Lessons to be learned-Death in Palau

[MikeFerrara]

99heritage once bubbled...
I'm a new diver, and always reading accident reports to try and prepare for these situations.

I would love to invest in proper training....

What do you all consider "proper training" ???????

What classes can you recommend?????

You have asked the $64 dollar questions. I don't really have a short answer. It's something I write and talk about alot and there is much on this board. There are certainly instructors who will train you right. The problem is being able to tell who they are. After having taken and taught many classes I think I've got it partially figured out. However when I was new I didn't have a clue and just grabbed an instructor like everyone else does.

I hate to do it but at this point I have to suggest you look at the DIRF course. I say that only because I know for a fact they teach the skills. Other instructors do also but finding them may be like looking for a needle in a hay stack. Unfortunately if you don't buy the whole DIR thing they won't teach you. They won't offer part of it. At least get the book and read it because it gives a good discription of the skills you should have at various levels.

 

[The Chairman]

Mike, I changed from addressing you when I started talking about the husband. Some have suggested that he is thinking about financial gain instead of grieving.

Also... I meant that we were assuming that the loss of gear precipitated the accident. I think that her loss of consciousness (head injury) was the probable cause of the lost gear.

I agree that way too many instructors never teach the basics of neutral buoyancy. I hope that this could never be said of me.

But really... there is no way to OW certify a student and then keep them from diving the Andrea Dorea. I only certify students to dive under conditions SIMILAR to those they were trained in. I have the luxury of retaining my students w-a-y after their certification... so I get to re-prompt them about the important stuff and keep them in a learning mode. I never want to make excuses... but I can't teach advanced techniques to beginners.

 

[detroit diver]

My take on this, and it is only my speculation, is that she hooked into the reef with all of her equipment in place. My guess is that she next lost her fin and turned to look for it. Doing so ripped off her mask in the flow. Then the panic set in. And she couldn't release herself.

The chain of events led to her death. One single part of that chain is pretty meaningless and for most people relatively benign.
But put together, these seemingly small problems turn out to be insurmountable.

The devil is in the details.

NetDoc once bubbled...
Mike, I changed from addressing you when I started talking about the husband. Some have suggested that he is thinking about financial gain instead of grieving.

Also... I meant that we were assuming that the loss of gear precipitated the accident. I think that her loss of consciousness (head injury) was the probable cause of the lost gear.

I agree that way too many instructors never teach the basics of neutral buoyancy. I hope that this could never be said of me.

But really... there is no way to OW certify a student and then keep them from diving the Andrea Dorea. I only certify students to dive under conditions SIMILAR to those they were trained in. I have the luxury of retaining my students w-a-y after their certification... so I get to re-prompt them about the important stuff and keep them in a learning mode. I never want to make excuses... but I can't teach advanced techniques to beginners.

 

[jepuskar]

Ok, this thread is fastly stretching his limits. For one, all we know about this incident is from the eyes of DD's friend. I am sure there are many important facts about this incident that she overlooked in the heat of the moment.

All of this is speculation. None of us know the exact conditions the dive was under because none of us were there. This debating is going to get us nowere.

It was a f'ed up occurence that may or may not have been preventable..who knows?

I'm sure some theories may be real close, if not right on the money, but still..they are theories.

How can we debate the unknown?

 

[O-ring]

How can we debate the unknown?

It is difficult to debate the unknown and the "never knowable". Such is accident analysis, but if we can make enough noise that even one person remembers this and calls a questionable dive in the future we have done a good thing, IMHO.

 

[jepuskar]

That was some corny shiznit!!!

 

[scuba-sass]

Snuggle:

You have repeatedly stated that this victim had 100+ dives. As far as I have found, the quote below is the ONLY info we have regarding her experience. The Nurse made an ASSUMPTION on the victim's number of dives based on ownership of gear and expense of trip.

My partner and I own our own gear and we recently spent many thousands of dollars on 2 weeks of diving in French Polynesia. We have 30+ dives each.

Many assumptions have been made in these posts, but we should remember that they are just that - assumptions.

Happy & Safe Diving,
Scuba-sass

detroit diver once bubbled...
Here's my friends comments to some of your questions:

"As far as her experience, I don't know.... Probably your typical
tropical diver with 100 or so dives.... She had her own gear and it was a pricey trip....so you'd think only experienced people would want to go... But there was a couple on the trip that only had TWELVE dives, so I can't categorically say she had an "expert" level of dive experience. I don't know how much education/level of certification she had either. Nor do I know how long she had been diving."

 

[MikeFerrara]

NetDoc once bubbled...
But really... there is no way to OW certify a student and then keep them from diving the Andrea Dorea. I only certify students to dive under conditions SIMILAR to those they were trained in. I have the luxury of retaining my students w-a-y after their certification... so I get to re-prompt them about the important stuff and keep them in a learning mode. I never want to make excuses... but I can't teach advanced techniques to beginners.

Good points. This is why I think it's so important for the instructor to elaborate regardless of the quality of the materials used in home study. The text tells them to dive within their training but when they hit the water they follow the crowd. Books and home study are great for saving time teaching the nuts and bolts. But...no book will ever be written that contains the experience and insight of a good instructor and be able to relate it to common diving situations. It's like having a couple hours in the evening to impart wisdom to your children when the TV, internet and who knows what else has the rest of the day. Your just outgunned. If you only have an OW class with a student and you have a point to make you better make it clear so it means something to them when it counts. The students who hang around to be mentored are the easy ones.

DD is right about the chain of events that leads to an accident. It is seldom ONE thing that gets a diver but rather a little thing that leads to another that leads to another. Each in turn degrading the divers composure and control. The diver responds with a series of mistakes until some point of no return. This isn't in any OW text that I have ever read. It seems that in the vast majority of cases SOLID basic skills are what is required to stop the snowball at the beginning. You just don't see divers with SOLID skills getting hurt unless they really get into something extreme. Why? because most problems a diver faces are simply not problems at all except when divers respond incorrectly.

 

[jepuskar]

Very well put Mr. Ferrara.


:doctor:

 

[Rickg]

I prefer not to even attempt to guess at what may have happened to this poor diver.

Using a reef hook is fairly common in many places I have dove in the Western Pacific. I can't comment on what happens in the Carribean but reef hooks are not that unusual where I have been in some Western Pacific locations (Palau, Sipadan, Sangalaki, Okinawa, to name a few). They are never meant to be hooked into live coral. A small hole in barren rock is usually the location of choice. This allows the diver to maintain location and enjoy the view.

This is especially true at places like Blue Corner in Palau where without one you would be swept past the corner at the end of your drift dive and miss the primo portion of the dive. The current can definitely be ripping on the corner at times - enough so that it can take your mask off your face if you turn your head away from it and it can be strong enough to depress the purge on your 2nd stage on occasion.

I sincerely hope that this incident is a warning to divers to not attempt to do something they are not comfortable with.

Rickg