Are resort DM's really that reckless?

[seaducer]

String / Nude et all

What you are saying is fundamentally correct. Divers ARE responsible for their own safety and SHOULD have the balls to say no. But lets get back to reality rather than the ideal.

I blame alot of what this thread is saying on Toys-R-Us. When I was kid their commercials were all over the TV. You know the ones, "I don't wanna grow up..."

If we look to the root cause of this reality, what we find is "adults" who are refusing to acknowledge that they are first and foremost the only people responsible for their own personal safety. It has not gotten too bad in the dive industry yet but it is coming, and rapidly.
I have seen grocery stores post employees at the aisle entrances to keep people out completely when there is a spill, until the floor can be cleaned and dried. This is unacceptable.

No matter how inexperienced anyone is in any given activity, an adult should still be able to recognize when they are in danger, or simply uncomfortable. If they lack the spine to get out of that situation, or if they are foolish enough to blindly follow another person into such a situation, like an overhead when they know they shouldn't, then who is to blame? The other diver who goes in? Or themselves for being too weakminded to stick up for themselves.

If we are talking about kids, I blame the adult who leads them.

If we are talking about adults, I think you can guess who I hold responsible.

Personally, I am getting tired of the mentality in the world today of dumbing down life to protect the idiots from hurting themselves. It is time to put the vast majority of personal injury lawyers out of buisness by taking responsibility for our own shortcomings. It is time the adults grew up. It is time people started to pay attention.

This transcends diving. This is about life in general.

 

[String]

But here's the big problem I have with this: you're saying at first that diver's should know what they're capable of an all that.

No, they should know enough to realise what they AREN'T capable or comfortable of. And constantly be assessing that every minute of every dive to avoid a bad situation.

but the OW training clearly forbids diving into any enclosed area which you are saying is fine).

No it doesn't. Yet again you're confusing recommendations for rules. It says you shouldn't do it without training. However at the end of the day if you want to you can. There are no police, no locked doors, if you think you are comfortable doing it after weighing up the risks you can do whatever you like.

I havent met a single diver in my life that hasn't broken some/many/all of his training guidelines at some point in their life. If there are millions of these "perfect" divers around ive never met one of them.

I'm not even talking paying. If me and my buddy decide that I'm going to lead our dive (I find it's a bit easier when you pick one person as the leader) and I know he's not qualified past 60 feet, I think it would be irresponsible, at least without talking to him first, to take him down to 100 feet.

That's a personal view and nothing more. If you arent confident in your buddys skills and equally arent confident in your own skills to get your buddy out then dont do it. Its common sense. Not every diver is incapable of self or other rescue though.

I'm not being paid, I'm not a trained divemaster, but if you're leading a person or group in any role, I think you do have some responsibility there.

You may think you do but you dont. Also a guide has to represent the whole group not one individual. Chances are every other person in that group would have wanted that dive so who do you please - the majority or the 1 guy that isnt skilled enough and who didnt tell you beforehand?

And a lot of this thread was people unexpectedly finding themselves in these situations, which says to me the briefings didn't work.

You can't "unexpectedly" find yourself in an overhead. Nobody forces you in kicking and screaming. As to why dive briefings dont always work - its usually because the divers themselves pay little or no attention to them, are fiddling with kit, talking to the person next to them or thinking they've heard it all before so wont bother. That also isnt the divemasters fault.

 

[String]

absolutely nothing wrong and that they carry absolutely zero responsibility for the divers that they have been contracted to take out.

Have they been contracted to take out? Unless its a private hire in most places i doubt it. A guide is simply that - a guide. Thats the only contract. In lots of places you dont have one at all and just dive in your pairs. (There isnt a single charter here that does group herding/guided dives).

If a DM will call a dive for their own concern and not the OW divers and yet will lead a group of OW divers into a cave environment, then I believe they are not a DM

The DM is responsible for his own safety just like everyone else. If he isnt happy he doesnt have to do it. And "OW divers" is irrelevant - they're qualified divers. In other words, qualified to make their own minds up.

Like it or not, people put trust into a DM when they obviously should put none (in some cases the DM can be trusted but not all apparently).

Blind faith in a 3rd party is never a good idea in any walk of life.

If a DM will call a dive on the surface for the concern for safety of the other OW divers yet will lead the same group into a cave....IMO they are a hypocrite and are a hazard to those around them.

No. Different risks, different risk assessment. Rough sea conditions where people can get battered onto rocks, against boats, separated or lost is dangerous. Going into a cave in far better conditions is a completely different risk assessment for the individual.
Again the DM is responsible for his own safety - if hes not comfortable he doesnt have to be there. Same goes for the sheep following.

If a DM will call a dive on the surface out of the concern for the OW divers (and maybe even themselves included) AND would never lead a group of OW divers into a cave (even if none go in), then they are a good and trustworthy DM and deserve a big fat tip. The rest deserve to lose their job IMO.

Id say the opposite. A DM (guide) that offers the best dive for its customers deserves a tip. One that panders to the reservations of one person who didnt bother mentioning it in advance who then spoils it for the whole group should be sacked.

Finally, if a DM believes that every diver out there accepts (or believes) that the DM holds zero responsibility for their safety then that DM is delusional.

There are many delusional people out there. Some believe Elvis is still alive, some believe in aliens, some believe in god, god believe in weapons of mass destruction.

I believe (no hard data to support) that if every diver were to be polled, the majority would say that they believe the DM holds some responsibility for their safety on your typical DM lead dive.

Again that doesn't matter, its back to the above, just because they believe something doesn't mean its actually true.

 

[seaducer]

... I personally think that it is just as negligent or irresponsible to lead a group of open water students ...

Are we discussing apples and oranges here? Personally I have been basing all my comments on the assumption we are discussing certified divers on a dive boat, and not students in a class getting their basic certification.

I am not an instructor but in that case I believe there are rules as to the conditions you are allowed to take students for their checkout dives. And also in that case the leadership falls to the instructor, the DM's are more like sheep dogs, keeping people together and if necessary rescuing the student.

So, I would agree if training standards are being violated and students are being coerced by thier instructors into entering unsafe conditions, most of the blame falls to them.

However if we are talking about certified OW divers, then my opinion stands, it is the responsibility of the diver to chose whether or not they follow the DM, or any other diver, into any unsafe (for them) conditions.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Are we discussing apples and oranges here? Personally I have been basing all my comments on the assumption we are discussing certified divers on a dive boat, and not students in a class getting their basic certification.......

Sorry. My bad. OW divers not students.

........However if we are talking about certified OW divers, then my opinion stands, it is the responsibility of the diver to chose whether or not they follow the DM, or any other diver, into any unsafe (for them) conditions.

Accepted and understood.

 

[funkcanna]

I blame alot of what this thread is saying on Toys-R-Us. When I was kid their commercials were all over the TV. You know the ones, "I don't wanna grow up..."

If we look to the root cause of this reality, what we find is "adults" who are refusing to acknowledge that they are first and foremost the only people responsible for their own personal safety. It has not gotten too bad in the dive industry yet but it is coming, and rapidly.
I have seen grocery stores post employees at the aisle entrances to keep people out completely when there is a spill, until the floor can be cleaned and dried. This is unacceptable.

No matter how inexperienced anyone is in any given activity, an adult should still be able to recognize when they are in danger, or simply uncomfortable. If they lack the spine to get out of that situation, or if they are foolish enough to blindly follow another person into such a situation, like an overhead when they know they shouldn't, then who is to blame? The other diver who goes in? Or themselves for being too weakminded to stick up for themselves.

If we are talking about kids, I blame the adult who leads them.

If we are talking about adults, I think you can guess who I hold responsible.

Personally, I am getting tired of the mentality in the world today of dumbing down life to protect the idiots from hurting themselves. It is time to put the vast majority of personal injury lawyers out of busness by taking responsibility for our own shortcomings. It is time the adults grew up. It is time people started to pay attention.

This transcends diving. This is about life in general.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, particularly your last paragraph, more than you know. I could start a whole new thread on this aspect of society as it really boils my piss. But again, this is the ideal and the way it should be, but sadly isnt.

There are millions of reasons why people feel the need to be mollycoddled into a sense of security (including toys r us ads )and diving is no different, while I dont agree with this I accept this is the reality and while these people are stupid and can cause danger to themselves and others, I still dont want them to suffer a diving accident that could be avoided.

Or are all dodgy DM's trying to remove these people from the gene pool... :lurk2: ?

 

[J.R.]

There are millions of reasons why people feel the need to be mollycoddled into a sense of security (including toys r us ads )and diving is no different, while I dont agree with this I accept this is the reality and while these people are stupid and can cause danger to themselves and others, I still dont want them to suffer a diving accident that could be avoided.

Easiest way to avoid the accident is not to dive...

Personally... if you want to reduce risk... don't look to the DMs... let's look to the agencies who want to keep portraying SCUBA as a wierd blend somewhere between X-games exotic and a quiet walk in the park. Let's get them to start focusing more in training sessions about the risks and the role personal responsibility plays. Let's make sure that they are truely "proficient" at the skills a not able to display the ability to do them correctly on command in a controlled setting. ... and, finally, let's make sure that they show an ability to show good judgement in the water. Probably not the best for "growing the industry"... but I think it would make better divers of those who stuck it out.

But... that's just MY personal bugg-a-boo...


Oh... and I second all of String's responses to Scubasteve001... to the letter.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Well first of all I cannot believe I got sucked in again. But the bottom line is, nothing anybody says is going to convince me that the DM should hold zero responsibility. As I said many posts ago, I am glad this post went up because it hopefully taught many at least something. I learned that I will never trust a DM with my loved ones unless they believe they share the responsibility of a diver's safe return. Not to say that is right, but I just will not trust my loved ones (if I have a say that is) with someone who just does not care.

Again, thanks to the OP for posting this. It was good.

 

[NudeDiver]

Crossing the road is potentially life threatening too - hell so is opening the fridge! I hope you know the difference between open water diving and diving in caverns otherwise your training was a mess too!

That's exactly it. People are too worried about being 100% perfectly safe all the time. Screw that. Think about it this way: life causes death.

Who cares about guilt? I think your comment appears extremely selfish - as long as its not your fault let them die!? Granted, sometime ***** happens and things go wrong, but I personally couldnt live with myself if someone died / got injured badly when I could have stopped it.

Who said anything about letting anyone die?? Jezz... hey, if a complete stranger comes up to me underwater and is out of air, I'm going to give him some air. But I'm not going to spend all of my time underwater swimming around looking after others when they should be looking after themselves.

Bottom line... if you don't feel competent about a dive... don't go. If you don't KNOW enough to make the determination about your competency... don't go...

Exactly.

Most of all... understand that, at all times, YOU are always in control of YOUR dive... not the DM... not the Dive Op... not King Neptune... you and ONLY you. The scarriest thing about this thread (to me)... is the number of people that assume that the DM is there to do their thinking for them... or to be responsible for them... and do so without realizing the risks fundimentally inherent with kind of thinking. (... and, until you're certified to use that finger... I wouldn't go wagging it around too much... fishie might think it's a worm and bite it off...

Amen to that.

No... I actually don't. The problem with this logic is that it's a slippery slope. How many people have you met who look at SCUBA as people taking unnecessary risks? It's a short walk from your premise to simply outlawing diving because compared to the broad population... relatively few people dive.

Exactly. In this case, the lowest common denominator for society to operate at is to not allow ANYONE to dive. Diving could be banned so easily. Most people simply wouldn't give a crap. It would be easy for politicians to do. Ban diving in the name of "saving lives".

I am all for the diver accepting responsibility. At no point have I ever absolved the diver of any responsibility. I just cannot tolerate the DM refusing to accept any?

The DM is offering divers a choice - follow me or not. He isn't dragging anyone along after him by force.

I believe (no hard data to support) that if every diver were to be polled, the majority would say that they believe the DM holds some responsibility for their safety on your typical DM lead dive.

Maybe I'm just dimwitted - but, not in the furthest reaches of my mind, do I think a DM in Cozumel is responsible for my safety, just because I am required by law to swim along after him. I certainly do not intend to plan my dives with a "DM is responsible for my safety" mentality.

Personally, I am getting tired of the mentality in the world today of dumbing down life to protect the idiots from hurting themselves. It is time to put the vast majority of personal injury lawyers out of buisness by taking responsibility for our own shortcomings. It is time the adults grew up. It is time people started to pay attention.

Ding, ding, ding!! We have a winner!!

 

[seaducer]

I wholeheartedly agree with you, particularly your last paragraph, more than you know. I could start a whole new thread on this aspect of society as it really boils my piss. But again, this is the ideal and the way it should be, but sadly isnt.

There are millions of reasons why people feel the need to be mollycoddled into a sense of security (including toys r us ads )and diving is no different, while I dont agree with this I accept this is the reality and while these people are stupid and can cause danger to themselves and others, I still dont want them to suffer a diving accident that could be avoided.

Or are all dodgy DM's trying to remove these people from the gene pool... ?

You are correct, sadly. It seems some people are doing everything they can to turn us into a rubber room society. I hate it, I really truely do.