GTADiver once bubbled...
This is truly a tragedy that need not have happened. I truly hope that a Coronor's inquest is called and that the diving community can learn from the incident and possibly the family can get some closure. Kanata Diving Supply will hopefully review its interpretation of their PADI standards with this being the second fatality they have had on an advanced course.
What you have just spouted here I find this the most insidious form of slander possible. One does not interpret standards you teach to them or exceed them. What possible good is there in mentioning a second past fatality with out mentioning what the situation was or what the out come of the investigation was? Do you in fact know what happened or are you a person with an ax to grind and are using a horrible tragedy to take a pot shot at anotherwise outstanding store?
I contend that the student was a victim of the training agency in question. He was fresh off of his OW course with no interviening dives. I lay most of the blame here on the instructor who signed the original 'C' card and the agency whose framework is so leinient as to allow him/her to sign it. There is no way in the world that a student such as this could disguise his discomfort in the the water thoughout a whole OW without raising some flag in the mind of the original instructor.
Next comes a training cirriculum that allows and encourages students to take exactly this route. This is largely a financial issue as dive shops make nothing on the OW course but they can charge the same bucks or more for a two day AOW plus the extra gear sales that advanced students need. A store can finally make some coin. If KDS did not take this student then he would have found someone else to do it in fairly short order. This student, by the way way, came to KDS straight off off is OW from another Ottawa store whom unlike you, GTAdiver, I will out of courtesy not name. I think it was only KDS's unfortunate luck to be the next store in the area to be teaching a AOW.
The last but not least victim is the instructor in question. Once again hamstrung by the training agency when presented by the 'C' card that allowed the student to be on the course, the instructor has to assume that the student has the knowledge, skill and experience that the card represents or at least the minimum skill set. I do not think the the student possessed either in this case. I am not letting the instructor off scott free as the he/she should have had the skill and experience to deal with the in-water situation. Once again we have a training agency certification process that can be sometimes questionable on the required experience side.
There have been a whole bunch of losers in this accident. My heartfelt condolences go out to all involved particularly this gentleman's family, friends and the folks he was in the water with. This is a wonderful sport but there is nothing underwater worth dying for. If we had training agencies that were less concerned with marketing and more concerned about product situations like this one would be far fewer and farther between.
So GTAdiver rather than make rather broad slanerous statements in reference to any dive facility why not call a spade a spade and have a look at the root causes as some other more reasonable folks have sugested in this forum?
