Criminally negligent homicide?/Scuba Instructor Faces Charges (merged threads)

[bill-da-ho]

Also, I college were the only place you could get scuba certified, everyone with kids would have to make them wait till they were in college to get certified. Or is it the common belief here that kids shouldnt become certified? I intend on having my 12 year old son take the training next summer.

 

[bfw]

The question here (at least in my mind) is not where was the instructor when the boy died, but rather where was the instructor when the boy and his buddy should have been learning how to properly perform the exercise? It's just not that difficult.

They were in the process of learning when the accident happened, i.e. "when they should have been learning how," and "when the boy died," refer to the same point in time.

They were practicing the skill, and had not yet been evaluated on it, so the instructor had no basis for believing they were competent to attempt it unsupervised.

 

[bfw]

No I think nothing of the sort, but I dont think the end all of learning lies with a university. do you think it is the only way for a person to learn how to scuba? by going to college, that is the idea that I am against.

Get used to it. Our city was just told they couldn't get insurance as long as their pool had diving boards. Ten more years of the litigation lottery, and universities will be the only places with pools more than five feet deep.

 

[Thalassamania]

They were in the process of learning when the accident happened, i.e. "when they should have been learning how," and "when the boy died," refer to the same point in time.

They were practicing the skill, and had not yet been evaluated on it, so the instructor had no basis for believing they were competent to attempt it unsupervised.

They were practicing an exercise that is a combination of skills. Each of those skills should have been mastered, independently, before being put together into the exercise. It was the failure to master one (or more) of those skills that caused the victim to die attempting the entire exercise.

 

[bill-da-ho]

Does anyone really believe tho that this individual would still be alive if the instructor had a degree? Really?
Is it not possible for someone who has been certified thru a college and a professor to panic in a situation as well as someone who was trained by a PADI instructor? and visa versa? It is just arrogant to believe that there would be less accidents if it were only taught in college. Getting the certificate is only the first step as far as I was taught, to be a scuba diver, you have to dive. Meaning it takes the experience itself to learn, as with most things in life. I am not anti college or anti intellectual as I have been accused, all of my children will be going to college, however, it is only a learning environment, and not the only one on this earth.

 

[muddiver]

This from someone who was homeschooled in the art and science of Scuba? College's are the same as government in this respect, they cannot provide the service that the private sector can.

In some instances I agree with you. Then again, how many private SCUBA instructors do you know that have a 50' research vessal at their disposal? Sometimes an academic organization will have resources to enhance the instruction given that most recreational SCUBA instructors only dream about.

To assume that training would be better if it were performed by "honest to goodness university faculty" is ridiculous. Lets recall, this accident happened at an honest to goodness university, by an individual hired by that same university.

Sorry, but you just contridicted yourself. You say the instructor was hired by, not an employee of, so how do you use that as an argument that private recreational SCUBA instructors are superior to college employed certified SCUBA instructors?

No, I'm happy having found a good LDS that was able to perform excellent service and at the end have a certification rather than a couple credits in P.E.

Again, I agree with you because the commercial sector is geared to providing the service (SCUBA instruction) for a competitive price in a convenient manner and in convenient period of time. Heck, I could teach someone the basics for safe SCUBA in twenty minutes, but that doesn't meet the standard set by teh SCUBA instruction industry that a court of law will use as the measure of competence.

No I think nothing of the sort, but I dont think the end all of learning lies with a university. do you think it is the only way for a person to learn how to scuba? by going to college, that is the idea that I am against.

No, recreational SCUBA does not require a college education. Actually it doesn't even require a high school education. One could probably learn all the necessary skills, techniques and knowledge by discussion and hands on with the equipment. The industry of SCUBA instruction has just set a standard that one must read to aquire the knowlege that SCUBA instruction is based on, and then one must show competence in that knowledge throught a written test.

To teach SCUBA diving without having aquired training and certification from a formal training agency is just asking for trouble and a law suit. That is the premise that most of the people posting on this thread are getting at.

 

[Thalassamania]

Does anyone really believe tho that this individual would still be alive if the instructor had a degree? Really?

Yes, at a minimum the Instructor would not have been off somewhere teaching a non-affiliated student on the side. She would have been concentrating on the activities at hand.

Is it not possible for someone who has been certified thru a college and a professor to panic in a situation as well as someone who was trained by a PADI instructor? and visa versa?

Much less likely, if just because of the time avaiable to get students comfortable with being underwater.

It is just arrogant to believe that there would be less accidents if it were only taught in college.

But those are the facts, there are less accidents in university based courses than there are in LDS courses (in fact there have been none in over 50 years of running Scripps Model training programs at a large number of institutions).

Getting the certificate is only the first step as far as I was taught, to be a scuba diver, you have to dive. Meaning it takes the experience itself to learn, as with most things in life.

It is good to find some common ground. But keep in mind that a good instructor (especially at institutions of higher learning) pays special attention to teaching students not just the skill and knowledge objectives but also teaching them how to learn, speeding up what is gained from the experiential learning process.

I am not anti college or anti intellectual as I have been accused, all of my children will be going to college, however, it is only a learning environment, and not the only one on this earth.

No one said it was the only environment on earth, or the only learning environment on earth, but if you'd rather take your training, or send your loved ones to be training at your local LDS, so be it ... I'd rather have a real professional educator who not only has met the standards of one of the training agencies, but who has also passed muster through the hiring and retention process, being routinely and systematically reviewed by other professional educators. I simply can not grasp how you can fail to grasp this simple concept. And you talk about real world experience. With respect to diving, could you point out where any LDS instructor would get the real world diving experience to share with his or her students that I've been afforded by the academic diving path? Only by having been in the military or commercial diving worlds first.

 

[Dzscubie]

This is really a sad story, but I'm not sure I agree the instructor deserves criminal prosecution.

I don't see this drill as particularly dangerous compared to CESA drills with full gear on. If the student held his breath and rocketed to the surface from the bottom of the swimming pool (if that is what actually happened) then the outcome would be the same, with or without a regulator in his mouth.

I think the issue will be whether the instructor had adequately instructed and supervised the drill. It may just be that the student just surprised her and "got away from her". Again, it is very sad.

I think this drill is may not used as much today, but I actually did the exact same drill in 1976 when I was certified, along with the next advanced drill:

1. Remove all gear, including your mask and fins arrange gear on the bottom of the deep end of the pool, turned off air, then surface while exhaling.
2. Rest for a minute, then when ready take a deep breath, swim down to your gear.
3. Locate valve,turn on air, clear reg, start breathing.
4. Grab weight belt and place across lap so you have better control, locate mask and put it on & clear, then put all gear back on correctly, surface, and repeat until done 100% correctly. Some people were convinced they could not do it, but after several tries were able to do it and it was a great confidence-builder.

This was all done of with the instructor hovering a few feet away and watching like a hawk for anyone who bolted for the surface.

I do not consider this to be an "unsafe drill", providing the instructor is very attentive and explains everything in detail. In my case the drill was done towards the end of the course (which was longer than OW courses today) after we'd gotten comfortable with donning/doffing, mask clearing, etc.

Safe Diving!

I completed this exercise as part of my certification course in 1976 also, we called it a "ditch and don", and it was exactly as Leadturn describes it. I did not think it was excessive as back then many of us did not dive octos and spare air or pony bottles were unheard of. Our instructor stated the reason for this exercise was to show us that a free assent was possible safely. BTW many of us did not dive with BC's back then, of course I dove a Tobata horsecoller myself.

 

[Dzscubie]

Removing and replacing scuba gear in water to deep to stand in is certainly tought in my classes. This is a basic skill and tought in order to free your gear from entaglemnt.

However ABANDONING your gear and heading to the surface without your gear is not taught in my class and I believe it is dangerours. You should try to solve your problems underwater! Only a paniced diver would head to the surface without his gear in case of entagelement.

Sorry Jeter but I disagree completly with you on this point. I don't think divers should be so locked in on one response to a problem. We can't predict what will happen during a dive so we have be be aware and thinking all the time, a ditching of gear and free accent may never happen but if it does I'm fully aware that I can do it. My wife (my dive buddy) and I still practice buddy breathing during the year because we feel it is a useful skill even if it is not taught anymore. I don't believe is setting limits or saying never to do something, and I again disagree that only a paniced diver would head to the surface without his gear in case of an entagelement. have you ever encountered a drift net in the open ocean? I have and ended up cutting myself out but it used almost all my air to do it, another few minutes an I would have had to ditch my gear as it was still tangled and I would have been out of air. Remember, Murphy always strikes at the most inopportune time.

 

[Dzscubie]

True, but not as done in this exercise. I've been teaching scuba for a number of years now (PADI) and during any emergency ascents in open water classes, regs always stay in the mouth, just to be safe. Additionally, in open water classes, we teach to don and doff on the bottom, but never to follow doffing with an ascent without any gear. I also make sure that I'm literally standing over my students as they remove their gear to ensure they do not start to float away. Maybe I'm a bit conservative, but it's better than the alternative outcome. PADI would never allow one of its instructors to do this skill with open water divers, and if we did, we'd be on our own. IMHO, it's above what is necessary to be a good diver and it too advanced for a simple open water cert, but that's an entirely different discussion. Back on track now...I see a couple major issues here (I'm not a lawyer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night ;-p

1 - was she an instructor or not? I have been involved with the scuba programs at a couple major universities and there is a very long approval process here. Most are concerned with liability and I seriously doubt that she could teach it without an instructor rating from a major agency. If she was approved but not an instructor, the University can also likely be held accountable. Even with instructors and liability covering a couple million, it still took over a year to get the scuba courses approved at one of the universities.

2 - was the student on drugs? If so, how could the instructor be held accountable unless it was obvious and she still allowed the student in the water.

3 - Was she directly supervising the student? How many were doing the exercise at the same time? Was she in the water or out?

Not many people realize it, but ascents, even from as shallow at 6 feet, can be very dangerous. Air is not forced out of your lungs as you ascend, you must consciously exhale (I always teach make an 'aaaahhhhh' or humming sound with your lips open). If you don't it's easy to have some serious consequences.

My sympathies go out to the family and friends of the student. It was a tragic accident. As far as the instructor goes, if she was not a certified instructor, she'll get what's coming. That may sound harsh, but as an industry, we can't have just anyone teaching scuba. That's why there have been calls for federal regulation of the industry over recent years.



Your logic is flawed. Diving is not safer with this skill than without it and it doesn't save lives. I'd seriously doubt that you can cite a single incident where a diver said "If I hadn't done that skill in my open water class, I'd be dead". There are many other ways to improve confidence and capabilities without jeopardizing the safety of the student. Reality is that this is a very complex and dangerous skill if not performed properly (as evidenced here). There must be very close supervision to the point that the instructor can abort the exercise if there is a problem. Let's just say that we disagree on this one (FWIW, I am also a certified AI with YMCA and my friend was the national director of the program for a few years so I'm quite familiar with the program).

I'll stop rambling now.

Diverdrew you would be wrong, I almost had to ditch my gear from being entangled in a drift net on Guam in the 70's, a few more minutes and my air would have been gone. It took most of my air to hack through the net and I still had to take my tank off to cut it loose. A drift net is like a hanging curtin and when you swim into one it wraps around you like a blanket and can do so several times. Very dangerous.