After reading the latest summary, which I appreciate you posting, a couple things come to mind. I first noted in a prior post the website of the shop advertising one weekend or 3 weeknight training before the OW dives and asked how this could possibly be enough time to get someone comfy enough to dive in those conditions. In this case it obviously was not. I also made note of an instructor leading three buddy teams in 20 ft vis and still be in control of everyone. Well you can't. Not without a CA. If the reports are true about the group being led single file then that is just asking for someone to get hurt. Not only that but it is one of the things I cite in my presentation on the failure of the buddy system and is repeated in my book about how instructors that have this practice for checkout dives are telling new divers that they don't need to be good buddies. That the buddy system is just something to give lip service to. And that the instructor does not take the time, chooses to ignore, or just doesn't care about it enough to teach it properly. If they even know how to teach it.
From what I see in many areas locally and from reading on this board there is also an element of laziness. It is easier to say to Joe and Mary to try to stay together but if you can't, try and at least keep up and keep each other in sight. And try to keep me in sight while I swim at my normal pace (also saying that the commandment that the slowest diver sets the pace is another BS thing we say) blissfully unaware of what is going on behind me since you've already had what 20 minutes of me watching you like a hawk so now I can relax. I never relax on checkouts. And I know my students are ready and could rescue me if need be, but they are still students until I give them their card. I am hyper vigilant and know where everyone is at all times even if that means I take one diver at a time if conditions dictate that. I have three students tomorrow. Not new divers but one is newer. A good diver but not in the water yet this year so he will be with me. The other two will buddy up. One a DMC and the other an SEI Master Diver student. Yet still I will be watching them and be concerned about them. No one will swim single file. Single file tells divers it's ok to dive alone. The last person in the line has no buddy.
What is so tragic and angering about this is that her buddy was not well enough trained to worry about himself and keep an eye on her. They should never have been taken into open water with that little understanding, knowledge, and training. They worst part is that crap like this will happen again. Divers will continue to be taken into the water with the same amount of understanding that put this person in a position to be left alone. To die alone. To have no one to even notice she was gone until it was too late. That is what this is about.
That this could even take place and yet it does. Perhaps hundreds of times a week and only dumb luck keeps more from suffering the same fate. Yet will standards be changed to address this? Not likely. What will it take, how many will need to die before someone says you cannot take a diver into open water until you are sure they can stay with their buddy and if necessary help them. Some agencies do this already.
The loved one philosophy as it is sometimes known. "Would you allow the diver you just handed a card to dive with your wife, husband, or kids? If not then they don't get a card until you address this and correct it." It is a NAUI philosophy and is an SEI and SDI one as well.
We live in an instant gratification society. "I want it now and don't want to really work for it" is how the last generation seems to have been raised. Couple that with a society that also seems to follow the "greed is good" philosophy and it is a recipe for disaster. One that is cooking up dead divers.