Accident at Lake Rawlings Sunday 05/27/2012

[AwkwardSwimmer]

PADI is very forthright with information, and the information I've provided is freely available on PADI's consumer website. As a diver [read consumer] you should be aware of where this information is located.

On top of this everyone should be aware of the PADI Pro Chek. You can always ask any professional PADI member (divemaster, assistant instructor, or instructor) for their member number. Plug it into the PADI Pro Chek and it will tell you their actual certification level, whether they are authorized to teach, and whether they are a currently renewed member.

PADI Pro Chek

I would imagine other agencies to have a similar system or at least the ability to contact the agency and verify their professional members.

 

[Ayisha]

Even if they pulled him down, that doesn't necessarily mean he did anything wrong. It would certainly be understandable to take a break or quit teaching after being witness to an underwater medical event, witnessing the spouse watch the body be recovered, and be subjected to countless second guessing.

Is this what happened - I have no idea, but I wouldn't put the guy on a stake until it is for sure. I just don't know of a way to substantiate that claim at this point.

The PADI website shows that the instructor was not suspended, he was "expelled". This is their definition of expelled:

Expelled PADI Members This is a list of PADI Members (instructors, assistant instructors, and divemasters) expelled from the organization within the last six years. Those listed are no longer PADI Members and therefore cannot conduct PADI courses or represent themselves as PADI Members. If you have questions about an individual on the list, please contact PADI.

Expulsion only results after a PADI Member refuses to implement corrective measures, or when the nature of the complaint is so severe that expulsion is necessary to protect the public or to preserve the reputation of the PADI organization.

 

[t-mac]

Sorry if I missed something, but I've been away from this thread for a couple of days and I'm having a hard time piecing things together. So, it looks like the intructor was expelled from PADI, but does anyone know exactly on what basis? Certainly the "facts" we "know" suggest some disturbing timeline issues. Was it a complete failure of supervision (eg, really did not notice being a diver short on a safety stop?!)? I also see posts on the ratio, but the ratio was fine by the book and with 20ft viz, it's not a clear cut case of poor judgement in my eyes not to have a DM or reduce the ratio. If it wasn't something as straightforward a violating a black and white standard, like a ratio, PADI must have access to some truly disturbing information on a breakdown here. Does anyone have a better idea about the basis for an expulsion (rather than something remedial)? Certainly when a death results, there is probably less inclination to remediate, but I still think there must have been some pretty extreme facts pointing to a clear error and not a debatable lack of judgment to result in such a swift and conclusive action.

 

[Diveva]

Based on several conversations with Divers concerned about getting wrapped up in legal action resulting from posts on SB, I have been able to piece together a probable sequence of events leading to the fatality. Again, this is not factual but a theory based on conversations, as well as overheard events, and 3rd party knowledge well as older posts in this thread.

The Instructor and 6 students began OWD 3 around 1100a. The instructor did not have a CA with him. The Instructor took the 6 students to the Memorial Platform (vis 25-30ft) to conduct OWD 3 skills. Once completed with the skills, the Instructor took the students on a tour, to include a dive to 50+ ft along the wall of the Quary. While deep the diver paniced, attempted to swim to the surface, and suffered a lung embolism, Once completed with the deep part of the tour the Instructor accended to the top of the wall (30 ft) and lead the group to a point roughly 200 ft from the wall. The Instructor and students conducted a 3 min safety stop and accended. Once on the Surface, at aproximatly 1125a-1130a the buddy of the victim informed the Instructor that his buddy was missing.

A search called for at approximately 1200p after the divers on shore were informed a diver was missing,
The search began at approx 1210p, the victim was recovered at approx 1215p and on the dock at 1220p

I contend that the Victim never completed the deep part of the dive, based on where she was located. The Instructor lost count of his students in the darker poor viz deep water and never confirmed the student count until either at the safety stop or on the surface. This is supported by diver statements and the fact PADI moved fairly quickly to expell the Instructor. Which, based on the website

"Expulsion only results after a PADI Dive Shop or Resort refuses to implement corrective measures, or when the nature of the complaint is so severe that expulsion is necessary to protect the public or to preserve the reputation of the PADI organization."

Divers have stated this instructor leads training dives from a "in the front single file line" position. Based on the vis the instructor couldn't have seen the last diver in the group. It was also overheard that a buddy team saw the class returning from the platform in this formation, as well as noting a single diver way behind the group trying to catchup.

I speculate that:
1. The diver was stressing about heading deeper to colder water and began breathing faster and shallower
2. Once the Diver got to 50ft the cold water (54-58 degrees) caused the diver to continue to breath faster and the diver became more stressed
3. with the poor viz (possibly as little as 4ft) the diver not being able to see her buddy, paniced, spit out the reg, and attempted to swim to
the surface, suffered a lung embolism, couldn't reach the surface and drown, having not inflated her BCD she dropped back down.
4. the Instructor assumed everyone was following along with the plan, and having lead possibly hundreds of training dives this way becamecomplacent to the risks of diving with students who have less than an hour in open water and roughly 3 hours acually in a pool breathing through a regulator.


If this theory is correct, or even close to the facts of the fatality, While its easy to simply write this up as "Instructor Error" and move on to the next thread, I have taken several learning points from this:

1. Never lose sight of your students
2. Always evaluate the conditions of the Dive site, plan the training dive based on teaching objectives (is there a need to go to 50ft?)
3. Use a CA if the class size and conditions warrant
4. You can be within standards but out of good judgement you gotta be within both.
5. Never delay calling for assistance when a diver is missing, swallow your ego and get assistance fast.
6. No matter how long you've instructed, how many times you've training students in the same dive site, or how many certs you have,
complacency is waiting around the corner ready to bite you in the ass.

I'm sure other, more senior, instructors and divemasters can add to or disagree with the ones I've listed above.

 

[Wookie]

There is more here somewhere. PADI does not expel instructors for standards violations even if a student dies. The action must be so egregious that the continued membership would bring disrepute on PADI. Losing a student in poor visibility would not constitute such an action, even if the student expired.

 

[boulderjohn]

While deep the diver paniced, attempted to swim to the surface, and suffered a lung embolism, Once completed with the deep part of the tour the Instructor accended to the top of the wall (30 ft) and lead the group to a point roughly 200 ft from the wall. The Instructor and students conducted a 3 min safety stop and accended. Once on the Surface, at aproximatly 1125a-1130a the buddy of the victim informed the Instructor that his buddy was missing.

...

Divers have stated this instructor leads training dives from a "in the front single file line" position. Based on the vis the instructor couldn't have seen the last diver in the group. It was also overheard that a buddy team saw the class returning from the platform in this formation, as well as noting a single diver way behind the group trying to catchup.

Thanks, but the part I have quoted above has me confused.

Who saw the diver panic, attempt to swim to the surface, and suffer an embolism? What prevented the diver from swimming to the surface when she made the attempt? Was the missing diver at the end of the line? Otherwise, how did her buddy not realize she was missing earlier?

 

[Diveva]

Who saw the diver panic, attempt to swim to the surface, and suffer an embolism? What prevented the diver from swimming to the surface when she made the attempt? Was the missing diver at the end of the line? Otherwise, how did her buddy not realize she was missing earlier?

To Clearify, the above is my theory on what happened, I don't believe the anyone saw the victim having issues at depth. I would speculate that the Diver was the last in the line and her buddy, with a total open water dive time of 50min or so was too task loaded with keeping up with the group, watching his air, and his depth that he didn't or couldn't see his buddy.

It was also overheard that a buddy team saw the class returning from the platform in this formation, as well as noting a single diver way behind the group trying to catchup.

This single diver was almost certainly the buddy of the missing diver. The Diver was lagging behind the group looking for his buddy while trying to remain with the group.

Sorry for the confusion

 

[BDSC]

For you folks that are instructors, what amounts of liability insurance are you required to carry? Is there a minimum or maximum? Just curious.

 

[t-mac]

There is more here somewhere. PADI does not expel instructors for standards violations even if a student dies. The action must be so egregious that the continued membership would bring disrepute on PADI. Losing a student in poor visibility would not constitute such an action, even if the student expired.

This is exactly my point of confusion too. A lot of things could have and should have been done better. Seemingly many small sins here that resulted in tragedy. Expulsion suggests something egregious occured -- in my mind if this is something less than willful behaviour, it is negligence of the order that simply cannot be tolerated. Here, the result is egregious, of course, but at what point did the instructor's actions become egregious? Of course, we are speculating on all of this, but based on all of the fictional facts we are throwing around, the one that troubles me the most is that the instructor apparently started the dive with 6 students and at the end of the dive did a 3 minute safety stop with only 5 and apparently did not notice someone was missing until surfacing. If this is true, it is hard for me to imagine a legitimate excuse. I cannot imagine visibility so poor as to excuse it; the only explanation I can find is a complete disregard for basic supervisory principles. In order for this to happen, the instructor would nearly have to be ignoring the students or unaware of how many were there at the beginning. If true, that is egregious and I understand PADI's actions.

 

[DandyDon]

[h=2]e·gre·gious[/h]   [ih-gree-juhs, -jee-uhs] Show IPA
adjective 1. extraordinary in some bad way; glaring; flagrant: an egregious mistake; an egregious liar.