DMs can get in trouble?

[RockPile]

Stay tuned for an article on DM liability.

Sweet. I did a cursory search in Lexis-Nexis law reviews and didn't come up with anything very promising. I was going to really get after it but a giant tuna sandwich was positioned in my line of site.

Looking forward to your post Bruce.

JB

 

[Cacia]

yea, hurry up Bruce! and then you can do something about Incident Reports. I think they are a risk management tool but every time something happens about ten people fill them out and send to PADI, who of course, loves this, just in case your interests and their's takes a fork down the road.....

 

[ItsBruce]

I sent the article to NetDoc a couple of days ago. Long story short: I'm not going to let concerns about liability stop me from going for my DM cert. Not that I plan on leading dives, but I want to know I've got the skills. I plan on doing articles on dive buddy liability, the validity of liability waivers, and implied assumption of the risk... if there is enough interest and I don't get laughted off the board.

BTW: Incident reports and the like should not include adjectives or adverbs. They should not contain sentences longer than 12 words. You should avoid using any form of the verb "to be." (Anything stated should be stated in terms of one of the five senses. For example, "The depth was 50 feet," is bad. "The fathometer said 50 feet" is better. "His face was blue," is bad. "His face appeared blue," is good. IMHO.

 

[BabyDuck]

huh, that's funny. maybe because whenever i hear 'incident report' i think of nursing (cause that's what i do), but we were told in nursing school to not put things like 'appeared blue' or 'seems to be asleep'. they are or they aren't or you don't know enought to say - with blue, it's pretty straightforward, but what if instead of asleep they're comatose or dead? so i'd always chart something like 'resting quietly with eyes closed, respirations even.' off topic, i know, but interesting how different professions think differently about the same wordings.

 

[Diver Dennis]

Most of the places I dive, Mexico, Micronesia and the Philippines have DMs in the water and they act more or less like guides. Most resorts don't allow unguided boat dives in my experience although. I'm with Catherine on this, taking pictures I usually follow by myself behind the group and sometimes by myself all together. After they have seen me diving for a day and knowing I can take care of myself they have never had a problem letting me do this.

 

[superstar]

When I lived and dived in Palm Beach , the boats I crewed on didnt have "dive masters", we had "dive guides". Our basic duties were to work the boat, take the hook on the reefs, and to set the hook on the wrecks. We would also keep track of bottom time and bang our tank when time was up to end the dive. We had to keep the boat on schedule.
I think divers at times confuse DM's with guides and what they do.
Next time you complain about times up when you have air left think of this. Wouldnt it suck to be waiting for the dive boat to arrive for your charter because some yahoo on the morning dive stayed under an extra 30 minutes because he had air left.

 

[Ian T]

Again, some places, marine reserves or parks that allow diving, require the dive op to have a Dive Leader in-water with the customers, where I am for example. But then, they haven't specified that I have to herd a group of 8 or 9 divers from A to B. I'm usually the slowest diver on the boat and if ppl want to go faster or stop and take pic's - no worries.
We don't babysit either...unless the customer wants it and pays for it...

 

[Cacia]

Long story short: I'm not going to let concerns about liability stop me from going for my DM cert. Not that I plan on leading dives, but I want to know I've got the skills.

great! I am so glad to hear this! I had some of the same issues as I felt I had some assets to lose and was afraid to expose myself unecesarily if I was not earning my income from dive master work. In some ways it made no sense, but I wanted to do the course for several reasons, one of which includes the dive behavior Dennis alludes to! I think I get left to my own devices a bit more willingly since I am a divemaster and this makes my dive travels a bit more to my liking. The other reason is that where I live, many of the captains like having an extra divemaster on board and will welcome you (free) if you pitch in a little. Even when you are not leading dives, they like having a hand with the boat, etc. It has served my purposes really well. So, Bruce, I think you are doing the right thing, going against the conventional wisdom.

As far as incident reports go, I too, am an RN and learned about incident reports a certain way from medical liability standpoint. I guess my big picture issue with it is that if you are the instructor or the Divemaster involved, I do not think every person in the vicinity should be filling incident reports out. PADI will back you, to a point, but once their interest and yours no longer are the same, (if the case is made that you broke a standard, etc, or negligent, etc) then, you have not helped your own cause by getting every pro in the area to fill out an incident report. I was taught that incident reports are not supenable (sp) and that they are your risk management tool, and that is their purpose. I don't think gathering information from multiple sources andd submitting to PADI is always what you should do on your behalf. sure, PADI is going to say yes to as many versions as they can get, because that gives them more to work with. I have no idea if this is correct and would be interested in hearing a legal perspective. (from the dive professional's advocate, not from PADI's position). Also, the insurance seems way overpriced to me, from an actual risk probability standpoint, but then that is a whole nother thing....

You don't have to answer all this speculation on my part, but, these are the types of questions that I think are out there. guess I am off-topic. slightly.

 

[RockPile]

Stumbled upon this:

http://www.scubalawyers.com/prodiver.html

Markets can't survive in an economic vacuum. These attorneys have jobs because DMs have been successfully sued.

JB

 

[wedivebc]

Stumbled upon this:

http://www.scubalawyers.com/prodiver.html

Markets can't survive in an economic vacuum. These attorneys have jobs because DMs have been successfully sued.

JB

Where does that say DMs have been sued. Furthermore they are lumping DMs with instructors who have on occasion been sued. If you know of one bonafide case of a DM being sued post it here.