Gilboa Again!!?

[MikeFerrara]

Just got a phone call from some one at Gilboa. It seems another diver was injured and taken away in an ambulance.

I suppose I'll hear more details tomarrow. I'm supposed to teach a nitrox class there. I don't even want to go.

 

[Diver Lori]

This isn't bodeing well for Mike's insurance. Two in one month.

 

[diverbrian]

All of the sudden I am glad that our dive group tends to dive local lakes this time of year.

Also, to add a the count by a smaller incident, someone that I know broke their thumb when they fell on the hill to the deep side. They slipped a bit and fell while they were in doubles.

Nope, I am sure that Mike's insurance company is having a fit. I hope that this one is alive to tell everybody what happened. That will really cut back on the speculation. And besides, who wants to hear about a dead person who probably died by making a few mistakes (I really hate it when that happens!).

 

[divebuddydale]

Wasn't there a fatality there recently??? Maybe the place needs to be shut down and saftey practices put under examination.

Dale S

 

[Diver Lori]

I fell last month at Gilboa on the slippery instructor's dock near the Grumman.....fell hard in my 95. I was more concerned about my drysuit! Three very chilvarous gentlemen picked me up and put me back on my feet with seemingly little effort. I was very grateful. I fell a couple years ago on the dive skiff for the Nautilus Explorer and broke my ankle.....so I'm a little gun shy. I've never fallen in my doubles, but I walk ever so carefully and watch every step I make.

 

[bwerb]

divebuddydale once bubbled...
Wasn't there a fatality there recently??? Maybe the place needs to be shut down and saftey practices put under examination.

Dale S

Give your head a shake!

Diver safety isn't the responsibility of the site's owner...it is the responsibility of the diver.

 

[diverbrian]

The implications of who is at fault are discussed in another thread. They don't really need to be discussed here right now.

Short of showing every new diver who checks in a gory movie, Mike does everything in his power to assure safety. It he catches you over the wall or your d.c. over the wall without filing a deep plan, you MAY ONLY get banned from the quarry. He may decide to let the sheriff talk to you about tresspassing onto the deep side.

Safety is ultimately the diver's responsiblity. There isn't much that Mike can do to prevent common human mistakes in judgement.

Lori, I know that I have slipped a few times on the same dock that you were talking about. Thank God that I wasn't wearing my doubles when I did!

 

[divebuddydale]

It is the responsibilty of the diver. I agree.. but if there has been a number of accidents at that site, there may be some underlying conditions that make it unsafe. Or it may not be a suitable location for some types of dives (Check out dives) . I think that it would be wise to shut it down for a few days and investigate any serious accident (I would say to do that for any site, not just Gilboa).

PLus look at this thread so far, and we have people who were injured whil on surface, maybe the place (which I have never been to so this is a big maybe) needs to be looked at to make it safer. There is nothing wrong with examination, as long as the purpose is to improve conditions.

Dale

p.s I shook my head and something was rattling, who should I call?

 

[dcostanza]

Mike takes every incident very personally... He does a better job than I have seen many other quarry owners do regarding notifying the divers of the hazards (depth,cold,etc.). He does everything in his power to inform the divers that they need to have their head screwed on right. He doesn't run a babysitting service!!!

Maybe instead of conveying that "...the place needs to be shut down..." the individual divers need to look in the mirror, park the ego at the entrance, practice the basics a bit more and dive within their training abilities...

EDIT...
.I believe that in this day in age it is too easy to simply blame the "institution" instead of the individual.... Example: McDonalds and the spilt coffee incident several years ago???

Ultimately, it comes down to the decision of the diver NOT Mike.

EDIT....

This is not intended to come across as hostile, only as someone who personally knows him and also knows how much effort he puts into making it one of the top dive sites in the Midwest and given the depth, one of the safest around.

Edits were made as some of the items were just recently addressed and didn't want to be redundant...

Don

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

Hopefully this wasn't very serious. I look forward to updates.

I don't know Mike but I'm sure he's feeling snakebitten right now.