Lost diver in Puget Sound

[The Shocker]

Neil, I am so sorry for your loss. Regardless of the reasons for the accident, the sad fact remains that family and friends lost a loved one, and that's a terrible burden to bear.

I am curious about one thing...the viz was reportedly very bad. How bad was it at depth? According to one poster, Chad was at 180 fsw when he saw the distressed diver at 200-211 fsw. That's a long way away to see someone in really bad viz.

I really don't know, They were supposedly diving with lights and glow sticks. Not sure if that helped him see the diver below him.

 

[cerich]

I really don't know, They were supposedly diving with lights and glow sticks. Not sure if that helped him see the diver below him.

normally on recreational night dives people will use electrical zip ties to secure the glow sticks to the first stage of the regulator which is the part that attaches to the tank right behind the divers head, it makes it really easy to find a diver below you.

 

[tangfish]

Neil, I'm definitely beating a dead horse here. But, no sensible diver here will tell you that the dive plan Chad was on was acceptable from a safety point of view. Even with tanks with larger capacity, it would've been a tremendously dangerous dive - given th rest of their equipment and levels of training. With an AL80, it was downright insane.

 

[GeeGee]

Peter-
Second degree manslaughter:

(1) A person is guilty of manslaughter in the second degree when, with criminal negligence, he causes the death of another person.

Definition of criminal negligence:

d) CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE. A person is criminally negligent or acts with criminal negligence when he fails to be aware of a substantial risk that a wrongful act may occur and his failure to be aware of such substantial risk constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable man would exercise in the same situation.

(2) Substitutes for Criminal Negligence, Recklessness, and Knowledge. When a statute provides that criminal negligence suffices to establish an element of an offense, such element also is established if a person acts intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly. When recklessness suffices to establish an element, such element also is established if a person acts intentionally or knowingly. When acting knowingly suffices to establish an element, such element also is established if a person acts intentionally.

This is my first attempt at responding so forgive me if I screw this up. Was it the instructor's actions that caused Chad's death? It seems to me that Chad chose to do this dive and the instructor can only be charged with negligence if this tragedy had occurred in his class. Otherwise, they were two buddies who planned a bounce dive that went terribly wrong. I am not saying that the instructor should not suffer some consequence from his action-losing his certification as a Naui instructor, of course. Unlike Peter, I am not a lawyer and there well may be grounds for criminal charges here. My concern is that Chad's dive buddy was a certified instructor. How did he get his certification in the first place with his attitude? Having obtained my OW certification through PADI, I know I did not receive adequate training about gas management, teamwork, dive planning etc., and that who teaches you is vital to your safety. A new diver may not be able to competently gauge the quality of the instructor yet puts him/herself under their control. I believe that the vast majority of instructors are excellent, Grateful Diver is primo! I am wondering if the system is there to weed out the bad ones.

 

[UnderSeaBumbleBee]

Anikin, sorry you had trouble understanding my post. Unless someone convince me otherwise, I stand by what I said and feel no shame in what I posted. I would criticize and instructor or diver that did such an unsafe dive. An AL80 on a deep dive is pure madness. Knowing that he went on a deep dive with at least 2 guys on AL80's is enough to let me know this guy is unsafe.

Further more, diving is a relatively safe sport. Most divers will never witness a serious diving accident let alone end up with 2 fatalities on separate incidents. When you start ticking up multiple accidents next to your name when people dive with you, something is seriously wrong. It would be interesting to know how many divers have been hurt diving with this guy that have lived to tell about it. It does not sound like from his reputation that this was a one time mistake. Losing a diver would be enough to make most people change forever.

Foolish wreckless divers are everywhere. There are some fool divers in my area that brag if they could just find the gps numbers to the old hotel at the bottom of the lake (300+) that they could do a bounce on a single set of doubles.

Anyway, for those of you who say don't criticize the instructor until we know all the facts, if you will just give me a number of how many hurt and dead divers one can chalk up before we can say something bad about you or them. We have reports about two bodies in the water, but some don't feel we can say anything bad yet. So if two isn't enough, can we say what we think about him with 3, 4, or do we need to get even higher???

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Was it the instructor's actions that caused Chad's death? It seems to me that Chad chose to do this dive and the instructor can only be charged with negligence if this tragedy had occurred in his class. Otherwise, they were two buddies who planned a bounce dive that went terribly wrong.

He can be charged ... it remains to be seen whether he can be convicted. Even outside of a classroom setting (and it's still not clear whether this was intended to be part of a DM class or not), Chad and Dave had an extablished student/teacher relationship. Chad had taken all of his classes from Dave, and looked up to Dave as a mentor. That's a powerful relationship ... because even if it violates standards, when a mentor tells his protege that it's OK to do something the protege is inclined to trust that he is right. In effect, the trust relationship here is much more powerful in Dave's favor than it would be with two dive buddies of equal experience levels.

I am not saying that the instructor should not suffer some consequence from his action-losing his certification as a Naui instructor, of course. Unlike Peter, I am not a lawyer and there well may be grounds for criminal charges here. My concern is that Chad's dive buddy was a certified instructor. How did he get his certification in the first place with his attitude?

Some of us have been wondering the same thing for quite some time. However, it's important to point out something else ... Chad was not Dave's dive buddy. Dave's dive buddy was Steve ... the inexperienced diver who Chad went back down to rescue. Steve was alone ... his dive buddy had already headed up. If Chad hadn't gone back down, he'd most likely be alive today ... but Steve would've most likely stayed right there on the bottom till his tank ran dry.

Sobering thought ... Chad died rescuing the instructor's dive buddy. Where was Dave?

Having obtained my OW certification through PADI, I know I did not receive adequate training about gas management, teamwork, dive planning etc., and that who teaches you is vital to your safety. A new diver may not be able to competently gauge the quality of the instructor yet puts him/herself under their control. I believe that the vast majority of instructors are excellent, Grateful Diver is primo! I am wondering if the system is there to weed out the bad ones.

Alll agencies have quality control programs designed to weed out the bad ones. There are limitations to how this gets enforced. Unfortunately, it usually takes a dive accident investigation to bring out the inadequacies of a particular instructor .... even if complaints have been made previously.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Penopolypants]

normally on recreational night dives people will use electrical zip ties to secure the glow sticks to the first stage of the regulator which is the part that attaches to the tank right behind the divers head, it makes it really easy to find a diver below you.

We had flooding rains all that week prior to this dive, and the viz was really, really bad. Bad for the Puget sound is bad indeed. The viz was reported to be 1-3' two days later in the area, after the really heavy rains had stopped and conditions had improved. Even with glowsticks and lights it would have been impossible to see that much detail 20-30 feet away in that viz, if he could even see the other diver at all.

 

[DandyDon]

We had flooding rains all that week prior to this dive, and the viz was really, really bad. Bad for the Puget sound is bad indeed. The viz was reported to be 1-3' two days later in the area, after the really heavy rains had stopped and conditions had improved. Even with glowsticks and lights it would have been impossible to see that much detail 20-30 feet away in that viz, if he could even see the other diver at all.

Oh, the viz may well have been much better at depth. I've seen that many times, including there.

 

[dsteding]

Oh, the viz may well have been much better at depth. I've seen that many times, including there.

Yeah, my guess (and this is a guess-even with tech training I wouldn't do such a dive in those conditions, in fact I know of some tech training dives that were called off around this time because of crappy conditions) is that the vis opened up considerably at those great depths. At about the same time as that accident, vis went from 0-2 feet in the top 10 feet of Cove 2, to about 5 feet at 25 feet, and opening up a bit below that. The Sound hadn't significantly mixed to great depths, the crappy vis was still confined to the upper 20 to 40 feet. At 180 feet it may well have been 30+ feet, before the storm vis was like that throughout the Sound (we had maybe 50 feet at 3 Tree the Saturday prior).

 

[BDub]

Oh, the viz may well have been much better at depth. I've seen that many times, including there.

We called a tech dive (using approriate gear and gas for the dive, interestingly enough) the day before. We didn't want to chance it.

Even if it was much clearer at depth, you're still in the mud on the descent, stops, and ascent.