Fatality Off Miami Beach - Florida

[Crass3000]

All this speculation about being overweighted seems conterproductive. She was obviously able to obtain positive bouyancy when she was observed doing the "doggie-paddle" on the surface. There is no way she could have done this without positive bouyancy.

I tend to think instuctors like their students slightly overweighted so that they can more easily hold their 15-foot stop. It's that much harder to hold the stop in the ocean with big waves.

 

[danvolker]

All this speculation about being overweighted seems conterproductive. She was obviously able to obtain positive bouyancy when she was observed doing the "doggie-paddle" on the surface. There is no way she could have done this without positive bouyancy.

I tend to think instuctors like their students slightly overweighted so that they can more easily hold their 15-foot stop. It's that much harder to hold the stop in the ocean with big waves.

As long as we are speculating, I will speculate that she did not have the skill to use her BC except in an occasional manner--one of those divers that would use the BC sometimes, and then put in too much, or too little air....or not at all when it was the thing to do...

Just because she happened to have air in the BC during the dog paddle, does not mean she could reliably use it at any other time....the sinking /drowning pretty well confirms this.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

All this speculation about being overweighted seems conterproductive. She was obviously able to obtain positive bouyancy when she was observed doing the "doggie-paddle" on the surface. There is no way she could have done this without positive bouyancy.

I tend to think instuctors like their students slightly overweighted so that they can more easily hold their 15-foot stop. It's that much harder to hold the stop in the ocean with big waves.

Only incompetent and lazy instructors do this. If an instructor does this get another one. Waves or no waves, there is no excuse for intentionally overweighting students. It's one thing for a knowledgeable diver to add a few extra pounds to compensate for conditions. But it should never be done by an instructor to address a skills problem.

 

[danvolker]

You know, the kind of accident of a scuba diver we read about, should be one where we heard a diver was somehow left behind, and they swam for 8 hours before being rescued...
Their training rendered the problem a big pain in the butt for them, but they dealt with it.....the events and accident in this case we are discussing should just never have been possible!

 

[letterboy]

Only incompetent and lazy instructors do this. If an instructor does this get another one. Waves or no waves, there is no excuse for intentionally overweighting students. It's one thing for a knowledgeable diver to add a few extra pounds to compensate for conditions. But it should never be done by an instructor to address a skills problem.

Sadly the mantra "You do not know what you do not know" applies to divers, both new and those who do not understand what they do not know.

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

 

[brnt999]

I am new to diving but I am going to throw out an idea. This woman"s inexperience went unnoticed by a number of people--someone should have picked up on it. I don't know why the owners of the dive boat don't shoulder some responsibility.

I have never been on one of these cattle boats but say they had someone on board who was in charge of saftey. This person would talk to everyone who gets on the boat and everyone would have to provide a dive plan--who they are diving with, how much experience each person has, who their dive master is, where they intend to dive etc. This saftey person would watch and talk to the divers and be able to identify ambiguous and unsafe situations. This person would have the power to deny divers from going in to the water if they thought they were unsafe. Maybe the boat would have a DM on standby and tell the unsafe divers they can only dive if they hire the divemaster. This saftey person would watch the divers entering the water and be looking for potential problems. The sole job of this person on the boat would be to focus on diver saftey.

 

[ScubaSteve]

I have never been on one of these cattle boats but say they had someone on board who was in charge of saftey.

Most would say....there was a person on the boat in charge of safety. The diver herself. Perhaps she failed herself.

This person would talk to everyone who gets on the boat and everyone would have to provide a dive plan...........

Then who is responsible when the diver fails to follow? You just end up where we are today IMO.


Edit **************

I am going to qualify this post and say that the true circumstances surrounding this incident have since washed from my memory but I do not recall the dive op being truly negligent. If my error serves me incorrectly I apologize.

 

[Scott from LongIsland]

I am new to diving but I am going to throw out an idea. This woman"s inexperience went unnoticed by a number of people--someone should have picked up on it. I don't know why the owners of the dive boat don't shoulder some responsibility.

I have never been on one of these cattle boats but say they had someone on board who was in charge of saftey. This person would talk to everyone who gets on the boat and everyone would have to provide a dive plan--who they are diving with, how much experience each person has, who their dive master is, where they intend to dive etc. This saftey person would watch and talk to the divers and be able to identify ambiguous and unsafe situations. This person would have the power to deny divers from going in to the water if they thought they were unsafe. Maybe the boat would have a DM on standby and tell the unsafe divers they can only dive if they hire the divemaster. This saftey person would watch the divers entering the water and be looking for potential problems. The sole job of this person on the boat would be to focus on diver saftey.

It seems as if you think that someone else is responsible for your safety and that of other divers on the boat?

You mentioned that you are a new diver and you recognize this fact for yourself. I am assuming that you are an adult...so if you were in this situation and feel that you are too green to get in the water then it is on you to hire a private DM to guide you and refine your skills.

 

[scubafied]

I am new to diving but I am going to throw out an idea. This woman"s inexperience went unnoticed by a number of people--someone should have picked up on it. I don't know why the owners of the dive boat don't shoulder some responsibility.

I have never been on one of these cattle boats but say they had someone on board who was in charge of saftey. This person would talk to everyone who gets on the boat and everyone would have to provide a dive plan--who they are diving with, how much experience each person has, who their dive master is, where they intend to dive etc. This saftey person would watch and talk to the divers and be able to identify ambiguous and unsafe situations. This person would have the power to deny divers from going in to the water if they thought they were unsafe. Maybe the boat would have a DM on standby and tell the unsafe divers they can only dive if they hire the divemaster. This saftey person would watch the divers entering the water and be looking for potential problems. The sole job of this person on the boat would be to focus on diver saftey.

Operators should not have to employ someone to do the job that your OW Instructor didn't. The safety aspect of this should have been resolved in the initial OW training course. Your training (as far as I can gather from your other thread) was less than adequate and you went into it unprepared. I'm guessing that this ladies training experience went similar to yours or she had been dry long enough to forget much of what she was taught. This accident ultimately boils down to training and taking personal responsibility for knowing your skill level and if you need help.

I also find it very unfortunate that with all the people on board that this tragedy had to happen but hindsight is 20/20 and as much as we would all lke to sit here and say we would have intervened or done differently, you just don't know what happened that day. I will be the first to admit that I try to take a good solid look around while people are gearing up to catch things that don't seem right but at a certain point, you have to shift focus to your own gear in order to insure it is properly set-up. Things can be missed but ultimately it is the certified divers responsibility to know how to execute a dive after being given the briefing.

 

[brnt999]

It seems as if you think that someone else is responsible for your safety and that of other divers on the boat?

You mentioned that you are a new diver and you recognize this fact for yourself. I am assuming that you are an adult...so if you were in this situation and feel that you are too green to get in the water then it is on you to hire a private DM to guide you and refine your skills.

Your comment made me stop and think, and then I looked at some of your recent posts. In one of them you said:

A "fairly new diver" should not be diving the blue hole and be taken down to 145ft as you are saying. that is the definition of a "trust me dive" and not a smart thing to do. T

On my last trip to Belize I was on an excursion with two girls that were just certified. For their very first dive after passing their OW certification the dive shop in San Pedro took them right to the Blue Hole. That was not the first time I had heard of that happening either. Going to the Blue Hole from San Pedro is quite a bit more expensive than the local reefs and I see it as a complete money grab from operators with a complete and utter lack of concern for the safety of their customers.

So in some situations you do believe a business has a responsibility to look out for their customers.