Death of a recreational diver after a fall on board MV Elaine

[Ken Kurtis]

Don't just take my word for it, the Coast Guard defines it in the United States. There are 3 types of divers, recreational, commercial, and scientific.

I don't disagree with you Frank, but I think those are actually OSHA definitions to determine the employer/employee relationship (if there is one) and the standards then under which the dive must be conducted. The USCG has no jurisdiction over diving per se, though they obviously have jurisdiction over the boats that conduct diving (and that line seems to frequently get blurred).

Again to answer other thoughts, IMHO the "type" of dive is defined by the rigors of the dive, not whether you're having fun or not. If I really enjoy welding, repairing a hole in an underwater bridge support doesn't become a recreational dive because I enjoy it. It's like saying you had a salad for lunch, therefore that makes you a vegetarian.

The training agencies have a pretty simply definition of a recreational dive: 130 feet or less, not requring stage decompression, and diving on air (although in recent years that's been expanded to include nitrox under 40%). If any parameter of the dive goes outside of those three areas, by the definition of the training agencies, it's no longer a recreational dive.

- Ken

 

[mmadiver]

I don't disagree with you Frank, but I think those are actually OSHA definitions to determine the employer/employee relationship (if there is one) and the standards then under which the dive must be conducted. The USCG has no jurisdiction over diving per se, though they obviously have jurisdiction over the boats that conduct diving (and that line seems to frequently get blurred).

Again to answer other thoughts, IMHO the "type" of dive is defined by the rigors of the dive, not whether you're having fun or not. If I really enjoy welding, repairing a hole in an underwater bridge support doesn't become a recreational dive because I enjoy it. It's like saying you had a salad for lunch, therefore that makes you a vegetarian.

The training agencies have a pretty simply definition of a recreational dive: 130 feet or less, not requring stage decompression, and diving on air (although in recent years that's been expanded to include nitrox under 40%). If any parameter of the dive goes outside of those three areas, by the definition of the training agencies, it's no longer a recreational dive.

- Ken

Ken, you are arguing the semantics of what constitutes a "recreational" dive with a bunch of divers that agree with you. We are simply trying to explain that the report was written by a UK Govt. organization that likely doesn't recognize the various categories and definitions held by civilian training agencies - which are pretty subjective actually given that they change regularly.

If you have that much of an issue with it take it up with the U.K. Marine Accident Investigation Branch - they wrote the report. I'm sure they'll appreciate your inputs:
Email: maib@dft.gsi.gov.uk
Tel: 023 8039 5500
Fax: 023 8023 2459

 

[Centrals]

I ONLY dive for fun so I am a recreational diver whether the dive is on air, planned deco, overhead or trimix makes no difference.

 

[Hickdive]

The terms "recreational" and "technical" diving were invented in the US.

Diving with planned decompression stops on ascent for unpaid divers was for many years almost as taboo in the US as solo diving.

To get round the problem of saying that decompression stops diving was now OK when they bern saying for years it wasn't various US divers and training agencies adopted the term "technical diving" to differentiate between diving where stops were OK and diving where it wasn't i.e. recreational.

However, in the UK a dive with planned stops was simply an advanced dive and perfectly acceptable and has been since cylinder capacities gave sufficient endurance to enable them. It was all just diving and if you weren't being paid to be there it was clearly just for recreation. To illustrate; PADI tables still treat going beyond the no-stop time as an emergency whereas BSAC tables have enabled planned stops and repeat dives with planned stops since they produced the first "recreational" diving BSAC/RNPL Air Diving Decompression Table in 1972.

It is only the creeping Americanisation of diving that has introduced this concept of "recreational" and "technical" diving to the UK and I personally know of no serious UK divers who participate in dives involving planned decompression stops on OC or CCR who voluntarily describe themselves as "technical" divers as it is is cringeworthy. They will only identify themselves as such if faced with someone who has been indoctrinated with those terms. As far as they and the MAIB are concerned not being paid means recreational no matter what you are breathing or breathing from or how many cylinders you're carrying or how deep you are.

Perhaps a better descriptor would be "amateur" but that has been used as a pejorative for so long that it probably isn't acceptable.

In any event, as far as the MAIB are concerned the participants weren't being paid so it was a recreational dive and being a UK organisation they can describe it as such if they wish even if it causes some self-styled US "technical" divers to feel less important. UK divers couldn't care less.

 

[Wookie]

I'm not trying to be obtuse here. How does the MAIB consider dive instructors (BSAC, PADI, the like) who are being paid to teach a recreational class? In the US, OSHA considers them to be commercial divers if they are on any gas but air.

The terms "recreational" and "technical" diving were invented in the US.

Diving with planned decompression stops on ascent for unpaid divers was for many years almost as taboo in the US as solo diving.

To get round the problem of saying that decompression stops diving was now OK when they bern saying for years it wasn't various US divers and training agencies adopted the term "technical diving" to differentiate between diving where stops were OK and diving where it wasn't i.e. recreational.

However, in the UK a dive with planned stops was simply an advanced dive and perfectly acceptable and has been since cylinder capacities gave sufficient endurance to enable them. It was all just diving and if you weren't being paid to be there it was clearly just for recreation. To illustrate; PADI tables still treat going beyond the no-stop time as an emergency whereas BSAC tables have enabled planned stops and repeat dives with planned stops since they produced the first "recreational" diving BSAC/RNPL Air Diving Decompression Table in 1972.

It is only the creeping Americanisation of diving that has introduced this concept of "recreational" and "technical" diving to the UK and I personally know of no serious UK divers who participate in dives involving planned decompression stops on OC or CCR who voluntarily describe themselves as "technical" divers as it is is cringeworthy. They will only identify themselves as such if faced with someone who has been indoctrinated with those terms. As far as they and the MAIB are concerned not being paid means recreational no matter what you are breathing or breathing from or how many cylinders you're carrying or how deep you are.

Perhaps a better descriptor would be "amateur" but that has been used as a pejorative for so long that it probably isn't acceptable.

In any event, as far as the MAIB are concerned the participants weren't being paid so it was a recreational dive and being a UK organisation they can describe it as such if they wish even if it causes some self-styled US "technical" divers to feel less important. UK divers couldn't care less.

 

[doctormike]

I'm not trying to be obtuse here. How does the MAIB consider dive instructors (BSAC, PADI, the like) who are being paid to teach a recreational class? In the US, OSHA considers them to be commercial divers if they are on any gas but air.

Good point... so a dive instructor teaching an open water class is doing a recreational dive, but when he teaches EAN he's a commercial diver? I guess there is some data collection reason for that...

Interesting discussion. Lots of these semantic issues are more about language than diving. Sometimes definitions of words are dictated formally by an authority, like an agency, but then you can have multiple agencies with conflicting definitions. With dictionaries, there is a common assumption that the authors are the ones deciding what is a word and what isn't, and what the definition is. But dictionary authors are much more like reporters than referees - they simply describe how a given language has evolved naturally, which all human languages do through usage.

An example is "literally". Some people have a problem with the "misuse" of this term - as in "his head literally exploded when he read the threat about recreational vs. commercial diving". But this alternate definition of literally - as a general intensive to add emphasis - has been around for a long time, and is actually now considered an accepted variant.

So when a diver refers to a given dive as "recreational" in casual conversation, the definition depends on what the diver means by that term. On the other hand, when a government agency collecting data for statistics labels a given dive, they need some sort of standard agreed upon definition, otherwise the data suffers...

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

"Minimal abdominal bleeding". I was under the impression that any abdominal bleeding is bad. An injury that severe would indeed have been a medical emergency.

Re COD: if the consultant pathologist positively said that death was from gas embolism, then it's a good bet that that was the cause of death. The wording is important here - if the report is correct, the pathologist didn't say "likely due to gas embolism" or "consistent with gas embolism", he/she said "gas embolism". Usually when they're that sure, there's air in the brain, whether it was seen on CT or actually visualized during the post-mortem.

Best regards,
DDM

 

[Edward3c]

I'm not trying to be obtuse here. How does the MAIB consider dive instructors (BSAC, PADI, the like) who are being paid to teach a recreational class? In the US, OSHA considers them to be commercial divers if they are on any gas but air.

In the UK if you get paid you are considered commercial. Doesn’t matter what organisation your teaching for or gas being used.

Therefore a 80m training dive on tri-mix is recreational when done by a BSAC instructor as part of Branch training, but commercial if done by via a BSAC Centre (School).

As is a 6m dive on an elementary SCUBA course, i.e. OW.

 

[MalibuJerry]

Falling down with all that gear on would not be a reason to scrub the dive. If once up he seemed okay, said he was okay, checked out his rebreather (which should be able to take a face plant without a problem) then continuing on with the dive is reasonable. In fact, it is just as likely, maybe more so, that the accident had nothing to do with falling down prior to entering the water. The only reason it is being stated as a cause here is because the article linked the two. I would think the probability is that the problem was destined to occur with or without the fall.

 

[doctormike]

"Minimal abdominal bleeding". I was under the impression that any abdominal bleeding is bad. An injury that severe would indeed have been a medical emergency.

Re COD: if the consultant pathologist positively said that death was from gas embolism, then it's a good bet that that was the cause of death. The wording is important here - if the report is correct, the pathologist didn't say "likely due to gas embolism" or "consistent with gas embolism", he/she said "gas embolism". Usually when they're that sure, there's air in the brain, whether it was seen on CT or actually visualized during the post-mortem.

Best regards,
DDM

I almost never disagree with you, but I'm going to here...

The liver and spleen (and other abdominal organs) have very rich blood supplies, but are rarely visualized after minor blunt trauma, unless the patient has an emergency abdominal exploration or dies of something else and has an autopsy. So just like the subcutaneous soft tissue of the body easily bruises with trauma that is not enough to cause a medical emergency (e.g. a black eye), the internal organs and soft tissues probably also bleed a bit with trauma that is not enough to be life threatening or even to cause a significant hemodynamic problem.

If this diver fell (or got punched in the gut because he took someone's regular bunk or bench space), he might well have had "minimal abdominal bleeding" that would have never been of any consequence. The only reason that we know about it is that he happened to die from something else and underwent an autopsy.

Regarding the point about the gas embolism, I agree. However it's important to realize that a systemic gas embolism could have formed from the rapid emergency ascent even if he had died of something else at depth and then was just shot to the surface (especially if he had a PFO, like 25% of the population), so the presence of a gas embolism doesn't necessarily mean that the embolism was the cause of death... but the pathologist might have been taking other things into account in drawing that conclusion.


M