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

[Rich Keller]

What reports are you reading? The annual DAN reports always showed embolism as the number one cause of death after cardiac issues. The joint PADI/DAN study a few years ago showed that embolism is the number one training-related cause of fatalies.

I am looking at the accident reports here on SB. While embolisms and cardiac arrest were involved in a large number of the DAN reports it does not indicate if these were the actual causes or just a result of something else going wrong. Both could be a result of panic during an emergency rather then being the original cause of the emergency.

 

[The Chairman]

The problem with forums is that sensational events get an undue amount of attention while the mundane often gets overlooked. Right or wrong, an error resulting in someone else's death is far more sensational than a self inflicted death. For that matter, a horrible DSD is far more intriguing/sensational than a thousand safe dives. We are creatures of controversy, which is good for people like me but it results in an imbalanced view of reality.

 

[Omisson]

I would respectfully disagree with the above, and here is why:

As has been mentioned, the purpose of a DSD, Try Scuba, whatever name you give it, is to make money. As a scuba facility owner, I'm supposed to think they are a tool that "hooks" prospective students into signing up for OW classes. Based on conversion percentages, it doesn't work very well. AdivngBel's experience is more an aberration than it is a common outcome. What we see more often is a person checking off one more bucket list item. Once they've done that Try Scuba, they've been scuba diving...in our case, in 14 feet of crystal clear confined water.

This entire thread makes me want to gather our company brain trust together and, once again, determine if we want to drop Try Scubas altogether. I can't even imagine conducting one in an open water environment. Ever.

The only thing that makes me cringe any more than DSD is the infamous Resort Course, which is, once again, only designed to make money. I either hear how horribly wrong things went--normally in a large group on a cattle boat--or that someone "already knows how to dive" as a result of a RC. I've heard from people who have done five of them which, most often, would have more than paid for an OW class and their personal gear.

We're straying a bit from the original premise and the gut-wrenching loss of a child's life but, like jzipfel, I believe in going to the root of the problem. If we never did DSD's, this would never have happened.

The blame for this Scout's death sits squarely upon us as an industry and a is sad comment on greed over reason. We should all be ashamed and, in respect for the family and the very short life of a child, we should man/woman up, look deep inside and consider the consequences of our actions.

Finger-pointing and blame won't ever resolve what happened but, if we do what's right, we can perhaps prevent it from happening again.

My opinion only, I'm sure there are those who disagree, but it's how I feel.

The purpose of discover scuba is to expose people to scuba in a way that is not overtly costly...or time consuming. It is done in hope they will take up the sport. If people take up the sport it benefits those in the support for a myriad of reasons from availability to price reduction to innovation....

Yes money is a component but no more so than ANY activity requiring training of some level- skiing, baseball, spelunking, horseback riding....

The child's death is a sad combination of shoddy parenting/risk management and multiple instances of bad judgment by an instructor - don't blame an industry for that. It's individual responsibility time.

But nice try to find a novel way to shift the blame back to PADI. That ship has sailed. And you can not BY DEFINITION eliminate risk from diving. It is inherently a hazardous activity.

Welcome to reality.

 

[KevinNM]

I did a DSD (or some variation of this) on a Maui reef almost 30 years ago. It was fun, but there wasn't time before the vacation ended to do an actual course. It took over 15 years for me to get around to actually doing training, but that experience was why I did it.

So I'd argue that this kind of program does work to get people into diving. I'm not at all sure that doing this in a swimming pool would have had close to the same impact. How to do it more safely would seem to be the issue.

 

[redacted]

The purpose of discover scuba is to expose people to scuba in a way that is not overtly costly...or time consuming. It is done in hope they will take up the sport. If people take up the sport it benefits those in the support for a myriad of reasons from availability to price reduction to innovation....

Yes money is a component but no more so than ANY activity requiring training of some level- skiing, baseball, spelunking, horseback riding....

The child's death is a sad combination of shoddy parenting/risk management and multiple instances of bad judgment by an instructor - don't blame an industry for that. It's individual responsibility time.

But nice try to find a novel way to shift the blame back to PADI. That ship has sailed. And you can not BY DEFINITION eliminate risk from diving. It is inherently a hazardous activity.

Welcome to reality.

So, it is your position that agencies must simply accept incidences like that as there is just nothing more they can do to prevent them?

Bad judgement takes many forms.

 

[The Chairman]

So, it is your position that agencies must simply accept incidences like that as there is just nothing more they can do to prevent them?

I think that's an erroneous extrapolation of what he posted.

It's obvious to me that the wink link here was human. as it usually is. Until you can take humans out of the equation, you're going to have accidents caused by arrogance, stupidity and complacency. You can change the standards to be as restrictive and tight as you like, but stupid, lazy instructors will still succeed in killing innocents.

 

[redacted]

I think that's an erroneous extrapolation of what he posted.

It's obvious to me that the wink link here was human. as it usually is. Until you can take humans out of the equation, you're going to have accidents caused by arrogance, stupidity and complacency. You can change the standards to be as restrictive and tight as you like, but stupid, lazy instructors will still succeed in killing innocents.

There is no doubt in my mind (and I suspect anyone else's) that the main culprit in this incident was the instructor. But any agency (or other instructor) that looks at this and puts it in the category of "**** happens" and there is really nothing they can or need do about it is making a similar error. There are things every agency can do to reduce the risk of such incidents.

 

[The Chairman]

PADI took fairly quick action in this case and expelled the instructor. Yet, they were condemned by SDI/TDI for doing what I see as prudent and reasonable. How do you feel about that? Do think it was prudent of SDI/TDI to defend such an instructor? Why then do you think they did it? I am almost certain that if they had an instructor do the same thing they would have no problem cutting him loose. At least, I hope that they would take such a stand.

 

[redacted]

PADI took fairly quick action in this case and expelled the instructor. Yet, they were condemned by SDI/TDI for doing what I see as prudent and reasonable. How do you feel about that? Do think it was prudent of SDI/TDI to defend such an instructor? Why then do you think they did it? I am almost certain that if they had an instructor do the same thing they would have no problem cutting him loose. At least, I hope that they would take such a stand.

I see their action with the instructor as a minimal initial response. I do not know what their related standards are so I don't know if they need to modify their standards or better enforce what they have. I think any agency that defends the actions of such an instructor is headed for trouble. What they all need to do is work on culling such instructors before the fit hits the shan rather than after.

 

[The Chairman]

I see their action with the instructor as a minimal initial response.

What? Do you think they should have shot him? As an agency, they did all that they could do to the instructor. However, I was rather disappointed that the investigator was more worried about the guide line on the bottom than the criminal negligence on the part of the instructor. If you want instructors to take notice, get them to press criminal charges for child endangerment. That could be against both the parents and the instructor.