Lost diver in Puget Sound

[dsteding]

Here's my thing about all of this. I wasn't even DONE with my open water classes before I knew that the type of dive these people engaged in was atrociously wreckless. 150+ plus dives into my diving experience (as Chad was reported to have been), I had certainly seen enough, heard enough and experienced enough to know that engaging in such a thing was foolish and letting others with less experince was even more so.

But, this misses the mark in terms of the issue here. Raise someone with bad habits and skills, and then earn their trust, and the result will be a diver with bad judgment. I'll add to the choruses of people that only realized how dangerous this sport was after a while, and that is largely due to the people who have trained me post OW.

Thus, one could argue that Chad should have been telling the lesser experienced divers to forget doing the dive. And had he done so, perhaps he wouldn't have found himself in the situation where he was compelled to descend dangeroulsy to assist one of thiose divers.

This ignores a professional's duty owed to his students . . . which arguably extends past the classroom. There may be an interesting factual distinction about scuba diving, namely that if you as an instructor fail to train safe divers they have a real chance of killing themselves down the line. And, considering the instructor in question also trained Chad, is it reasonable to expect Chad to know better?

You mention learning from these horrible events. I agree. One lesson is to evaluate what is being taught to you, but that is admittedly difficult to do in a vacuum or absent some outside feedback.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Here's my thing about all of this. I wasn't even DONE with my open water classes before I knew that the type of dive these people engaged in was atrociously wreckless. 150+ plus dives into my diving experience (as Chad was reported to have been), I had certainly seen enough, heard enough and experienced enough to know that engaging in such a thing was foolish and letting others with less experince was even more so. Thus, one could argue that Chad should have been telling the lesser experienced divers to forget doing the dive. And had he done so, perhaps he wouldn't have found himself in the situation where he was compelled to descend dangeroulsy to assist one of thiose divers.

Again, this isn't to criticize Chad - it sounds like he was a stand up guy who did a standuup thing and paid the ultimate price. It's just as I understand it, the purpose of this forum is to learn and educate so that people can learn from prior incidents. I think there is MUCH to be learned from this incident from ALL involved.

This was a very unusual case ... and although I agree with your comments, you are speaking from the perspective of an experienced diver and (presumably) someone who received OW training in accordance with standards.

Keep in mind that all of the people on this dive were trained by this guy ... three of them were very new, recently-certified OW divers. I'm going to reprint something one of the divers involved told me (with his permission, of course) ... leaving out his personal information. The diver speaking in this quote had a total of 12 dives prior to this "adventure". This dive, BTW, was supposed to be part of his AOW class.

We met in the parking lot in front of the attorneys office. Steve said they were going to go down to 200 feet. I said " you've got less dives than I do, what makes you think you can do that?" Dave's response was that they would be fine and I didn't have to go down that deep, which I didn't plan on. I exchanged some other banter with Steve, things like how many tanks do you have? Since I was somewhat familar with the NAUI dive tables I didn't think 200ft was a good idea.

We all surface swam out together and went down together to about 30 ft. It was like chocolate milk, I could't see crap. OK, I could see a foot or two but not well. I eventually found my partner and we went down to about 55ft, right on the bottom as I couldn't see any thing other than mud. About then I noticed a fairly stout current moving us sideways. I had to keep looking for my partner, Cassie, eventually found her and gave her a thumbsup. We surfaced about where we went down. My computer said I'd been down 13 minutes.

How many standards violations can you count in those two paragraphs? Now, can you imagine that this person ... or any of those other divers ... had been taught in accordance with standards? Can you also see the abuse of power and trust on the part of the instructor in reassuring them that "it would be fine"?

People don't know what they don't know ... and when a totally green diver is reassured by his instructor that "it will be fine", there is tremendous pressure to go along with him ... even if that little voice in his head is telling him otherwise.

I hold the instructor responsible for Chad's death ... he violated his position of trust, and having his instructor's certification revoked isn't nearly an adequate penalty for that violation.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[UnderSeaBumbleBee]

I don't say this to be cruel or overly critical of Chad. But it is an important part of the equation that must be acknowledged. Chad, at least as described in this thread, was a diver who was certified and had MANY MANY dives and would have ample opportunity and training to understand that such a dive was indeed "madness" (to use your word). I only say this because this is an inherently risky sport that can be very safe when people foloow the basic tenets of their training and accept responsibility for knowing what they are doing and diving well within their respective training, knowledge and skill.

It sounds like Chad got most if not all of his instruction and diving knowledge and experience from Dave the Death Diver. Now I know it is pure madness to go to 200+ on air and you know that, but it doesn't sound that it what triple D was teaching his students. My instructor told me about how oxygen becomes toxic at depth and about air consumption rates at various depths. I was taught that so I can make an informed decision about it.

However, it should like triple D here was taking his students on dives to reach new personal bests and to push the limits. No doubt this sort of behavior continued until a few days ago. I am sure they did a number of unsafe dives in which they were lead a little bit closer to the edge without falling off until they one day reached a point of no return. With each dangerous dive that the lived to tell about, they got more and more false confidence until it was too late.

With what has been said about this instructor, I really question the body of knowledge that his students had. I would think it would be a good place to start building a case against him to subpoena his former students and have them testify as to what he taught them. Now if a few people seem to have bad info, that could be just folks who normally don't get it anyway. However, if most is not all of his students testify that he taught them clearly unsafe information, then you have a better case. It may be that as these folks testify that they don't even know they are sharing wrong and unsafe into--they will just be sharing what they were taught.

I think what I was taught was true. I hope it was true. I wish there had been more info taught in my crash course. I have no reason to believe my LDS taught me stuff that is clearly wrong and could get me killed or hurt. Being fairly new to diving, I have few points of reference on what and how I was taught. When they told me air was ok to breathe to a certain depth, I believed them. When they told me what was safe and what wasn't, I believed them---as did almost every diver on this board and in the world. It is only after we get more experience under our belt do we find out if we really got good instruction or not. I think I got pretty good OW from what I have read and heard. I was told by many that my OW was like a learners driving permit. Was told you have the basics to get you started and you will learn the rest as you go. I think that is what Chad and his buddies thought, that they were learning the rest as they went diving with Dave. He would teach them the way. And he did. He taught them the way he dove that got another one of his divers killed a couple of years ago. I don't think that is the lesson Chad and the others had in mind, non did they understand the real lesson he was teaching.

I really think from what has been said about the instructor that Chad and those guys were following the basic tenants of what they were taught. They were just taught horribly wrong.

 

[wardric]

Not that anyone wants massive government oversight of diving...

Believe me, you dont want that. I know. I live in Quebec :sigh:

but the official analysis of the accident is a good thing... if it's done by people who know something about diving of course (which is not always the case)

 

[puckvirus]

I hold the instructor responsible for Chad's death ... he violated his position of trust, and having his instructor's certification revoked isn't nearly an adequate penalty for that violation.

Bob makes a very good point, and has been making great points about the facts in the case. Here you have an instructor by default has the trust of the people he has trained and yet to train. Especially new divers just out of open water class who by no fault of their own, trusted some one and followed that person into a situation was dangerous by many accounts. My own opinion on this matter is that of trust. As bob stated he violated his position of trust As in most relationships you have to have trust in the other person. Once that trust has been violated, especially in a case like this there is no going back.

Based on what is understood what actions Chad took, weather the visibility was that of 1 foot or 30+ feet; weather he could see a light source or actually have seen the other diver down on all fours at the bottom. To some extent none of that matters. Chad died saving the life of some one else. This guy is a hero in the simplest terms. Chad should be praised and celebrated as such.


I do believe that we [the diving community] must get the facts strait and understood what occurred on that fateful dive. What the viability was like through the depths, if any current played a part, any sudden up or down currents etc.. But doing so on the premise to understand the facts of what happened.

To Chads Family: My deepest hart felt condolences. I'm sorry for your loss and hope that you find solace in knowing that Chad died a hero in that saving another persons life.

 

[torrey]

He taught them the way he dove that got another one of his divers killed a couple of years ago.

Please understand I'm not trying to defend the instructor at all, but this seems like pure speculation. I may have missed it, but I didn't catch anywhere in the thread that the instructor was actually responsible for the first death. It could have been a dive completely within NAUI guidelines and beyond the instructors control, such as embolism or heart attack. I'd be curious to know the circumstances regarding that death as well.

 

[BDub]

Deleted - impertinent info

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

There has been inconclusive, and often conflicting information regarding the incident that occurred 3 years ago. At this point, I think even bringing it up only confuses the situation.

What say we focus on the facts, as we know them, of the recent incident.

Lord knows, it was bad enough ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[mikerault]

Afraid I must play devils advocate here.

We all learn through several paths, our ears, our eyes and our other senses. We seem to be saying here that the instructor is the one responsible for our learning. I have to call a BS on this.

We are responsible for our learning. We are responsible for our safety. Yes, the instructor may not have taught everything that he possible could have, however, how many students take on the self-responsibility of learning all they could? A simple read of the manual tells you these things you are blaming the instructor for not teaching. As far as I see it, we all certified from one agency or another, we all had to read and answer the questions and take the tests. We all had to do the practical factors to get certified.

Now, if the instructor did not require everyone to have the questions filled out, coached them through the tests and waived the practical factors, yes, he was negligent. However, anyone who was in the class and allowed this to be done was also negligent. We aren’t children, we should know that diving is a dangerous sport and take learning about it seriously, if we don’t who is to blame? As far as I can see not the instructor, while he may have not done as complete a job as he should, the folks in the class didn’t either. However, this is all speculation as none of us was there.


Mike

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

We seem to be saying here that the instructor is the one responsible for our learning. I have to call a BS on this.

Well ... you're wrong to do so. This was a class. The instructor is ultimately responsible for choosing the dive site, setting the dive profile, and assuring that the dive is conducted in a safe manner ... within the limits set by his training organization.

However, this is all speculation as none of us was there.

You're wrong again. Although it's true that none of us were there, I've spoken to someone who was involved in the dive ... as well as family members and friends of the deceased diver.

By your criteria, even the police report is nothing more than "speculation".

There is much that you don't know ... both about this incident, and about the responsibilities of a dive instructor ... that are known by those involved in the investigation. Don't write it off as BS ... it's far from that.

I expect to see this instructor criminally charged for his actions ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)