Have a problem with a buddy? Sue him/her

[Gargoyle]

I am very sad to hear about the death of a diver and my sympathy to those involved. What I can't understand is the fact that the buddy is being sued. If somebody dies and it was an accident then how is sueing going to help other than the bank balance. If it was criminal then some form of compensation is fair enough. As I live in the UK I do find the concept of sueing people strange especially my dive buddy. If something went wrong then I would hope that either I or my buddy could deal with it but if not then that is one of the risks of the sport. After all we are air breathers and not designed for the water.

 

[Diver0001]

....snip.... how is sueing going to help other than the bank balance.

Some people call this kind of thing "playing the litigation lottery". From the sounds of it I don't really have the impression that this is about justice. Revenge and greed land a lot of people in court too.

Going back to Dave's comment where he said that it would take a lot more than an unclipped inflator to kill a diver.... I would go one step further and suggest that as long as you can still breathe then nearly all other problems are simply "logisitcal".

People, when something happens under water that you weren't expecting then you generally have lots of time to deal with it. Very rarely does something happen that's immediately life threatening. If you have time, then use it. This is part of all of our training but since it's the lesson's learned forum I'll say it again. When something happens:

1) Stop moving.
2) Take a second (or a minute) to do nothing else but breathe in and out while the initial shock subsides and you start to feel calm again. This is a high priority so take enough time for this if you can. Breathe deeply from your belly. It helps a lot.
3) Think about what to do next. Just the next thing, not the next 10 things.
4) Start working on a solution. One thing at a time. Move slowly, move deliberately, pretend you are a crab in cold water and do, as I said, one thing at a time. You don't win a chess game on your first move and you won't generally get out of pickle underwater with one action either.

Important is that moving slowly is a key to going fast. The faster you try to solve problems under water the slower you will be.

And if you start to feel the stress coming back then return to #1 and go again.

R..

 

[MikeFerrara]

Rob, if you look at the original thread, apparantly they turned his air off thinking it would be easier to connect the inflator hose...and just skimming the old thread again, he maybe didn't have his fins on either and he went under without fins or air?

It sounds strange but I've yet to hear of a diving accident that didn't.

The legal liability of a dive buddy is a difficult subject. In most other things, we have liability where ever there is a duty of care established. Should a dive budy be held responsible for acting as a "resonably prudent" dive buddy? They are trained for the role and they willing accept it. Does that establish a duty of care?

Notice I put these points in the form of questions.

 

[Diver0001]

Rob, if you look at the original thread, apparantly they turned his air off thinking it would be easier to connect the inflator hose...and just skimming the old thread again, he maybe didn't have his fins on either and he went under without fins or air?

I see. I guess from a certain point of view you can say that this is the ultimate failure of stop, breathe, think and do. He literally had all the time in the world to sort out his problem......Upon reading that other thread it sounded to me a little like the guy may have (suddenly?) started to panic on the surface. I wonder what could have caused that to happen to someone with 100 dives under his belt....

R..

 

[baitedstorm]

I think the jury should be made up entirely of certified experienced divers.

And these should be the same jurors that would sit on a countersuit against the widow. Ridiculous some of the suits that people will file.

Agreed!!!!!!!

 

[pt40fathoms]

I'm not a lawyer (and don't play one on TV either), but does not the phrase "a jury of his peers" clearly indicate that they would have to be certified divers. If of course this went to trial and a jury trial was chosen?

Naturally the "grieving widow" would push for a jury of....carpenters????? Or anything BUT divers.

It's really sad that this tragedy is made even worse by the introduction of greed.

 

[SoCalAngel]

I see. I guess from a certain point of view you can say that this is the ultimate failure of stop, breathe, think and do. He literally had all the time in the world to sort out his problem......Upon reading that other thread it sounded to me a little like the guy may have (suddenly?) started to panic on the surface. I wonder what could have caused that to happen to someone with 100 dives under his belt....

R..

Beyond all else, this was a case of Panic, by both Darryl and Steve. I have dove with both. I remember diving with Darryl on dive 9 or 10, as well as several others on his way to 100. He was a meticulous man. He was used to things going a certain way and planned for contingencies, but not multiple contingencies.

From Steve's accounts, they were calm at first. They inflateed the BCD, turned off the air, and tried to fix the first problem. Unfortunately, in the prcoess of attempted to hook the LP hose, air came out of the BC - the second problem. Fins were not on. They were only in 20 ft of water, but vis was like 10. There was a current, and some waves, but nothing unmanageable. Unless there is another thing, oh wait, another thing is going wrong..oh geez, something else....Oh, gawd, getting close to the rocks...oh, air is going out of my bc....trouble keeping my head above water....HELP...HEEELLLLLPPPPPP....and panic sits in.

This accident wasn't because of one thing. It was a mass of several things one after the other...

I think most people in either of their places would have kept trying to solve the problem in the water, to save time.

What I learned from this:
* I do not go in water over my head without fins on my feet
* I keep my weight to what is needed, not extra to help me get down faster
* I practice ditching my weights
* If I have a problem, I go back to shore to fix it. Diving is not a race
* I keep myself fit (well more than I used to)
* I don't dive with buddies I don't think I can haul out of the water

Others in our dive club:
Have gotten rescue certified. This is a requirement for most of our boat dives. There is no reason (in my mind) that every diver should not be trained to the level of rescue diver.

L

 

[SoCalAngel]

I'm not a lawyer (and don't play one on TV either), but does not the phrase "a jury of his peers" clearly indicate that they would have to be certified divers. If of course this went to trial and a jury trial was chosen?

Naturally the "grieving widow" would push for a jury of....carpenters????? Or anything BUT divers.

It's really sad that this tragedy is made even worse by the introduction of greed.

From the lawyer's point I can see the greed factor. From Brenda's side, it is the case of a very sad, lonely, depressed widow who lost her entire life when her husband died.

L :sad:

 

[Diver0001]

What I learned from this:
* I do not go in water over my head without fins on my feet
* I keep my weight to what is needed, not extra to help me get down faster
* I practice ditching my weights
* If I have a problem, I go back to shore to fix it. Diving is not a race
* I keep myself fit (well more than I used to)
* I don't dive with buddies I don't think I can haul out of the water

Others in our dive club:
Have gotten rescue certified. This is a requirement for most of our boat dives. There is no reason (in my mind) that every diver should be trained to the level of rescue diver.

L

I'm sorry about your friend, Laurel.

I have something to add to your lessons learned that might be relevant. I have to turn off the air of students on a fairly regular basis because of free-flowing regulators due to cold conditions (and sloppy handling of regs on the surface ). When I do that, in addition to getting nice and positive, and telling them that I have their air off and they need to lay back and let me deal with it, I also physically hold on to the 1st stage of the student the whole time the regulator is turned off. I started doing this by instinct but maybe it will help to write it down here.

Advantages of holding the first stage are numerous. You can steer and move without the other diver having to do anything, you have control of the other diver's head end, you can easily get behind (or under) them if they start to panic and you can't be stopped, no matter what happens, from turning the valve open again. Even if the diver sinks you can turn on the air, get them a reg and because you have a grip on them you'll either be dragged under with them or you'll be able to pull them back up again. Basically you have excellent control like this. Needless to say lettting go of someone who might not be able to maintain positive buoyancy on the surface can lead to all kinds of horrendous consequences.

Also, I wouldn't turn off the air to reattach the inflator; I would man-handle it. This is also a skill that becomes easier with practice. *If* you (general you) decide for whatever reason to turn off the gas then it's obviously important for you to purge the reg or the pressure won't release and getting the inflator reattached won't be any easier. I don't know if they did that but in either case going slow and thinking about things like this is the key to being quick.

R..

 

[pennypue]

What I learned from this:
* I do not go in water over my head without fins on my feet
* I keep my weight to what is needed, not extra to help me get down faster
* I practice ditching my weights
* If I have a problem, I go back to shore to fix it. Diving is not a race
* I keep myself fit (well more than I used to)
* I don't dive with buddies I don't think I can haul out of the water

Laurel,
Thanks for posting this. I would think that both Darryl and Steve would be comforted to know that others (like ME) are able to learn something from a horrible tragedy.

I especially liked "Diving is not a race." This could apply in so very many situations. I'm putting that one in my log book.