Non professional divers taking very young children diving (even in a pool)

[DaleC]

According to the OP, the guy said he wanted to rent a tank to get his regulator working again. The shop assumed his real intent was diving in the pool.

 

[gbf]

According to the OP, the guy said he wanted to rent a tank to get his regulator working again. The shop assumed his real intent was diving in the pool.

Clearly he needs a little work on his story.

Had he been dealing with a shop that thinks bungee is tech gear as long as I have he would have his patter down a little better...

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

The lesson granddad learned: Just tell them what you want, not what you want it for. If they ask, lie.

Example:

Grandpa:I want to rent a tank.

Store: What are you going to do with it?

Grandpa: Oh, I'm going to Grand Cayman next month, and I want to hook up everything just to check it out. I've been meticulously following the maintenance schedules for my regs, but if something leaks or fails I'll have time to bring it to you for your expert service. In fact, I may just bring everything in so you can overhaul everything. I don't want to die because I failed to change the oring and battery in my computer. And my BC... It's a little older and has never been serviced so it probably needs a complete service.

Then take the tank and leave.

Store: I am sorry sir you can not have the tank - you just admitted that you have "a little older BC" and I can not let you leave with one of our tanks - because you could get hurt. So please buy all your equipment here - right now - and I can let you have this tank. Have a good day.

Grandpa: Oh you are so concerned with my well being - here is my credit card - Thank you so much...

 

[DaleC]

Agreed. I am in the "ask forgiveness, not permission" camp.

When I began collecting vintage gear I dealt with a shop and mentioned to the owner that I was looking for 38 or 42 cuft tanks. He replied that he saw them time to time but sent them to the scrap heap where they belonged. I said I would buy them instead but he insisted that he would rather dispose of them as they were unsafe. He had a habit of assuming the instructor/student role and thinking he knew better than me about things. As a result, I changed shops as soon as an alternative became available and never shopped there again. I still collect vintage gear and could probably teach a course on some historical aspects of diving but in his eyes he always knew best.

 

[Bob DBF]

Then asked to rent a tank so that he could try to get his non functioning regulator working again. At this point knowing his intentions, we refused. Kind of a gray area, since he was a certified diver, but with knowing what he wanted to do,...

At this point the reason he needed a tank to attempt repair of an old reg that, (had not been serviced in over a decade) & was of a long obsolete brand (don't remember what it was). After being told that we would not be able to service it, were you afraid he would be able to service it? Does this mean that your shop will stop supplying air to us old pharts that repair 40 year old regs (lord knows what we do with them)? And the final question, have you put in place a method that stops him from buying any gear or air from your shop due to the perceived harm it may cause?
Since your outrage at the customer seems more to be at his being a nonprofessional, you did not actually find out if he knew what he was doing.

I refer back to the Eagle's Nest fatalities that happened 2 yrs ago (an OW father & an uncertified son).

As I said at the time, this was also the the fault of OW training, which for anyone with natural skill in the water is a joke. This, I believe, gave Mr Spivey the impression that all training was a joke, which was not, as he found out, completely true. I was taught to dive by my dad in 1963 and after diving for 17 years, I was certified so I could get air from shops away from my LDS, as the SCUBA police had taken over. The point is that during both training programs I would have been refused certification if I thought the training was a joke or either trainer thought I didn't comprehend the dangers involved in diving. I believe Jim Lapenta and some of his ilk are the only ones that take it that seriously now. I have heard that PADI will give you an OW card if you do your skills, regardless of your attitude or suitability to dive; That is what puts people like Mr Spivey in the water.






Bob
---------------------------------------------

That's my point, people, by and large, are not taught that diving can be deadly, they are taught how safe it is, and they are not equipped with the skills, taught and trained to the level required to be useful in an emergency.

I rant, therefore I am.
Dennis Miller

 

[boulderjohn]

Imagine if your kid died with an instructor then your wife asks why you didn't teach him basic skills first in your backyard pool. People would be calling you a fool.

Imagine if your kid died with a grandfather in the backyard pool, then your wife asks why you didn't have a trained instructor teach him basic skills first in a controlled dive training environment. People would be calling you a fool.

Look, I have already said that the odds are extremely high that everything will be all right, but you are going too far when you say that nothing can happen, because it can. In this message, you are saying that it is more likely to happen with a trained instructor than with grandpa. That is not true, either. You need to be realistic about it.

---------- Post added June 17th, 2015 at 09:05 AM ----------

Post some links please

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

Here's a quick one.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...-instructor-faces-charges-merged-threads.html

This is about a University of Alabama SSI instructor being indicted for using poor instructional technique in the death of a university scuba student in a pool.

 

[widget]

I guess, in respect, the shop can make any call they like, I however dont think they have the moral high ground to start telling "Gramps" (he was probably younger than me but lets stick to the expression) what he should or should not do outside of their domain, the problem as I see it in today's society is that everyone assumes they know whats best for the other person, as if that person cant think for themselves.

Anyway, heres a pic of my 6 year old grand daughter diving in the swimming pool, looks pretty happy and seems to be having a good time to me.

 

[Bob DBF]

Originally Posted by DaleC View Post
Doesn't a shop run that risk regardless of intent. People can attempt to sue over anything. I would think those who expect the shop to babysit and second guess their actions would be more likely than independent minded divers. Usually those that I come across are very up front about assuming responsibility for their own behavior.

Sure, the shop is always taking a risk, but I think when someone announces an intent to do something out of the norm, it's reasonable if the shop wants to take their knowledge of that intent into account. If Grandpa had only not said anything other than that he planned to go diving, the shop could claim blissful ignorance.

Now, however, they not only have to determine his intent, but determine if he is lying. At what point, does it become how to permanently ban him from the shop. In addition, in fairness and to be consistent, they now should determine everyone's intent, lest we have Anton Chigurh getting fills.



B

 

[Seya]

Imagine if your kid died with a grandfather in the backyard pool, then your wife asks why you didn't have a trained instructor teach him basic skills first in a controlled dive training environment. People would be calling you a fool.

Look, I have already said that the odds are extremely high that everything will be all right, but you are going too far when you say that nothing can happen, because it can. In this message, you are saying that it is more likely to happen with a trained instructor than with grandpa. That is not true, either. You need to be realistic about it.

---------- Post added June 17th, 2015 at 09:05 AM ----------



Here's a quick one.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...-instructor-faces-charges-merged-threads.html

This is about a University of Alabama SSI instructor being indicted for using poor instructional technique in the death of a university scuba student in a pool.

I said links to kids dieing in a family pool with family members supervising them scuba diving. We know that instructors kill people all the time already
The people that think this is a death sentence are instructors and shop owners trying to fear monger people in to giving them money. It's not illegal to dive without a license.



Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

 

[packrat12]

I 'learned' to dive in a YMCA pool while on an outing from elementary school in the 6th grade. It was a couple of breaths from a guy working on the pool in the deep end. We had no knowledge of not holding our breath nor ever talked to him as we never saw him on the surface. All of us did live though... From that instant, the diving bug bit me. I never again saw a regulator until I was 15 and signing myself up for training without my parents knowledge. You could do that in those days. I dove from 16 until 18 without any parental support or liability signatures from them. When my daughter was about 8 we took her into the pool and let her swim around with us. We did this a couple of times until she was 11 and then got her certified. She is now almost 16 and loves to dive. These pool sessions help spur the dive bug in children who will hopefully become trained, active divers in the future. I think it is very easy for grandpa (with parental approval) or the parents to encourage this by taking a younger child safely into a pool. While accidents can and do happen even in a pool, I suspect that they are very uncommon and more of an anomaly.

I do have an exception to bl6394's comment about Jr Open water. There are NO depth limitation recommendations after 12yrs old beyond the standard OW cert. If you read the card very specifically (I do not have one here so there could be minor differences), it states a parent or guardian until 12 with a depth limit recommendation listed. After 12, it only states a certified adult diver with no depth limit recommendation. While this may apply to instruction and insurance, it is only a recommendation. As is often stated, there are no scuba police and no 'laws' regarding any diving depths for any certification I am aware of. An instructor is bound by their agency and a dive shop/boat may/is bound by their insurance. Other than that, any limitation is a recommendation. There are many certifications that have instructor imposed limits that are different from the maximum recommendations printed on the actual card. These help protect students and instructors during the training program.

The father/son in Eagles Nest is the best study of arrogance and stupidity I have seen in a while. Even looking at the pictures of them, it is obvious that they took on the persona of technical/cave divers. Even if the son was certified OW, EA is not the place to take him. There would have been no way to ever stop this accident from happening. It was probably only a matter of time and place. If not EA, it would have been somewhere else. We are not even remotely talking about divers diving anywhere near their certification levels. They did not just push the envelope, they ripped it open and moved to the other side of the world!

cerich - I forgot you were also a pilot (and you have met my daughter several times while chatting on similar subject). I was taught spins in my PP cert and was very happy with that and felt I was a better pilot because of it. As a CFI, I also believed spins should be taught and did in fact do that. Knowledge is always a good thing. Shielding or hiding for sake making something, e.g. diving, more appealing is going to cause a negative impact which everything hits the fan.