Lessons to be learned-Death in Palau

[ScoobieDooo]

No wonder GUE has the attitude they do for agencies and training. Sure, accidents happen - but one has to wonder if this scenario could gone different had training been different. Students taught their skills better? The following issues come to mind:

*Diver possibly diving beyond their ability

*Conditions too rough

*Where the F**K was her buddy?

?????

Sure makes me think more and more about DIR, along with what I have read of their so far...

 

[jepuskar]

Very true, but isn't that an issue with SCUBA diving in general?

Anything can happen on any dive. What happens if they did a shark dive and she was bit in half? Whose responsible for that?

We don't know what really happened...all I know is the reg was in her mouth and she had air...to me, this should be enough to survive until she was helped.

It's a really unfortunate incident. However, the only way to realistically avoid these problems is to not dive...we all take risks when we dive..some dives are riskier than others though.

This is a good thread, even though some people don't agree with me.

 

[jepuskar]

ScoobieDooo once bubbled...
No wonder GUE has the attitude they do for agencies and training. Sure, accidents happen - but one has to wonder if this scenario could gone different had training been different. Students taught their skills better? The following issues come to mind:

*Diver possibly diving beyond their ability

*Conditions too rough

*Where the F**K was her buddy?

?????

Sure makes me think more and more about DIR, along with what I have read of their so far...

OMG, what the heck does DIR have to do with this? Every problem that has been identified with the sequence of events was covered in my PADI OW class.

1--breathing without a mask
2--buddy awareness
3--aborting dives
4--diving within your ability

The diving with a reef hook is a big question mark for me and falls within #4.

 

[O-ring]

jepuskar once bubbled...


OMG, what the heck does DIR have to do with this? Every problem that has been identified with the sequence of events was covered in my PADI OW class.

1--breathing without a mask
2--buddy awareness
3--aborting dives
4--diving within your ability

The diving with a reef hook is a big question mark for me and falls within #4.

"Every thread must have DIR mentioned somewhere in it or it will be pulled"

 

[snuggle]

hey wjl your kidding about the agencys right..give me a break..she had what?100 dives or more and your blaming the agencys?what do you want them to do take every diver by the hand everytime they want to dive..its not going to happen..divers have to be responsible for themselves when they dive...up to a point..she was briefed and chose to dive anyways..so how can you blame the agency for this..none of us except her will ever really know what happened..and for people here to guess is just plain foolish..and jepuskar i agree with you and by the way as to mike saying that the industry is selling the sport as being risk free well i doubt that..i mean what do you want them to say uhh you are going to go diving one day and get in a situation where your going to die?yeah ok...and as for practicing dealing with panic and stress can be taught?care to tell me how and dont talk to me about simulators either because that doesnt cut it here..and i dont know about you but i was taught to breath under water without my mask..hey mike where are ya ..with all due respect everytime theres a death you rant about training and everything that goes with it..i guess you must be a perfect diver i guess..always able to handle every situation.is it at least remotely possible that there are situations that no one is prepared for?

 

[The Chairman]

Look at was NOT said in the DB... according to the nurse.

This was a "trust me" dive. I can almost hear the DM telling the nervous Nellies that "It's easy, all you have to do is..." I have heard such and worse as DMs try and put their clients at ease. She trusted him with her life... and he came up short.

If you learn anything from this... please DON'T DO "TRUST ME" DIVES!!! If you don't fully understand something, don't let anyone blow you off until ALL of the contingencies are clear to you. TRUST NO ONE WITH YOUR LIFE!!! It really doesn't matter whose fault it is to the lady who died. She could really care less if it is PH's fault or her own. IF she had a chance to make that decision again... I bet it would be a wiser decision. Them saying things like "inflate your BC a bit so you won't beat up the reef" just make me cringe... I can see her being knocked unconscious BEFORE she had a chance to follow that instruction, especially if the jolt of hooking in caused her mask to be stripped away. There is one thing I am certain of; that there was absolutely nothing to see on that reef that was worth her life.

 

[snuggle]

well said

 

[MikeFerrara]

WJL once bubbled...
I don't know whether a waiver would protect the potential defendants or not. I'm not really thinking about this from the perspective of who would win a lawsuit. My harping on responsibility for this senseless death is strictly from my feelings about what is reasonable and fair. I just have this idiotic hope that maybe somebody will try to learn something important from this poor person's death.

I don't think you should hold your breath waiting. Every diving depth that I have ever read about with the exception of those caused by other medical problems of cave ins or something was caused by incompetance. Nobody pays much attention because it happens to so few. I don't know why one or two isn't enough but as long as the stats look good most will stick to their current ideas. And...we will continue to watch (maybe helping when we can) all the near misses that don't make it into the book to be counted.

 

[ScoobieDooo]

Ok, I agree, perhaps she was diving beyond her ability, perhaps its was just a 'freak' accident that water entered her nose. Sure, things happen...but I have to wonder, if her buddy was right next to her, would the outcome have been ANY differant?

 

[WJL]

snuggle once bubbled...
hey wjl your kidding about the agencys right..

..i mean what do you want them to say uhh you are going to go diving one day and get in a situation where your going to die?yeah ok...and as for practicing dealing with panic and stress can be taught?care to tell me how and dont talk to me about simulators either because that doesnt cut it here....

Snuggle,

What would be the problem with diving agencies actually training divers for the day that they get in a situation where they could die? Lots of training is done to deal with panic and stress all the time. It's why you had to go to football practice instead of just showing up for the game. It's why we having training for high-stress jobs like ER nurses, rescue workers, police officers, and any number of other occupations. Training helps overcome the inability to think clearly that goes along with panic and stress. You train enough so that you don't have to think any more, you just do what you've been trained to do. The more realistic you can make the training, the better the trainees will be able to deal with real emergencies. Why do you think simulations don't cut it? Maybe if we all had our masks ripped off suddenly about 100 times in a row we would learn to deal with it without thinking. Maybe that would have helped this diver.