I only had 4 wheels on this pickup, hauling cotton seed to feed cattle in the winter. My butt just fell onto the pavement.
Yeah, there seems to be two negligent parties in this story.
I didn't read this entire thread, but I must say that I disagree with Dandydon here. The diver could have caught the problem by checking his gear, the the problem was caused by the negligence of the dive shop, so the problem here is not the divers negligence, but the dive shops negligence.
No shop should be sending out their trucks or their regulators in non-functioning shape. When you all lost tires, was it just after having them rotated at a shop?
I have also had bad experiences with my shops, I was wary of the reg, so I took it to another shop to have them test it out, and they gave me test results that seemed good (didn't give me breathing resistence, but checked tightness of everything, and measured IP, and wrot eit all down for me. I washed the paper they wrote it on, or else I'd show you), but the first dive I had with it, after it being serviced by one shop and tested (for a fee of $100 for service, and $20 for testing) by another, I could not get the octo to stop freeflowing to save my life.
Was I negligent? I tested the gear. I took it to another shop to get it inspected even, before diving with it (I used it in the pool, and thought it seemed very free flow prone), but TWO shops were negligent enough to send me to the water with faulty equipment. This is why I do not reccomend you ever service any gear through any shops in Gainesville, Florida. Just don't do it. Not a good idea. Even if you catch a problem, the repair guys there can't fix it right.
So Dandydon, I disagree that the diver was negligent, or rather, that his negligence should be counted against him. It is the dive shops responsibility to make sure his regs are in good shape, he transferred that responsibility to them when he paid them to service the regs. The diver is always responsible to make sure that dive shops don't kill him, and he did that, by putting his reg onto the tank and turning it on before getting in the water. But I don't think we should blame him in any way for a dive shop trying to kill someone.
And, in a case with life support eqiupment, I almost think that a shop should be able to be prosectued as if it were an attempt at involuntary manslaughter (is that possible? Can you attempt something involuntarily?).
