An Open Letter of Personal Perspective to the Diving Industry by NetDoc

[scoobydrew]

Pete, who did I attack?

Is this "on topic"?

 

[Ayisha]

Except for that pesky medical doctor who said the pulmonary conditions in the child likely induced an episode...

Really? We still haven't seen this document, although you keep stating it as fact. How about actually producing it as well as the other expert medical witness reports that state that any medical conditions did not contribute to the child's death?

 

[Scubagolf]

The medical expert reports recently lodged with the court by Blue Water and the plaintiffs are attached. PADI has not disclosed a medical expert on the causation issue, but does have an expert (Al Hornsby) who will testify that PADI's DSD program is not to blame. His report is also attached. There are other liability experts disclosed by Blue Water and the plaintiffs.

 

[The Chairman]

Wow. Those were three great documents to read. Well, the plaintiff's Doctor's statement was not of much use. It felt like he was trying to obscure the facts rather than interpret them. The other two seem to confirm my beliefs about the dive: The boy was not fit to dive and the instructor abandoned him at depth. It was also good to read about the time line of DSD standards. 6 to 1!!! I actually had a dive shop ask me to do one of these without a pool session in the Boynton Beach area. I had never done a DSD and had no idea how to do one and did not feel competent to lead that dive. I remember the boat owner was pissed that I declined and he never asked me to help again. Like a diver, an instructor's got to know their limitations.

Pete, who did I attack?

Public apologies to Clint. I accidentally posted publicly, what I meant to send privately. When I realized my mistake, I deleted my accidental post and took it to PMs, apologizing to Clint personally. Again, I please ask that we keep this discussion a bit more on track. If you want to discuss what was moderated and why, please go start a thread in site support. Send me a link if you want my input. Thanks!

 

[Hawkwood]

From Sawatzky:

"On this course all of the students did very well, had no problem learning the material, becoming familiar with the equipment, and swimming around in shallow water. Corbett then took the three students out into the lake, following a thick line on the bottom to a wreck at 30-40 feet depth. The students all did well, were correctly weighted, and neutrally buoyant."

That was interesting...other info presented earlier points to no pre-instruction and that they were negatively weighted, with no proper weight check (note that bolding is mine).

 

[redacted]

Most alarming is the amount of misinformation and disinformation that is being promoted. While it remains clear that the instructor would appear to be the focus of the problem, it is also fairly clear that the standards are all but impossible to follow with multiple students without a qualified assistant when there is a serious problem. Mr Hornsby's statement makes that quite clear when he points out two failures to maintain contact and control were committed by the instructor.

Also, the fatality statistics provided with the apparent intent to show how safe the DSD program is in relation to other programs are quite deceptive since DSD students are doing orders of magnitude less dives than participants in the other groups.

 

[The Chairman]

The idea that the lake has a higher than normal salinity, like the Great Salt Lake, intrigues me. I have Googled, salinity and specific gravity of Bear Lake, Utah and I found that the water is used for irrigation (http://ugspub.nr.utah.gov/publications/bulletins/b-96.pdf and Bear Lake (Idaho?Utah) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) whereas, the ocean and the Great Salt Lake are not. Like I mentioned, I've actually dove in this lake and don't remember any saltiness or other indicators that the water was "heavy". As far as I can tell, the Dept of the Interior designates Bear Lake Utah as a fresh water lake. You can even catch environmentally sensitive fish such as Brown Trout there. One of the definitions for fresh water is that it have a specific gravity of less than 1.005 (brackish}. Ocean water has a specific gravity of about 1.024. In comparison, the Great Salt Lake's SG varies from 1.11 to 1.17.

I would love for someone to get the specific gravity of Bear Lake for us to really determine what's the truth here. It irks me that I could not find it on the interwebs.

Most alarming is the amount of misinformation and disinformation that is being promoted. While it remains clear that the instructor would appear to be the focus of the problem, it is also fairly clear that the standards are all but impossible to follow with multiple students without a qualified assistant when there is a serious problem. Mr Hornsby's statement makes that quite clear when he points out two failures to maintain contact and control were committed by the instructor.

Also, the fatality statistics provided with the apparent intent to show how safe the DSD program is in relation to other programs are quite deceptive since DSD students are doing orders of magnitude less dives than participants in the other groups.

The standards are indeed impossible for an incompetent, distracted or uncaring instructor to follow. But then, I've seen many a people have an accident while going under the speed limit. Is the speed limit or the incompetent/distracted driver to blame? Will the police issue a ticket to the offending speed limit or to the driver? Standards are by necessity given for perfect conditions. You don't want to penalize competent instructors living in clear sunny climes for an instructor who broke several standards, would you? As for the safety of DSDs, that's quite dependent on the instructor's competence more than anything. In any case, I have to agree with M Twain: "There are lies, damned lies and statistics!" You can bend them to say just about anything you want.

 

[knotical]

From Sawatzky:

"On this course all of the students did very well, had no problem learning the material, becoming familiar with the equipment, and swimming around in shallow water. Corbett then took the three students out into the lake, following a thick line on the bottom to a wreck at 30-40 feet depth. The students all did well, were correctly weighted, and neutrally buoyant."

That was interesting...other info presented earlier points to no pre-instruction and that they were negatively weighted, with no proper weight check (note that bolding is mine).

I don't see how he could have possibly known this (what you bolded) unless he was there.
Until reading this I had high regard for Dr. Sawatzky. Why would he testify to the unknowable? - He appears to have lowered himself to being a liar for hire. At best he turned hearsay from others into his sworn testimony. Sad.

 

[RJP]

Of course the main thing to take away from the expert medical testimony was...

"From a diving medical perpective... David Tuvell should not havebeen scuba diving on 13 July 2011, and his parents and medical care providers should haveknown this before they allowed him to do so."

To me, that's the biggest tragedy here.

 

[redacted]

The idea that the lake has a higher than normal salinity, like the Great Salt Lake, intrigues me. I have Googled, salinity and specific gravity of Bear Lake, Utah and I found that the water is used for irrigation (http://ugspub.nr.utah.gov/publications/bulletins/b-96.pdf and Bear Lake (Idaho?Utah) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ) whereas, the ocean and the Great Salt Lake are not. Like I mentioned, I've actually dove in this lake and don't remember any saltiness or other indicators that the water was "heavy". As far as I can tell, the Dept of the Interior designates Bear Lake Utah as a fresh water lake. You can even catch environmentally sensitive fish such as Brown Trout there. One of the definitions for fresh water is that it have a specific gravity of less than 1.005 (brackish}. Ocean water has a specific gravity of about 1.024. In comparison, the Great Salt Lake's SG varies from 1.11 to 1.17.

I would love for someone to get the specific gravity of Bear Lake for us to really determine what's the truth here. It irks me that I could not find it on the interwebs.

The standards are indeed impossible for an incompetent, distracted or uncaring instructor to follow. But then, I've seen many a people have an accident while going under the speed limit. Is the speed limit or the incompetent/distracted driver to blame? Will the police issue a ticket to the offending speed limit or to the driver? Standards are by necessity given for perfect conditions. You don't want to penalize competent instructors living in clear sunny climes for an instructor who broke several standards, would you? As for the safety of DSDs, that's quite dependent on the instructor's competence more than anything. In any case, I have to agree with M Twain: "There are lies, damned lies and statistics!" You can bend them to say just about anything you want.

I could not find a density measure either but I did see that the lake also serves as a water reservoir for folks living down stream. But the 7mm FJ does make a big difference. Gross over-weighting does not seem to be the case.

I don't care if the water is gin clear and calm, when one divers in a group decides to bolt, a single instructor will be severely challenge trying to maintain contact and control over all the divers in that group. Even it the instructor is able to grab the offending diver, is it your contention that the instructor has the duty and the right to hold him in position and not allow him to surface?

Yes, people can try to bend statistics. That is where decision makers need to be smart enough to understand what is going on (or hire trusted, competent people to do so for them).