Do not ever say you are a rescue diver

[drrich2]

Wouldn't a lawsuit against a Good Samaritan be thrown out directly?

The problem is, a lot of us travel to dive, and laws vary to state. How many people actually know the specifics of the Good Samaritan law in their own state? Much less Florida or California? And we often head off to Caribbean or other foreign destinations, and have little idea of the laws there. IIRC, it's already been pointed out in Australia and law is different than what we're used to here at home.

Good Samaritan laws I suspect are more likely to be known by professionals in their own state (though I question how many really know that). Even finding out what a law is when you want to know can be a hassle (assuming it's not worth it to you to hire a lawyer and ask).

 

[BlueTrin]

Also some places have duty to rescue laws to add to the confusion

 

[tursiops]

Also some places have duty to rescue laws to add to the confusion

Explain, please. With sources....

 

[BlueTrin]

Explain, please. With sources....

In France, although it’s unlikely you’d get in severe trouble for not following the rule, you are supposed to assist people in distress.

The bare minimum would be at least call emergency services.

It’s very likely in scuba, that you could just say that you would have had to put yourself in danger and therefore you have a good reason to not have helped someone in distress.

This page has a few summaries per country:

Duty to rescue - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[BlueTrin]

@tursiops i found this page: although I am French, I never did any scuba there and have been living almost all my adult life on the U.K. I was interested in knowing if this law applied to scuba in France.

Administrer de l’oxygène en cas d’accident de plongée : entre Science et Loi

Beaucoup de questions légitimes circulent autour du fait d'administrer de l’oxygène en plongée. Entre Sciences et Loi, ce que disent les...

differentdive.com

It says that if you choose to not administer O2 after an accident, in France, it could invalidate your insurance because you’d breaking the law by not trying to provide assistance to a person in distress while if you did it badly you’d be covered by the Samaritan law …

Apparently in Belgium, administering O2 is considered an act that is supposed to be done by healthcare professionals. And unless you hold the proper certifications you’d be accused of practicing illegal medicine for administering O2 (at least that’s the theory, the website implies that the writer would give O2 regardless of that law)

…. So confusing if you don’t know the local laws

 

[tursiops]

@tursiops i found this page: although I am French, I never did any scuba there and have been living almost all my adult life on the U.K. I was interested in knowing if this law applied to scuba in France.

Administrer de l’oxygène en cas d’accident de plongée : entre Science et Loi

Beaucoup de questions légitimes circulent autour du fait d'administrer de l’oxygène en plongée. Entre Sciences et Loi, ce que disent les...

differentdive.com

It says that if you choose to not administer O2 after an accident, in France, it could invalidate your insurance because you’d breaking the law by not trying to provide assistance to a person in distress while if you did it badly you’d be covered by the Samaritan law …

Apparently in Belgium, administering O2 is considered an act that is supposed to be done by healthcare professionals. And unless you hold the proper certifications you’d be accused of practicing illegal medicine for administering O2 (at least that’s the theory, the website implies that the writer would give O2 regardless of that law)

…. So confusing if you don’t know the local laws

LOL. Apparently it is even more confusing if you DO know the local laws!

 

[boulderjohn]

The problem is, a lot of us travel to dive, and laws vary to state. How many people actually know the specifics of the Good Samaritan law in their own state?

As I wrote earlier, all states in the USA have good samaritan laws. The specifics may vary to a minor degree, but not enough to make a real difference.

The older post to which I was responding said that only a few states in the USA had good Samaritan laws, and that is an example of the misinformation floating about that is creating all this confusion. It took me about 30-40 seconds of Google searching to find an authoritative resource for that information.

 

[scubadada]

Does it really matter much what your recreational training level is when it comes to potentially assisting a diver in distress, whether your buddy or not? It probably depends more on your own skill and confidence level in executing the assist without putting you, or any buddy(ies) you may have, at extraordinary risk. I got my RSD in 2004 and have not practiced since. I believe I could easily swim down faster than a sinking diver, the problem set out in this thread. Would I have assisted in this situation if the diver was in my assigned group, most assuredly. To what depth, I don't know, I have no problem exceeding my MOD for a short period of time

Would I be pissed that this diver was incompetent, most assuredly, Would I be pissed that this diver had been assigned to my group, most assuredly.

I do almost all of my diving in Boynton Beach solo, I avoid nearly all of these situations.

 

[Alaskan Scuba Dude]

Weak divers should never pretend to be a Rescue Diver.

 

[Blackcrusader]

But isn't that the point, really? Fear of saying you are a RD because then you might get sued? Solid information on the likelihood of this -- as opposed to scaremongering and hearsay -- would be useful.

in any case, we keep getting told that SB does not fact-check, so when somebody posts something quite wrong about (in this case) suing and past suits, it is we readers who must correct that info for posterity.

I have never been afraid of being sued just because I dive using an RD cert. Maybe that's because I don't dive in the USA?
Anyway Dodi and I are both in the Philippines at different locations. I've had several dives of just me and the DM who works freelance. It's been fun as dive times are not limited and also we both enjoy the dives as we both know how to find critters and things and go super slow. As I have also dived here before I am familiar with the dive sites.

On several dives have had 3 other friends dive with me. Two of us with camera gear and buddies without.

So my DM guide plus 4 very experienced dives doing what we want which was often dives no deeper than 20m. I only did two dives deeper than 25m in the 30 dives I have just finished. I wanted to rescue this Tiger Mantis but it wasn't having none of that.