Diver dies at Molokai on Maui dive boat

[whysocold]

It's back on page 13 (post # 130).

I have no idea what is going on now. This is a strange turn of events.

 

[lamarpaulski]

Piling on the messenger who reports bad news/behavior is worse than criminal, it's stupid. Had the victim been my loved one I would be very grateful for RP and her friends actions. A future death might be averted. How else will things improve if nobody speaks out ?

So far, OP seems to be someone who cared about people and doing things correctly and had the guts to stand up and speak out. What axe to grind could she have ? And who would not be emotional having someone die in front of you while the 'authorities' are busy elsewhere ?

There have already been several insightful issues raised that opened my eyes and increased my safety. Mixing deco and non deco divers for example. I bet the non-deco divers didnt know or even consider that they and the boat would be put on deco hold for the rebreather divers for such a long time. I wonder if anyone thought that through...in slightly different circumstances a very awful decision to essentially sacrifice one person versus risking several might present itself. Way better to simply avoid that nightmare.

Also, operators who sail under iffy conditions are making a decision on your safety and their wallet. Not good. I actually had considered going on that Hammerhead dive. No longer.

A safe diver has to use their own good judgement on dive conditions but so does boat operator/dive shop.

Yeah, diving has an element of risk. I hate that lawyers will descend on this like flies but you can see why they will have to.

If you take paying passengers to sea you have a huge responsibility, moral and legal. That code of the sea goes back a long ways and puts passenger safety as the ultimate priority of the Captain and crew.

 

[Steve_C]

As noted earlier separating rebreather divers still has the same problem if one of the rebreather divers has an issue early on in their dive.

 

[lamarpaulski]

As noted earlier separating rebreather divers still has the same problem if one of the rebreather divers has an issue early on in their dive.

True but at least other rebreather divers understand the deco situation AND some type of diver recall/abort signal could easily be in place to minimize that deco dead time. At least the deco obligation could be cut in most instances rather than blithely continuing deep dive plan while a fellow diver dies on deck.

 

[doctormike]

True but at least other rebreather divers understand the deco situation AND some type of diver recall/abort signal could easily be in place to minimize that deco dead time. At least the deco obligation could be cut in most instances rather than blithely continuing deep dive plan while a fellow diver dies on deck.

That's a good point, an emergency might arise before any technical diver had begun their ascent, so getting them to turn the dive earlier would minimize the time that the boat was stuck on the mooring ball.

From a logistical point of view, the only diver recall signal that I have ever seen used is banging on the ladder with a weight or a hammer. I guess it would depend on the profile, but assuming any significant depth and any significant distance from the anchor point, I don't know how audible that would still be.

Is the real issue here that technical divers are trained to asses and address a wide range of risk factors that recreational divers don't consider? That's probably one of the reasons why many recreational charters don't allow any deco.

Maybe a good take home message here is that single tank rec divers joining a dive with technical divers should understand this issue ahead of time.

 

[dmaziuk]

Posters had said this was a larger boat. Someone had complained that the captain was not down helping with the injured diver. My point was only that if the boat was under way in rough seas that the captain's first duty might not be to abandon the helm station.

Right, I was being facetious. And my serious point was it is not the only reason other crew members would stay out of the way of those performing CPR.

 

[Frontpointer1000]

In the medical world, we analyze incidents where people either die or have bad outcomes. These analyses are often in large meetings with many people involved, and are called "morbidity and mortality" reports. In these meetings, we will review all aspects of a case, with the specific purpose of finding opportunity to change practice patterns, assumptions, processes, and do better next time. No blame is made (correction: no blame is supposed to be made), and these are legally closed meetings, meaning what is discussed in the meeting stays in the meeting). We skip placing blame so that we can obtain the truth. If blame were assessed, then we are less likely to obtain the truth, because people are protecting themselves.

Although this is certainly a different venue, the A&I on SB affords us a similar opportunity to learn from past incidents, and change how we do things-this is it's purpose. Unfortunately, there is always a portion of us that tends to Monday morning QB an event, even if simply because we see more clearly the events in a linear fashion after the event. Who knows how we would act, if we were placed in a similar situation? We owe it to everyone to at least consider that point.

Another point to consider is that even in well-documented incidents, there really are several perspectives, and all add to the value of the analyses. Assuming anything is the objective truth is an error in thinking. I always hear these things and then think, "it may have been like that". Even when an official report is published, it does not (at least to me) represent the actual, complete, perfect objective truth. It's just a possible interpretation of the events.

In my work, unfortunately I encounter a lot of serious illness and death. That happens in life, and I see death and bad things happening in every part of our lives. Sometimes when on a walk, maybe while baking cookies, sometimes while diving. There may have been nothing anyone could have done to prevent this unfortunate incident. Additionally, in almost every case I've analyzed, there is always oportunity to improve, but that's because life and death are both complex, and in the moment (say during CPR for instance) we often (always) lack complete understanding of the events, the causes, etc.

Additionally, it is human nature to attempt to simplify the unknowable multitude of variables that come into play here. We also naturally want to assign blame. Neither helps in obtaining our objective. We can't consider all the variables because we frankly dont know or understand them all. However, we can objectively analyze what we have and what we can measure, realizing that we are lacking key information. And try to dress conclusions to act on, within the confines of our meager collection of data points.

No emotion. Facts. I dont pretend to understand someone's motives, not do I care, not should they play a part in our analysis. Our objective is to find opportunities to change our practice and codify best practices, either personally or professionally.

I appreciate the many insightful posts in this thread, it's opened my mind to many things I need to consider when diving.

 

[scubadada]

So what happened to this guy after he was on the boat? AGE, an acute medical problem like a MI?

 

[Steve_C]

I and these are legally closed meetings, .

Too bad SB cannot do the same.

 

[paul.mackay.a]

As part of my divemaster training I was taught not volunteer to anyone an opinion as to why the accident occurred. Limit discussion to the facts as you know them. Do not make conjectures and do not attempt to assess "blame" on anyone.