Fatality Off Miami Beach - Florida

[openmindOW]

Am I the only person here on whom the constant inappropriate use of "of" grates? For example, "I should of done..." is quite wrong. The abbreviation is "I should've done..." and that is what most of us say, but the long non-contracted form is "I should have done...". The word "of" has no part.

I agree. It made for difficult reading.

 

[shoredivr]

Peter, "off of the boat" instead of "off the boat", for example, grates on me more. Carry on.

 

[peterbj7]

Peter, "off of the boat" instead of "off the boat", for example, grates on me more. Carry on.

I agree that it also grates, but not as much. It's an odd usage that seems peculiar to the USA (I don't know about Canada). Certainly we don't say it in Britain. The "of" is quite redundant and can be dropped whilst still maintaining the meaning. But "of" instead of "have" is just plain wrong.

 

[djcheburashka]

There's a very interesting and unsurprising thing happening on this thread, which is that people's statements are being distorted through repetition, mixed up with speculation, and layered with gossip.

As a minor example, last night I described to Dan on the telephone something that I'm told had taken place on the boat. Dan, in a post afterwards, described something similar in his post, and said I'd told him that-but he (unintentionally, Im sure) added parts to the story that I did NOT tell him, and which I understand are not the case.

I began posting in this thread because Ari made a substantial number of statements publicly, which I am told and believe are false, which would match my prior experience with her and diving incidents, and which point blame at others.

Suffice it to say, that I am told that the statements Ari made to Dan which he repeated here, are false. And I believe the people who told me that are telling the truth, since I know all of the people involved personally and am familiar with the boat operation.

I am also told by people who were on the boat, that many of the statements made in this forum by people *other* than Ari who say they were on the boat and did or saw various things, are not true.

Meanwhile, the people who were *actually* there and involved with the rescue attempt and body recovery are dealing with the trauma of it.

I suggest that this discussion has spiraled out of sense. I suggest we close it until the police issue their report.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[joh]

When we finally anchored, the captain briefed everyone on the location and the time to return back to the boat. After this time people began splashing in the water. From the time we set the anchor and the time I splashed in the water, it was about 7 minutes. I was seated in the boat starboard side closest to the bow of the boat so I should of been the last diver to enter but since I was geared up I walked to the front and entered as perhaps the 6th or 7th out of 25 divers on the boat. After I was in the water, another diver went after me and then went the victim. The DIVEMASTER and 2 other crew members were at the transom of the boat assisting divers enter the water and making sure we acknowledged that we were ok via signaling. The DIVEMASTER and crew members should of seen the panic in the victim when she doggie paddled back to the line, ignored instructions to place her mask and regulator in her mouth, and should of paid closer attention to her. I don't know where ARI was during this time but I do know that there should of been a HUGE red flag going on to the other divers especially the DIVEMASTER and/or the other crew members when she did not acknowledge that she was ok and swam straight for the line, mind you, in no current and very calm seas. In hindsight I should of said something but I figured that someone already on the boat would of seen this incident because it happened a few feet from the transom and that they were trying to bring her back on and ask questions. This is the only guilt I have for not saying something myself but nobody expected the following events to get out of hand, it seemed more to me like typical student panic with their first real ocean water checkout dive.

As far as her certification, her Asian friend that spoke English was assembling her BC FOR HER and adjusting straps when she stood up ready to enter the water. Also when asked while underway about her certification cards to the Asian friend (in reference to both the victim and the Asian friend) they states they did not have them. Now have them on them or have cards at all is up to discussion and confirmation but this is what I recalled specifically because it caused commotion I was getting bothered by while I was trying to listen to the dive briefing when we were underway.

Thank you Kevin. It's refreshing to hear a first hand report from someone who was actually there at the scene.

 

[danvolker]

So your solution is leave the unskilled out their to deal with it.
In most any other sport or life endeavor there is a practice called mentoring.

Why is it that people with skill in diving just forget they were once new divers and the heck with these people.

Nice

What I do is stratify the kind of diving I am doing....If I am diving for PLEASURE, I am diving with MY buddies on an advanced boat, on an adventure dive, and I am going to avoid having divers in our group that are un-skilled.

Many here also know that I will also do DIR Demo type dives, where I will dive with an unskilled diver, in more of a mentoring situation--but I got into diving for exploration and adventure, not for mentoring. So I will give back some mentoring to the sport, but that is not what I am in the sport for.....

If I was mentoring or diving with an unskilled diver, 100% of my attentions are on making sure this other diver is doing what they should be doing and is comfortable, and this is a pre-requisite, because they are DEPENDENT.

 

[boulderjohn]

If I was mentoring or diving with an unskilled diver, 100% of my attentions are on making sure this other diver is doing what they should be doing and is comfortable, and this is a pre-requisite, because they are DEPENDENT.

Dan's post above is generic in nature, and so is this response. I don't know diddly about what happened in this incident, and what follows is my understanding as a dive professional of a dive professional's responsibilities in certain related situations.

If I am an instructor working with new OW students, my in-water responsibility is pretty darn clear. I have to make sure I supervise them carefully, and they are indeed dependent upon me. This past summer, an instructor working with OW students in Virginia lost track of a student during a dive, and the student was found dead. The instructor was expelled from PADI within a couple of weeks, and he is no doubt facing a very serious lawsuit.

If I am a professional divemaster leading a group of certified divers, my responsibility is less clear. There is an implied dependency in this situation. If I act within normal standards of behavior and the diver does something beyond my reasonable control, I am almost certainly blameless. If I failed to act appropriately to a situation, that is different. In the most famous case in which a DM was found guilty, he took OW divers well past recreational limits and then refused to donate air to an OOA diver.

Any time any kind of compensation passes to the professional, even a beer, the professional has some level of obligation for that diver.

What gets really murky is when there is no compensation and the professional says something that essentially means, "I am a professional. I will be on this dive. You can join me and count on me to some extent to make you safe." Over the past couple of weeks I have done a number of dives in which I have dived with people who knew I was a professional. I was always very careful to make sure that I never said anything that would imply in any way that I was acting as anything more than just another diver on the boat. The people who were my buddies could certainly count on me to be the best buddy I could be, but they had no more dependency on me than they would with any other diver.

 

[danvolker]

Thanks John, and as this relates to Ari, as far as I can tell from the "many" sides to this story we are now hearing, is that she had 2 divers that were actually with her--one I believe doing a refresher or equivalent---but in any event, 2 dependent divers. I am also inclined to believe that ARI did not tell the now deceased Chinese girl, that she would watch her or in any way lead her--for one, they did not speak the same language, and for another, Ari already had her hands full with 2 dependent divers, and three....Ari said she had no conversations with the 2 girls herself---though she did say that one of her 2 dependent divers, did tell the surviving girl she could follow them.....and that this made Ari annoyed, in that she did not want any others added....but this is something that can be addressed in the investigation--either the police or a courtroom, will determine what is supported by 1st hand witnesses, and what is not supported.

What I don't see disputed, is that Ari and her 2 dependent divers, plus the buddy of the girl that died, ended up descending without the Chinese girl--and I think it is agreed that this group felt the Chinese Girl was not going to dive --she had gone back to the boat, or was staying on the surface.

This in itself, is a conversation.....If several buddy teams in a loosely formed group, plan on jumping into the water and swimming down a reefline, and one of the divers in this loose group, can't descend due to ear clear issue or whatever, typically the only person this will effect is that person's buddy. If that buddy is a rank novice, then the issue is even more muddied, because they would be of little or no help to the diver on the surface.

Given this aspect of the dive, I don't see how any of us can pass judgement AGAINST Ari.... Either we know nothing close to sufficient to form such a judgement, or, we know enough to suggest that the Chinese girl was not in a dependancy relationship with Ari, due to her remaining on the surface and not descending with the group. We could discuss this concept of "dependancies in a group".

I personally don't think any of us should point to Ari or point to the boat and crew, as we could damage either quite badly in real world terms, and I don't believe any of us know enough about what facts offered are true, and which are not true. This may well be for a court to decide.

We "Can" debate what each of us "Ought to do" if we were to witness a diver on the surface, in a similar situation....and that is where Scubaboard can have a Social Value. That is where we might save someone's life someday......I do not believe our social value ( scubaboard discussions) is in trying to make the determinations as to what accounts offered in this thread are true, and which are not true.....

 

[peterbj7]

Nonetheless John, if you are simply diving and enjoying yourself, and see an unconnected diver who from your expertise you ought to believe may be in danger, even if that person has no idea of possible danger, do you think you should intervene? I think you should, and the Courts in England (which seem to see things differently from Courts in the USA) often think that way as well. A doctor demonstrably (provably) saw someone who had had an accident and elected not to intervene. The person died and the doctor was charged with manslaughter, and convicted. The Court held that a person with expertise who chooses not to use that expertise to help a complete stranger nonetheless owes that stranger a duty of care. Remember this was an English Court - from what I've gleaned an American Court would hold the opposite view. There is obviously the burden of proof that the "expert" did in fact see and understand the situation so knew he could help if he so chose, and it is through that proof not being available that many of these cases have failed. But that doesn't change the principle.

 

[boulderjohn]

Nonetheless John, if you are simply diving and enjoying yourself, and see an unconnected diver who from your expertise you ought to believe may be in danger, even if that person has no idea of possible danger, do you think you should intervene? I think you should, ...

...and I would.

Yesterday I was one of four divers descending on a descent line in heavy current to dive a fairly deep wreck. We were technically in two buddy teams, but we had essentially agreed to be roughly together on the wreck. As we descended, one of the divers had a problem that prevented him from splashing in the correct order. His buddy was the first down the line, then my buddy, then me. I kept looking back, and I saw that the other guy had still not splashed. I slowed my descent while the other two dropped full speed. I kept my head on a swivel to keep everyone in view. Eventually he got in and started to descend, but he had some trouble equalizing. Eventually we all got down and dived as planned. He turned out to be a competent diver, but not knowing him yet, I was concerned that he might get blown off the line in that current, in which case I would have gone after him and shot a bag (he did not have one) so that the boat crew could see we were off the line and find us.

But in that case I would not be acting as a professional. I would be just another diver looking to help someone out.