Diver death in Lake Minnewanka, Alberta, Canada

[nadwidny]

8. The underwater council, while well-meaning, is understaffed, largely volunteer, and lacks any powers to place witnesses under oath, serve subpoenas, or compel testimony. A witness can lie before them with impunity and can refuse any request for information;
9. Based upon the quality information gathered in 8, above, the underwater council issues a twenty to thirty page report on the incident, over 75% of which is fore-matter and appendices which appear in every one of their reports. No one is ever found to be negligent since no one is ever stupid enough to self-incriminate before the council. The verdict is therefore always a medical condition or diving beyond one's abilities (which was hidden from the operator); and

Accident investigation and reporting is not part of, and has never been part of, the AUC mandate.

The AUC has never issued incident reports. Not 20 page ones, not 30 page ones, not even 1 page ones. I have no idea where you got the idea that is something the AUC does.

 

[Crush]

Accident investigation and reporting is not part of, and has never been part of, the AUC mandate.

The AUC has never issued incident reports. Not 20 page ones, not 30 page ones, not even 1 page ones. I have no idea where you got the idea that is something the AUC does.

You should re-read my post. It did not mention AUC. However, if you search SB you will find that OUC does do this. I kept my post general to avoid nit-picking. I guess that I did not try hard enough.

 

[icediver]

Yes, icediver, I did come up with that all by myself. You must have been impressed by my clarity of thought and my power summary. In a similar fashion, I was impressed by you thoughtful response, your eloquence, and your keen ability to fashion a logical, well-thought argument - you have my congratulations and respect, Sir. You are destined for greatness.

If you want a tip, point out again my limited number of dives - it clearly effects my ability to read, reflect, and summarize. If I dived more, like you, I would be able to make more informed posts on any subject... Hmm... Nope... I read your post and mine over again... I think that, in our case, the number of dives is inversely proportionate to the clarity of the post.

Better luck next time.

WOW all those nice words and you still did not answer the question, like a true politician.

 

[nadwidny]

You should re-read my post. It did not mention AUC.

There is only one underwater council in Alberta.

However, if you search SB you will find that OUC does do this.

Not for Alberta it doesn't.

I kept my post general to avoid nit-picking. I guess that I did not try hard enough.

You can only work with what you got.

 

[Crush]

WoW Did you come up with that all by yourself.

Now tell us how it should be done in your expert opinion.

It looks to me that you do alot more diving with your laptop than you do in the water.

WOW all those nice words and you still did not answer the question, like a true politician.

icediver, you posted "all those nice words and you still did not answer the question." You posted one questions (see above), albeit without the punctuation which is the norm in the English language. Your questions was: "Did you come up with that all by yourself." I answered this: yes, I did. Your comment "WOW all those nice words and you still did not answer the question, like a true politician" reflects to me that you need to learn to read. Practice makes perfect.

Now, you may be confusing the word "question" with the word "request." Your request was "Now tell us how it should be done in your expert opinion." Do you truly want me to do this? On another topic, do you want to keep embarrassing yourself in this forum? You have been a member for years and have shown discretion and good judgment in not posting - you should continue to observe this behaviour.

It is up to you pal - I can go at this all night, and you will just look dumber and more illiterate with each post.

 

[Crush]

There is only one underwater council in Alberta.



Not for Alberta it doesn't.



You can only work with what you got.

You failed to read my post, again. Nowhere did I mention that my post pertained only to Alberta. In fact, DaleC was from (I believe) BC. You may live in Alberta, as do I, but my post pertained to the general state of non-homicide dive incident and fatality investigation in Canada. I am sorry that this was not made plain enough for you in my post - I will use larger fonts in the future.

 

[nadwidny]

You failed to read my post, again. Nowhere did I mention that my post pertained only to Alberta. In fact, DaleC was from (I believe) BC. You may live in Alberta, as do I, but my post pertained to the general state of non-homicide dive incident and fatality investigation in Canada. I am sorry that this was not made plain enough for you in my post - I will use larger fonts in the future.

Context ain't your gig, is it?

 

[Cave Diver]

---

---

A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Guys, let's keep it civil and leave the personal arguments out of it shall we?

---

 

[skyward]

I took my OW with The Dive Shop at Lake Chaparral and we used 1 tank for two dives and it wasn't a problem. It was near the end of September and pretty cold so the dives were only long enough to get the skills done which was 15-20 minutes. It is a long way from the parking lot to the entry so taking twice as many tanks for no good reason didn't seem to make sense.

If you are learning to monitor your air pressure 1 tank is lots of air to get the skills done for 2 OW dives.

Like others have mentioned it is unlikely that this is the cause of this accident.

Monitoring your air and surfacing a minute after losing your buddy seem to be the key issues here.

Why do these things always degenerate into arguments about what someone meant or said or didn't say or whether they are "qualified" to say it.

None of that BS helps with learning from the accident or trying to prevent something similar so why waste time with it. Just trying to impress everyone with your debating skills?

It's not working.

Doug

 

[adpfam]

Normal procedure is that accident reports are never heard of, and the dive community doesn't learn much (if anything) from the incident.

I would expect this to eventually fade off the radar and we never hear anything conclusive about cause of death (other than drowning) or the events leading up to it.

Its a real shame since the knowledge of what happened could help prevent other incidents from occurring.

my sincere condolences the family and the the dive instructor

unfortunatley some memories will never fade away: if anything could be learned it is the fact that rec diving carries inherent risk whether you are a newbe or have thousands of dives . Having dove mini, there are added risks the murk , altitude the cold and more than likley the inexperience perhaps all playied a part . unfortunatley all the holes lined up ( swiss cheese Therory ) and a deadly outcome resulted . my point is that it wont be just one issue that caused this mans death . the diving community has already learned plenty from this incident and hopefully all parties involved can move forward in a positive way .