructor, I lead the dive. I can't navigate the quarry without taking my eyes off the students for a minute....or more like 10 seconds, which is plenty of time for this incident to happen, I've been refraining from bringing this up, but how is it that her husband/dive buddy didn't even know what happens to her, and was most likely the closest person to her. From what I read in the earlier reports she still had air, so quite frankly it seems that this was a medical problem that just so happened to occur under this instructors watch. Could have very well happened in the parking lot.

fair enough you can't keep eye contact with your students at all times but...how do you justify the fact that she has been down there for 1 hour and 19 minutes?

why would you take students to a quarry with 20ft viz to do their checkout dives?
if no other options are available besides the quarry, why not limit the number of divers to Instructor to 2 only, so its easier to keep track of them?

we had our checkout dives in cold crystal clear water and the ratio of student to Instructor/DM was 2:1

 

[tomfcrist]

fair enough you can't keep eye contact with your students at all times but...how do you justify the fact that she has been down there for 1 hour and 19 minutes?

why would you take students to a quarry with 20ft viz to do their checkout dives?
if no other options are available besides the quarry, why not limit the number of divers to Instructor to 2 only, so its easier to keep track of them?

we had our checkout dives in cold crystal clear water and the ratio of student to Instructor/DM was 2:1

1:19 would have been the time from going under the water, to Dalelynn bringing her to the surface......nobody has said exactly how long was spent searching for her, and a 1 hour dive is not unheard of.

As far as instructor/student ratio's....Its at the discretion of the instructor. Ive done 6 before, but prefer no more than 4.

 

[t4e]

1:19 would have been the time from going under the water, to Dalelynn bringing her to the surface......nobody has said exactly how long was spent searching for her, and a 1 hour dive is not unheard of.

As far as instructor/student ratio's....Its at the discretion of the instructor. Ive done 6 before, but prefer no more than 4.

quite irrelevant from when you count the time

i'm sure 1 hour dives are not unheard of, but allow me to doubt that a brand new diver will last that long on one tank of air

 

[SeaHorse81]

i'm sure 1 hour dives are not unheard of, but allow me to doubt that a brand new diver will last that long on one tank of air

Easily done in shallow depths, actually.

 

[t4e]

Easily done in shallow depths, actually.

what is "shallow"?

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Anything under 30 feet really. I have done checkouts with most students at depths of 20 -30 feet and an al 80 easily lasts that long. Personally an al 80 will last me over 2 hours at 30 feet. I've been on boats in the keys with newer divers who get one hour dives out of an 80 cu ft tank and still come back with 1000 psi.

 

[t4e]

Anything under 30 feet really. I have done checkouts with most students at depths of 20 -30 feet and an al 80 easily lasts that long. Personally an al 80 will last me over 2 hours at 30 feet. I've been on boats in the keys with newer divers who get one hour dives out of an 80 cu ft tank and still come back with 1000 psi.

ok, all good...but, at the checkout dives, at least based on the agency that we took our training with, there are depth parameters set for each of the 4 dives, and as opposed to what normal practice is to do deepest dive first, for the purpose of training the checkout dives are done backwards, shallow dive first and subsequent ones deeper

my understanding from reading the rest of the thread is that when the accident occurred they were on the second day, third dive so they should have been deeper than 20-30 ft, again this is based on the standards of my agency, i don't know what PADI's are

regardless of all this, the fact remains that whomever was in charge lost sight of the student for way too long

 

[tomfcrist]

T4e, you are trying to draw a conclusion from thin air....every differant agency is represented at Rawlings virtually every weekend. The deepest we will take OW divers is the shallow part of the lake(max depth 30ft). I'm sure you think you know the S&P's for the agency you were certified through, but in reality you are gasping for air here man. Leave it alone, we DO know what we are talking about here.

 

[boulderjohn]

ok, all good...but, at the checkout dives, at least based on the agency that we took our training with, there are depth parameters set for each of the 4 dives, and as opposed to what normal practice is to do deepest dive first, for the purpose of training the checkout dives are done backwards, shallow dive first and subsequent ones deeper

my understanding from reading the rest of the thread is that when the accident occurred they were on the second day, third dive so they should have been deeper than 20-30 ft, again this is based on the standards of my agency, i don't know what PADI's are

You seem to be confusing the maximum allowed depth on a dive with a required depth on a dive. With PADI, the deepest the students can go on dives 1 and 2 is 40 feet, and the deepest they can go on dives 3 and 4 is 60 feet. That does not mean they must go to those depths on those dives. They can all be done at 20 feet. At one training site in our area, you will need a shovel to go past 21 feet on any dive.