Chester Polling

[full of air]

Ok...first time here...Hope I get a little break.

I may be long winded this time, but I assure you I am not long winded in general. Thanks

I was somewhat irritated by comments I heard the other night at a gathering where I suddenly found myself engaged in a conversation about the Chester Polling accident. The one involving Anthony Kalinowski. Please excuse me if the spelling is not correct.)

I am new to diving (6/02) but dive with my wife and daughter. Needless to say, I am as responsible as I can be.

At the very top of the conversation, I heard blame placed in 3 different spots in less than 30 seconds with nothing to prove it. I have to say that the rumor monger certainly has an issue with the diving instructors and their firm. A firm that gave him his cert. As for me, I happen to hold them in high regard along with many other instructional facilities.

For the most part, I think the diving community is respective of each other. Am I RIGHT?

Any accident is a terrible thing and I'm sure all agree. But to blame so quick?...Put yourself there...I was pissed off.

Without hesitation I spoke out of the un-necessary finger pointing without hard facts. And if in fact someone was at fault, well then I think there is no just due in further persecution by means of malicious rumors.

I certainly would not want to live with that type of accident in my life, never mind the endless erroneous floating factoids.

Unfortunately one of the risks of diving is very seldom a broken bone, if you know what I mean.

In ending, I would like any links that may include hard fact articles. I would like to forward them to him to hopefully educate him on what really happened.

According to this individual, he heard it happend a couple weeks ago...'nough said...

Thanks for the time. (I'll keep it brief next time)
Full of Air...kinda fit this time huh?
Thanks again

 

[Spectre]

I think this is what you are looking for:
Scuba diver drowns near gloucester

Not being present during the conversations you refer to; I can only speculate at what was said.

Accident analysis is actually very important, regardless of the feelings involved. The understanding of what exactly happened and what may have been able to be done to prevent it is extremely important so such a tragedy doesn't occur again.

Now people may have been trying to place blame, and to start rumors. However it's also possible that what you took as placing blame was just people trying to figure out what exactly happened. It looks/feels/sounds like blame, but it truely is part of figuring out what happened to prevent it in the future.

 

[Adam Samansky]

Jeff:

I think you hit the nail on the head. An accident is a terrible thing, but we would not be honoring the legacy of the decedent if we don't try to learn from the incident in an effort to prevent future repetitions. Personally, I don't care who was at fault - I just want to learn from what happened so that it doesn't happen again!

Adam

 

[ericfine50]

This was an accident and I (among others) were discussing what could of gone wrong, and we need to learn from those mistakes. that being said, there were errors done by the other divers as well (IMHO)..

Eric

 

[full of air]

Spectre once bubbled...
I think this is what you are looking for:
Scuba diver drowns near gloucester

Not being present during the conversations you refer to; I can only speculate at what was said.

Accident analysis is actually very important, regardless of the feelings involved. The understanding of what exactly happened and what may have been able to be done to prevent it is extremely important so such a tragedy doesn't occur again.

Now people may have been trying to place blame, and to start rumors. However it's also possible that what you took as placing blame was just people trying to figure out what exactly happened. It looks/feels/sounds like blame, but it truely is part of figuring out what happened to prevent it in the future.

I fully agree with the preventative measures of future accidents...I am ALL for that. I let him express himself. I took his comments to heart and in a short minute, I tried to access all the information given to me. He had direct blame instantly!!

Myself...Not knowing of the event when it happened, (Shame on ME) when I asked the obvious questions... No spare reg...No pony... DCS on the short time diver... He got defensive and had no answers other than it was the fault of the experienced individuals on site!

Little experience or Great experience, it can happen to anyone of us. I agree that a person needs to UNDERSTAND AND KNOW the facts and learn from them. Unfortunately,he was more consumed with the place and the blame than the learning experience.

Dove once with him...very reckless...Won't go with him again. After diving with him, my 15 year old daugher, in private, questioned his actions and abilities before I even brought them up.

ie; He couldn't equalize, went deeper, and decided to push harder to clear it. ??

I'm fairly certain he was trained right, but in his mind he still thinks he was singled out and that was the reason for not passing his open water cert the first time...

He kinda knows it all...

thanks for the response.

Full of Air...(Love having that full tank)

 

[MASS-Diver]

Yup,

There have been alot of rumors since this accident and everyone has their own viewpoint. Alot of us dive the Poling alot and when a guy died on her really struck a cord, I'm trying to hold outf or the final accidnet report to form an oppionion. I've heard several different account myself.

The only I know for sure is that this is NE not the carribean and that everyone should respect these waters and dive safe.

 

[Arduous]

Human error is a major factor in most accidents, whether they’re dive related or not. It could be argued that human error is the only reason divers die. We are not perfect and we make mistakes on a daily basis. In general our mistakes do not cause injury to ourselves or others, but they are mistakes nonetheless. If you look at a lot of these dive related accidents, you will see that you just can’t take the human factor out of the accident. Some where down the line an error was made on the part of some person. When there’s a dive accident we start looking at how id it happen, who’s at fault. Look long enough and hard enough and usually find more than one person or thing to blame. Training, how well and complete was the training ? Well the teacher was a human and so was the student. How well was the equipment maintained ? Well it was maintenanced by a human and a human was responsible for brining it in to be maintained. As humans we choose where and when we will dive. How deep and how long we will dive. Some times we do not make the best choice. Some times we make a mistake. Even a medical accident, like a heart attack during a dive could be blamed on human error. Did the diver keep himself in physically good shape ? was he diving with in his limitations, did he know what those limitations were ? For every example I have given here, anyone one reading this could give 10 more for each in 10 different directions. Infinite combinations of blame can be addressed. I do believe that it is important to fully investigate these accidents and learn what we can from them, in the hopes that we can prevent some one from repeating the same event. However, every weekend of the year, dozens die in drunk driving accident on our highways. Everyone knows the dangers of driving drunk. The education material is in our schools, it’s every other commercial on TV and radio, but we are still dieing in masses on our highway, by people getting not just a little drunk , but completely ossified and then getting behind the wheel of a car. Who do we blame for this ??? The bar that served them ? The schools ? Driver training schools ? TV & Radio ? The bottom line is you can not take the human error out of the equation. Accidents are mistakes and we make them every day and always will.

 

[PK]

And some information has been contradictory. The details are not likely to be available under the investigation is closed. Typically in these situations, everyone involved is told to say nothing by their lawyers in case a lawsuit happen.

We are all interested in knowing the details so that we can learn from them.

In the meantime, accidents give us all a reality check to the possible things that can go seriously wrong. In reminds us to be safe by diving carefully and do what we were taught to do.

 

[MASS-Diver]

Arduous I not sure I agree with your point. I think if you look at dive accidents the overall trend that will reveal itself is that most accidents are a result of careless, PREVENTABLE human errors. To me merely right off deaths as invevitable results of human error that will always happen is a mistake IMO.

If I thought I made mistakes everytime I got in the water that could lead to my death I would not be diving. Sure I have gotton away with a few close calls, but, speaking for myself and my buddies, we train hard not to make mistakes that will kill us. I try to dive perfect everytime and I certainly don't expect to many errors. When I get out of the safe I don't feel like I just dodged a bullet and that only sheer luck prevented me from being dead.

In this part of the conutry you really need to try to be careful on everydive and give yourself a margin error that will allow to you overcome minor problems. Most of the deaths I know about are guys who made numerous mistakes, not top notch divers that made a single random "everyday error" and paid the price for it.


Most deaths are not the result of a one in million error, but, instead result from divers who have probably made similar errors over and over again and finnally got caught.

 

[Arduous]

Nowhere in my post did I ever state that most dive accidents were an off the wall freak occurrence that caused some poor sole to die. I said that they were the subject of human error, a mistake. Some people with little to no common sense will make foolish choices and mistakes constantly. Some will make mistakes more often than others and some will almost never make a mistake, but are certainly not immune from error. Yes these accidents and deaths are a strong reminder of how cautious we must be and how mortal we actually are. However this is only beneficial to those who will listen and learn. As we drive by the car stuck in the snow bank at the side of the road, we are reminded how treacherous it is outside at the time and common sense dictates that we slow down and be cautious. However there are those who will still drive right by that car in the snow bank as they weave in and out of traffic from lane to lane traveling faster than every one else on the roadway, with total flagrant disregard for their own personal safety or the safety of others. Do strange freaky things happen at times ? YES they do. But for the most part human error is the cause and YES for the most part it’s preventable.