Diver Death in Cayman

[bsee65]

The typical DM probably does at least half a dozen dives a week with well trained or, at least, cautious divers. In many cases, new divers may be with friends who have more experience and will stick with them to oversee their actions. Even if the new diver isn't thoroughly supervised, the frequency of life-endangering trouble is probably fairly low. I am sure it is easy for some to get into a rhythm of going through the motions. I guess there are DMs who are in it for the money, or who have a passion for diving but not teaching. The best have to have a passion both for diving and for working with people. While many of you may say that the safety of customers is not the DM's responsibility, I don't want to dive with a DM who sees it that way. Thalassamania has the right mindset, IMO, that the guide is responsible for returning to the surface with the same number of divers that started the dive. Bonus points if you come back with an extra or two! For those of you who DM, how often do you have to react to someone making a mistake that could be health-endangering? Is there any mechanism for revoking or marking the divers card if you find them to be incompetent on a dive?

I don't know how to say this without leaving the possibility of offense, but none is meant. I'd be blessed to study under a guy like JimLap for whom instructing is about creating responsible and self-sufficient divers. That said, I have to wonder about an instructor who would rather dive solo than with a buddy. It just seems incongruent that someone who cares so much about the learning process and promoting safe diving wouldn't want to extend that to actual diving situations. Most reasonable people wouldn't expect an instructor to babysit every time he/she goes out for a recreational dive, but diving with peers, or at least other divers whose skills are equal or superior to the dive plan, shouldn't seem abhorent to one who seems to have such a passion for diving and proper instruction.

Fosterboxermom, In spite of my belief that the DM and tour operator bear some responsibility for losing a diver from a guided dive, I have lost much faith in your statements based upon the recent spate of posts. You offer thanks to those in agreement and "I don't care what you think" to those who don't, which doesn't seem a sane or responsible attitude. This board is mostly about understanding what went wrong when an accident occurs so that it isn't repeated. It seems that isn't on the agenda for you, and that's fine, but don't expect to get what you're looking for here.

By the way, you never clarified the question of buddying. There were six, including the DM, in the group that intended to go to 100'. You stated that your friend was the DM's buddy. Were the other four divers matched in pairs as well, or was the DM everyone's buddy in the group?

As a learning item, does it seem that buddying with the DM is less safe for a new diver than choosing a different buddy? A non-DM buddy should be entirely occupied with the dive and his/her buddy. A DM buddy will also have some responsibility for the other divers on the dive and, while possibly the most experienced member of the group, the DM will have less attention to spare for his/her buddy than other divers in the group. Is it more likely that a diver buddied with the DM might get separated and end up entirely alone as opposed to any other diving pair?

With a new diver dropping way too deep and then shooting to the surface, is it the belief of the experienced divers that the most likely scenario involves badly screwed up bouyancy control? As the new diver descended, he didn't adjust his BC to allow for the affect of depth and became more and more negatively bouyant. By the time realization set in, with or without some time lost to panic and/or narcosis, and action was taken, it was too late. It was fortunate for the family and friends that the diver filled his BC and brought himself to the surface, eliminating the doubt, search time, and the possible inability to locate and recover the body. If the man was down past 300', it would have been serious work to locate and recover him if he stayed down there or went deeper.

 

[funnyfish22]

really sorry to hear about your loss. i m new to diving and this sort of thing makes me wounder about diving liveaboards and with foreign dive operations

 

[ianr33]

Apologies if this has already been mentioned in this lengthy thread. Which dive site did this occur at ?

 

[Pearldiver07]

I thought with PADI the depth ratings were as followed:

OW - 60ft
AOW - 100ft
Deep Diver Specialty - 130ft

It's been a couple of years, but that's what I thought.

*That is not the important thing. The important thing is that a diver died and there are family and friends suffering. IF the dive shop is operating unlawfuly or safely, then I honestly hope this incident will be the one to put the shop out of business.

Yes, these are still the recommended limits from PADI.

 

[Riger]

It seems my wife and I were very fortunate when we started diving. The odd thing is that we went to the Maldives with no intention to learn SCUBA, but that is another story.

Our instructor often made us very aware of the fact that we alone were responsible for our own safety and he did sort of "go on" about this aspect. This in itself would not have been of much significance unless, a few dives later on our first night dive the following had not happened.. We were well briefed in advance, including time and air pressure limitations, buddied up, given all the light signals etc... The dive itself was excellent, especially when we realised that there were too many people looking at the same area and it was getting crowded, so we moved about 20' away and got some "own space". This resulted in a "fly-by" by two huge sting rays just underneath us. Anyway, when I reached the air limits, I clearly showed this to the Guide/DM and he just OK'd me, I showed him again and he OK'd me again and moved on. My wife and I looked at each other and showed the "end of dive" & thumbs up signs to ourselves and did our first night ascent, SMB, surface the whole lot. I will never forget thinking to myself at the safety stop as we were hanging out together, how proud I was of us. It was a realisation that we had the power to do what we perceived was best for us, at any time.

So the point of this was not to tell you about the amazing first night dive, but rather to say that whilst we were fortunate through our circumstances to have exercised our independence and own "standards", I do not think that that is true for most new divers.

This is probably one aspect of diving (training) that words alone cannot teach. I am not sure how this can get done in a (controlled) practical manner, but I am sure that it would improve safety significantly.

It does not matter what the role of the DM is supposed to be, because if you stake your life on a specific perception of what that role should be, you may just end up loosing the bet.

In my mind, this is the lesson that should get taken out of this terrible incident.

Best Regards
Richard

 

[Web Monkey]

Does the facility bear some responsibility? Clearly yes.

Does the DM bear some responsibility? Clearly yes.

Does the new diver bear some responsibility? Clearly yes.

The real question is how to partition it.

Morally, you can probably slice it up 40:40:20.

Legally, I'd be betting on 45:50:5. If the dive op had not let the diver on the boat there would not have been a fatality. If the DM had not encouraged/allowed the diver to go on a wall dive there would not have been a fatality. The diver could have also prevented it by saying "no", but given the length of most current OW classes and no independent dives, I'm not sure you can reasonably expect any kind of judgement from the diver.

Terry

 

[AquaExplorer]

So here's your problem.

As a new diver, you have ****** all idea of what's going on. Rightly or wrongly you ASSUME the person in charge is qualified, is professional, has a duty of care, etc. This may not be the standard position of SB members, but I'm fairly sure it is of the vast majority of people from whom PADI make their money (I have no knowledge of other agencies).

If DM's do not have a duty of care to new divers then this is not being correctly communicated. In fact, it's not communicated at all.

Saving a newbie from their own stupidity should be a fairly basic offering of any dive op. After 4 days of learning to dive, a DM should have enough sense - for their own career if nothing else - to keep people within their limits.

I'm really struggling to understand how this board, which frequently complains about training standards, is now more than happy to say that a newly qualified diver is totally responsible for themselves/decisions. After 4 days training a person is unlikely to be able to make these kinds of decisions and should be aided by those with more experience, the OP included.

Secondly, it is also not easy for a new person to an activity to 'say no' to a figure of authority. Mightn't be ideal, but that's how most of us are programmed.

Thank you for saying this better than I have been able to convey.

 

[Riger]

...

It has been done. Here is the notorious WAH WAH article from aquaCorps Magazine:...

Excellent reading, Thanks Thalassamania.

 

[TSandM]

This is a tragedy, and tragedies change people. Having participated in an unsuccessful attempt to resuscitate a friend a couple of months ago, I really, personally know this.

My reaction to the story is this: I will criticize my original training in many ways, to anybody who will listen. But there is no doubt that I was taught to be conservative, enlarge my experience gradually, and I was very clearly taught what I shouldn't do. Nonetheless, with an AOW cert (which should give me 100 fsw), I followed an instructor off a boat in Maui to 130 feet on my 10th dive. In retrospect, I had no business being there. But the guide was an instructor (he was teaching our "boat dive" specialty) so I trusted that he knew better than I did.

I think it's easy for new divers to do that. However, if this diver was talking about wanting to go to 100 feet "just to do it", that should have been a red flag for the DM.

I can see no way around the idea that, having lost a diver, the DM should have corralled the group and begun a search. Continuing the dive with a diver unaccounted for seems to me inexcusable.

I have railed before, and will here and again, against the practice of group diving. Asking ANYBODY -- DM, Instructor, or saint -- to remain constantly aware of the whereabouts and condition of five other divers is absurd. The buddy system exists for a reason -- and again, although I fault my training in many ways, there was no doubt in my mind that I was supposed to dive with a BUDDY, and stay with MY buddy.

As much as I know the OP is in pain, I have to ask the question: If you were buddying up with the fiancee because they were new divers and should stay shallow, shouldn't you have confronted the man and told him he had no business doing the dive he was proposing? I know you said you told the DM he was inexperienced, but did you put your foot down and say, "I think it's unsafe for him to do this dive"? In your place, I would have made as strong an effort as I could, to have convinced him to stay with us -- "Come on, dive with us; you can do a hundred feet tomorrow (or whenever) but this is your fiancee -- you should stay with her. There's plenty to see shallow -- we'll have a blast!" Maybe you did this, and he got mad and insisted he could, too, do a deep dive. If so, I weight the fault more heavily in his corner.

Although my husband (a PADI DM and Instructor) disagrees with me, I do not think it is the responsibility of a DM on a guided tropical dive to keep everyone safe. It is MY responsibility to keep myself safe, which includes checking my own equipment, understanding the proposed dive, and evaluating it in light of my own ability. On the other hand, I did that dive in Maui -- but had something gone wrong there, I really would have been the one at fault.

 

[gcbryan]

How can one DM be responsible for 8 people in some sense other than guiding them around and trying to keep the group together as best as he can?

You either need more DM's or you need to have other expectations of what a DM can do.

As a diver (new or otherwise) how can you get in the water with one DM and 7 other divers and expect that one DM to keep you safe?

Nothing could be done for someone who descended to over 300 feet unless he was buddied up with one person.

Is english this DM's primary language? Not completely understanding english if your primary language is spanish does not make you an "idiot".

It sounds like more man power could have been available on this charter but that's something that a diver has to consider as well. If it's too cut rate than go elsewhere.

It may be that Cayman law was not lived up to regarding the number of staff on board. It may be that this DM could have done a better job. The primary responsibility is with the diver.

You can call someone a professional and expect more out of them but it's still unreasonable to expect unreasonable abilities such as leading a guided group, on two levels, with an unattended boat and no buddy pairs. How much can one person do?

The answer is probably to not dive unless you can take primary care of yourself and to keep shopping for dive operators until you find one with the amenities that you require.

From what I've read the diver in question was not going to survive regardless of which operation he had gone with except to the extent that they shouldn't take him on such a dive and he should have had an experienced buddy. How much of that is his responsibility and how much is theirs is the debate I guess.