Diver death in Arkansas

[devilfish]

Even if they were buddy off and her buddy did see it, what is he supposed to do? So they were told about buddy systems, so what? Some agencies do not train any assists much less underwater or surface emergencies or rescues until after an advanced course. That makes a lot of sense, sombody had a bright idea about progression of training HA. Until that time they are only told to dive in buddy teams but are clueless what to do. If they would try to react, most likely they get themselves into trouble also.

 

[dvleemin]

Originally posted by O-ring
Remember, he was an OW student too and, although "trained" in buddy diving, had nowhere near the experience to be responsible for another life underwater.

I agree with you 100%, but I think most of the blame lies in the operation running their OW cert dives like this. A dive professional should have been there for the assist. IMHO, during an OW cert dive it should never take 5 minutes to find an instructor/asst. instructor/DM.

I certainly aggree the blame should rest with the dive operation, and the instructors. I was just thinking back to when I did my OW with my at the time girlfriend. We were in similiar circumstances - temp about 60, vis a bit better about 20', although it was down to 10' pretty fast and extremely high altitude. I think there was 10 or 12 students and 1 instructor, and 2 assistent instructors. In any case, we went down to about 30'.

I know there would never be a reason I would asend without my buddy. From the depth, you could easily to a controlled ascent if you had to, so I cannot see any reason why you could leave your buddy down there. Maybe he paniced, I don't know - that might explain it. But to leave your buddy - even with little training I can't see how someone could do it.

Darryl

 

[dvleemin]

Originally posted by devilfish
Even if they were buddy off and her buddy did see it, what is he supposed to do? So they were told about buddy systems, so what? Some agencies do not train any assists much less underwater or surface emergencies or rescues until after an advanced course. That makes a lot of sense, sombody had a bright idea about progression of training HA. Until that time they are only told to dive in buddy teams but are clueless what to do. If they would try to react, most likely they get themselves into trouble also.

I guess my thoughts were that you NEVER let your buddy out of your sight. So when asending, you assend together. Even with little training, that's something that was at least drilled into us.

That being said, what the heck were they doing an OW dive where there is a risk of entanglement? Thats incedibly foolish. If you want to panic a student, the best way I can think of is to get them tangled in something.

Darryl

 

[O-ring]

I did my OW in the Bahamas and it was pretty much one on one...

 

[scuba_adventurer]

That instructor is toast mainly for violating standards with 14 in the water, unless the report is wrong.

The PADI Police are on this one I am sure.

 

[dvleemin]

Originally posted by scuba_adventurer
That instructor is toast mainly for violating standards with 14 in the water, unless the report is wrong.

The PADI Police are on this one I am sure.

And so is the dive shop if they authorizes the instructor/student ratio (well, their insurance premiums will go up anyways).

Darryl

 

[ScubyDoo]

Originally posted by devilfish
Until that time they are only told to dive in buddy teams but are clueless what to do. If they would try to react, most likely they get themselves into trouble also.

That should not be the case. The article stated that the instructor referred questions to PADI. One can assume from that, that this was a PADI course. The PADI OW course curriculum specifically address' entanglement issues and what you should and should not do. From the story however, it doesnt appear as if her buddy even realized she was entangled. Upon realizing that she had not surfaced with him, he should have immediately descended to see what was wrong, and she should have remained calm until he returned, and assisted her to become untangled. Its possible they recieved poor training and didnt realize what they were supposed to do. Its hard to say where to point the finger here.

In my AOW Night Dive, I became entangled momentarily in some seagrass during our "out and back" navigation skill. It was dark and my light only illuminated a few feet in front of me and I swam right into it. I knew my buddy was right behind me (counting kick cycles). I knew I had plenty of air and could get out with no problem. I was more worried about losing my compass heading. I clawed my way out and resumed my heading successfully.

 

[devilfish]

I know where to point the finger, and it's not the students and not even the Instructor. It's the system.
ScubyDoo, with all my respects, it's so easy to get cought up in "what I" or "what should" be done. I have mentioned on various posts here in the past that those that are on this forum are not the norm. The fact that those here on this forum are involved, active and interested shows that they are not the problem. But this is not the real world. There is a lot of bad stuff going on out there.
In this case I agree, the buddy probobly never saw her. Most likely he was preocupied with his own stress just blindly following.
Furthermore, "specifically addressing" a situation and "telling" what to do is a far cry from being able to do it. That's one of the problems in the system, too much videos, too many pictures, too much talk, not enough hands on. Trained?
I can show a video of what a wonderful skier I am, watching it does not make one a skier.

 

[TexasMike]

Does anyone know if PADI (or other agencies for that matter) publish the results of investigations in matters such as this?

 

[jbd]

TexasMike,
I seem to recall this being discussed in the past but I'm not sure where I would have heard about this. My recollection is that they(agencies) do publish the results but its usually after any and all court action is over with and the info is not for general consumption in other words an instructor or maybe a course director can see the results but not the diving public.

Purely conjecture on my part but I would think that is the kind of information the agencies would want their instructors to be aware of in an attempt to prevent similar incidents in the future.

In this particular case I can only hope and pray that this womans unfortunate death will save others from a similar fate. We all need to learn from this situation.