Concerns raised about agency response to student fatality

[boulderjohn]

I can guarantee that you will never serve on a jury of a diving fatality, more's the pity. The counsel for both sides don't want anyone on the jury who knows more of the story than they do.

There was an essay in Time magazine about this a few years ago that was very thought provoking. In our system we exclude anyone who knows anything about a subject from ever being on a jury for a trial related to that subject. There are some good reasons for it, but the essay very convincingly pointed out more that was bad.

 

[The Chairman]

So the response in this incident has me puzzled.

Me too. No easy answers either.

The counsel for both sides don't want anyone on the jury who knows more of the story than they do.

Yet, we are the true "peers".

 

[PfcAJ]

But in the dive business we justify our gaping by saying "We could learn a lesson from.....". No. We aren't going to learn a lesson, because no one does accident analysis.

When I say that there are no lessons to be learned, I mean that we will never get an objective answer because the process is flawed and could result in litigation if the truth ever got out.

There are certainly lessons to be learned out of nearly every diving accident. It might not be some perfect process where some group or individual gives you the lesson all laid out for you, but the lesson is there. Its up to you to try and figure out what the lesson is.

 

[Wookie]

There is certainly lessons to be learned out of nearly every diving accident. It might not be some perfect process where some group or individual gives you the lesson all laid out for you, but the lesson is there. Its up to you to try and figure out what the lesson is.

Then, instead of an objective lesson that allows training to be modified, standards to be changed, and future like incidents to be avoided, you get subjective evidence that everyone takes away something different. That is worse than worthless. Again with the Rob Stewart case, The Chairman and I have almost exactly the same facts, and wildly different conclusions. Imagine if everyone had to figure out for themselves why the Challenger blew up. Imagine if there were no objective evidence of climate change. Imagine if no one knew why this student died in a cave, and we all had to draw our own conclusions.

 

[The Chairman]

Imagine if everyone had to figure out for themselves why the Challenger blew up.

Imagine if there were no objective evidence of climate change.

​

 

[TulsaTime]

Then, instead of an objective lesson that allows training to be modified, standards to be changed, and future like incidents to be avoided, you get subjective evidence that everyone takes away something different. That is worse than worthless.

I fully understand your point here Frank but I'm not sure I'd go that far (at least from my standpoint). For those of us who have much much less experience, it's very educational to hear the discussion of all the possible causes of an accident, speculative or not, as long as they're realistically possible.

For example, when I read an accident thread and see you positing that the cause may have been X, Pete says "I think it was Y," and then PfcAj says "Maybe but Z seems more likely to me," then I know damn sure to not do X, Y, or Z, since regardless of whether any of those actually caused the accident in question, more experienced divers whose opinions I trust are telling me that they may lead to the same outcome. And in many cases, I hadn't even considered the ramifications of some of the actions being discussed.

I know that you're actually talking about the usefulness of these discussions as they relate to providing feedback for improving training organizations but I just wanted to point out that all things considered, speculative discussions aren't entirely worthless.

 

[Wookie]

I fully understand your point here Frank but I'm not sure I'd go that far (at least from my standpoint). For those of us who have much much less experience, it's very educational to hear the discussion of all the possible causes of an accident, speculative or not, as long as they're realistically possible.

For example, when I read an accident thread and see you positing that the cause may have been X, Pete says "I think it was Y," and then PfcAj says "Maybe but Z seems more likely to me," then I know damn sure to not do X, Y, or Z, since regardless of whether any of those actually caused the accident in question, more experienced divers whose opinions I trust are telling me that they may lead to the same outcome. And in many cases, I hadn't even considered the ramifications of some of the actions being discussed.

I know that you're actually talking about the usefulness of these discussions as they relate to providing feedback for improving training organizations but I just wanted to point out that all things considered, speculative discussions aren't entirely worthless.

Ok, I see your point. I think anyone can take from this that a loss of student control is bad, and all agencies have a standard prohibiting it. In fact, from outward appearances, a number of standards were violated. I don't see how they weren't.

But the instructor wasn't booted.

Therefore a massive fraud was perpetrated, or someone knows something we don't. When I look at the BOD, I see Joe Dituri, who ran the NEDU. He knows how to conduct an investigation. Director of training is Mark Fowler, former Virginia State Trooper. He knows how to run an investigation. I personally know a number of the other BOD, and for the life of me I can't figure out how or why they would allow fraud to be perpetrated. So what do they know that we don't? How can they possibly justify not booting this instructor? We will likely never know, because a formal investigation isn't made public, and all we can take away from this seems to be "follow the standards".

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I can guarantee that you will never serve on a jury of a diving fatality, more's the pity. The counsel for both sides don't want anyone on the jury who knows more of the story than they do.

Once they found out that I was a diver, forget about even an instructor, the defendants wouldn't want me on the jury. When they say that someone is to be tried by their peers, in this case, peers are the last thing they want.

 

[boulderjohn]

Once they found out that I was a diver, forget about even an instructor, the defendants wouldn't want me on the jury. When they say that someone is to be tried by their peers, in this case, peers are the last thing they want.

It could go either way. What they are worried about is what will happen during deliberations. They want to present evidence in their way in the courtroom. They don't want the trial to be invalidated in the deliberations by one person telling all the other jurors how it is. They are afraid of one person taking over the deliberations by being perceived to be the expert.

 

[The Chairman]

Frank, it just smacks of the Good ol' Boys club. We have no idea if there was any colusion or if the instructor in question is friends with the investigators. Many years ago I was sued by a credit card that I thought had defrauded me. They sued me for all sorts of money and I wasn't going to pay for it. I went to court as my own attorney, and lo and behold: I knew the judge really, really well. We were friends. Before I could even start to present my case, he threw it out with prejudice, meaning that they could not pursue it again. Dayum. I felt slimey as all hell, but I won. As it turned out, the Credit Card Company was accused and convicted of lots of fraud. But thankfully, I didn't have to go through all that. So quite often, it IS who you know. Was that the case here? Without operating in the sunshine, we have no way of telling.