Catalina Diver died today w/ Instructor

[Thalassamania]

Someone hands me something precious to safeguard under potentially hazardous circumstances. They take great care to make sure that I understand that the item is precious. They take great care to make sure that I understand that the situation is fraught with pitfalls that endanger the item. The item gets broken whilst in my care, as a result of one the very pitfalls that I had been warned about. How does, "innocent before proven guilty," stack up there?

 

[boulderjohn]

I see that despite the pleas to move questions about dealing with a panicked diver to the new thread to avoid speculation related to this incident, we are still discussing the nature of panic in regard to this incident.

I made a post on the other thread indicating that under the right circumstances panic can occur in even the most thoroughly trained diver. I posted earlier in this thread some conditions that could lead just about anyone to believe he or she is out of air and lead to panic. The fact that many students panic for reasons that are preventable by good training during a pool session does not mean that those factors were present in this case. In fact, there has been no indication that they were.

It should also be pointed out that in the case of AOW, no pool sessions are normally involved, so the instructor does not see the student perform until the student is conducting the first AOW dive.

 

[Leejnd]

Someone hands me something precious to safeguard under potentially hazardous circumstances. They take great care to make sure that I understand that the item is precious. They take great care to make sure that I understand that the situation is fraught with pitfalls that endanger the item. The item gets broken whilst in my care, as a result of one the very pitfalls that I had been warned about. How does, "innocent before proven guilty," stack up there?

Because this is not an inanimate object. This is a human, with their own will, their own choices, their own flaws. Because humans are unpredictable. Because I can do the BEST JOB POSSIBLE as an instructor in providing the information to them, teaching them what they need to do, conveying the dangers to them if they don't do the right things, observing them in safer situations (the pool) until I am confident that they will do everything right.

But at some point, it becomes their responsibility to DO what they learned. At some point the control is no longer in the instructor's hands. And the fact that a student DID make the ultimate mistake does not inherently mean that the instructor did not do his/her job. It means the student didn't do what they were taught.

I'll try to explain it another way. I have a teenager. I am tasked with teaching him to drive. This is inherently a dangerous activity. I can do everything possible as a parent - send him to driving school, take him out on lightly-traveled roads for hands-on practice, lecture him for hours on end about the dangers he will face out on the open road, and how to deal with all the situations he might encounter.

And at some point I will be confident enough to take him on the freeway. I won't make that decision until I have seen him drive enough times that I believe he can do it. He has given me every indication he will do everything right - he listened to me, he practiced, he answered all my questions correctly. So, I take him on the freeway.

And the moment he attempts to change lanes, even though he NEVER indicated that he would panic on the freeway, he slams on his brakes and causes an accident.

I did everything I could. I could not have predicted that he would do that. But he did. It's the unpredictability of humans.

And in a scuba class, it's even more unpredictable. These are strangers...you don't know their history. You can only do so much, and at some point you have to trust the student to apply what you have taught them.

Bringing it back to this case, keep in mind this was an AOW class. At the time of this dive, this student had already been underwater several times. One can speculate (and yes, I'm speculating - warning warning!) that this student had managed to dive several times without panicking and bolting for the surface, so the instructor had a good reason to feel at least some level of confidence that she wasn't prone to panicking and bolting for the surface. (If that is, in fact, what happened here...again, we don't know for sure.)

Am I at ALL making it clear why I feel it is wrong to assume that whenever there is a dive accident during a class, you can assume that the *most likely* reason is that the instructor did something wrong?

Because if I am not...if my point is still not coming through, or still seems to hold no validity, then I give up. I must have lost my ability to express myself.

Editing to add: Boulderjohn, I forgot that there was another thread on this topic. But I wish to leave this post here, because I am answering a post here.

 

[Thalassamania]

I made a post on the other thread indicating that under the right circumstances panic can occur in even the most thoroughly trained diver.

I would suspect that you'd agree that those circumstances are (or at least should be) rather unusual and unpredictable ones.

I posted earlier in this thread some conditions that could lead just about anyone to believe he or she is out of air and lead to panic.

Panicking at about 60 fsw with your instructor at rather short range argues for a rather simple problem, like a mask flood, of something like what you describe, in either case the student was not ready for the session and I would expect that lack of readiness to have been evident prior to the triggering item.

The fact that many students panic for reasons that are preventable by good training during a pool session does not mean that those factors were present in this case.

You are correct that it does not guarantee that such factors were present, but that's where the smart money would bet.

In fact, there has been no indication that they were.

The lack of something major that the instructor would have reported, however, argues for a simple explanation like a mask flood.

It should also be pointed out that in the case of AOW, no pool sessions are normally involved, so the instructor does not see the student perform until the student is conducting the first AOW dive.

If that is the case (and you are the one making that case), I would state in the strongest possible terms that immediately taking a new student, whom you have never worked with, never seen before, never checked out, to a depth of 60 feet, is pure and simple wrong.

 

[Leejnd]

If that is the case (and you are the one making that case), I would state in the strongest possible terms that immediately taking a new student, whom you have never worked with, never seen before, never checked out, to a depth of 60 feet, is pure and simple wrong.

I disagree completely with this statement.

A student taking AOW is a certified diver. Even if you didn't certify them yourself, the fact that he/she has a C-card indicates that the student DID the certification dives, and was certified as competent to dive to 60 ft by a PADI instructor. This student is trained and certified to dive without an instructor. The instructor should not be held responsible if the student does something wrong that they should have learned in the class BEFORE this one.

The AOW course does not require re-certification of the basic skills of OW.

 

[Thalassamania]

Well, then the best that I can say is that we have seen, once again, what kind of horse pucky the diver certification process is. I truly feel bad the student had to die and the instructor had to suffer because of it. Let that be a lesson to us all: never, never, never, take a student into more than a few feet of water till you've had a chance to check them out, since one clearly can not trust the "system" to do it's job.

 

[bsee65]

If that is the case (and you are the one making that case), I would state in the strongest possible terms that immediately taking a new student, whom you have never worked with, never seen before, never checked out, to a depth of 60 feet, is pure and simple wrong.

Well, we "know" this was an AOW class and a Sunday dive. It was assumed from this that there was diving on Saturday that would have given the instructor and assistants some experience with this diver. We don't know where or when the victim received OW training, or what her log book looked like.

It also sounds from the description of events that the instructor was on top of this quickly once it started. If you're not paying close attention, you'd have a hard time catching up to someone with a head start racing for the surface. The actions taken by her were ineffective in stopping the victim's unsafe ascent, but it doesn't seem like anyone can say that if you do X, Y and Z, you can halt an uncooperative diver until they are able to make a controlled ascent.

 

[boulderjohn]

I would suspect that you'd agree that those circumstances are (or at least should be) rather unusual and unpredictable ones.

Absolutely.

Panicking at about 60 fsw with your instructor at rather short range argues for a rather simple problem, like a mask flood, of something like what you describe, in either case the student was not ready for the session and I would expect that lack of readiness to have been evident prior to the triggering item.

I disagree.

As I stated earlier in this thread, my nephew's mother-in-law died under almost these precise circumstances, and the cause of her panic had nothing to do with that.

She had a heart attack, which leads to a shortness of breath and the sense that you are not getting any air. As I also said earlier, when my mother had a similar situation she was under the illusion that her bedroom had run out of air, so she thrust her head out the window to get some. In the case of my nephew's mother-n-law, she discarded the regulator she assumed was not working and bolted to the surface.

You are correct that it does not guarantee that such factors were present, but that's where the smart money would bet.

From my reading of this thread, that is not where my money is at all.

 

[merxlin]

I would suspect that you'd agree that those circumstances are (or at least should be) rather unusual and unpredictable ones.
Panicking at about 60 fsw with your instructor at rather short range argues for a rather simple problem, like a mask flood, of something like what you describe, in either case the student was not ready for the session and I would expect that lack of readiness to have been evident prior to the triggering item..

You are correct that it does not guarantee that such factors were present, but that's where the smart money would bet..

The lack of something major that the instructor would have reported, however, argues for a simple explanation like a mask flood..

Sorry to interject facts but: No report of a mask flood. I know Thal you may just be using that as an example of a basic skill that can create panic if the diver isn't capable of handling it, but it won't be long before mask flooding will be the cause "as reported here".

If that is the case (and you are the one making that case), I would state in the strongest possible terms that immediately taking a new student, whom you have never worked with, never seen before, never checked out, to a depth of 60 feet, is pure and simple wrong.

Again, that is not what happened here. The diver did AOW skill dives the previous day, in the same location, with this same instructor. I was told directly by her boyfriend (who was diving in the same group) that she did fine the day before. He was shocked that she had an issue, and he knows her much better than the instructor would.

I hope all instructors have the same experiences and lack of incidents that you have Thal. I understand and agree with the opinion that situations can be controlled, and should be controlled. But sometimes, things happen that are out of an instructors control.

I too suggest that this conversatioin belongs in the speculation split off, or in any of the hundreds of "what a diver should know before AOW" threads. This is all discussion of theory and not of this incident.

 

[boulderjohn]

The lack of something major that the instructor would have reported, however, argues for a simple explanation like a mask flood.

Do people with mask floods normally signal that they are out of air?