Padi Master scuba diver

[James R]

I agree with Mustard Dave. The spector of getting sued simply because you were on a boat in which an incident occurred is raised frequently, and just as frequently it gets pointed out that there is no logical reason for this to happen, and, in fact, no one can think of a time in which it has happened. It does not concern me in the least.

We live in a litigious society, like it or not. I don't fear getting sued because I happened to be on a dive boat when an accident happened any more than I fear flying (I love it once I get through security), but I am aware of what "could" happen.

Maybe it's because I know too many lawyers...

 

[Diver0001]

We live in a litigious society, like it or not. I don't fear getting sued because I happened to be on a dive boat when an accident happened any more than I fear flying (I love it once I get through security), but I am aware of what "could" happen.

Maybe it's because I know too many lawyers...

Meh....

We can't stop living because of lawyers. In fact, I don't mind lawyers at all, if you compare them to bankers. Lawyers lie and cheat to achieve their goals but at least they're obvious about it and you can understand why they do it. Bankers, especially in the upper echelons (and I speak from considerable experience) are without any exaggeration, almost all certifiable sociopaths. Despite the negative connotations, I believe that some lawyers are honorable people. Bankers, however (especially at the executive levels) should, in all seriousness, all be rounded up and sent to a penal colony.

R..


If I had to pick two occupations that would make me feel ashamed if my child became one it would be bankers and lawyers....

 

[HIGHwing]

Why would the police be interested in that? If there is a death on an organised trip, why would the police be interested in the qualifications of other customers? If there is any issue of criminal negligence, the responsibility lies squarely with the dive operator.

Imagine two people directly witness an Airbus A319 crash where something unusual and observable from the ground occurred before the aircraft crashed. One witness holds an Airline Transport Rating (highest FAA-issued pilot certificate) and a type-rating in the specific subject aircraft (A319). The second witness holds a sport-pilot license and has been a passenger in the A319 over six times going to Grandma's house.

When it's time for questioning, who do you want to speak with about the circumstances surrounding the accident more?

It's really easy to go from observer => expert witness depending on the circumstances and the questions that need resolution. If something unusual happens with the class or students and you observe it (as a qualified instructor in that program) and an accident occurs, I'm quite sure you'll admit to your proper qualifications at that juncture.

 

[Mustard Dave]

Imagine two people directly witness an Airbus A319 crash where something unusual and observable from the ground occurred before the aircraft crashed. One witness holds an Airline Transport Rating (highest FAA-issued pilot certificate) and a type-rating in the specific subject aircraft (A319). The second witness holds a sport-pilot license and has been a passenger in the A319 over six times going to Grandma's house.

When it's time for questioning, who do you want to speak with about the circumstances surrounding the accident more?

It's really easy to go from observer => expert witness depending on the circumstances and the questions that need resolution. If something unusual happens with the class or students and you observe it (as a qualified instructor in that program) and an accident occurs, I'm quite sure you'll admit to your proper qualifications at that juncture.

The issue isn't being questioned as a witness. Some people seem to believe that by failing to disclose the fact they are a PADI 'professional', they could find themselves being sued or prosecuted.

 

[drrich2]

If something unusual happens with the class or students and you observe it (as a qualified instructor in that program) and an accident occurs, I'm quite sure you'll admit to your proper qualifications at that juncture.

I'm not so sure. On a dive, the 3 dimensional environment (vs. 2-D on land, since we don't move up & down), the loss or peripheral vision (due to mask, plus the 'zoom in' effect of being underwater) and the loss of speech and directional discernment with hearing make it quite possible to be a few yards from a catastrophic accident and have no idea it's going on till after the fact.

If you admit your qualifications and that you observed it, you:

1.) Open yourself to a potential lawsuit for failure to intervene as some lawyer convinced a non-diving jury was appropriate per some duty they made it look like you had.

2.) Open yourself to being subpoenaed as an expect witness, and liability cases can drag on off & on for years I believe.

3.) Subject you to interrogation by investigators or attorneys even though you may not understand all the ins & outs of what happened, though you witnessed it and had some qualifications.

'Getting involved' can be hazardous. I suspect some people would respond 'Huh? What?'

I'm not arguing for the morality of the position, just the human nature aspect of it.

Richard.

 

[rsingler]

Has ANYONE reading this thread ever been involved in a lawsuit regarding a dive trip?
(Maybe a couple)
Has ANYONE of the (two) above been a DM or Instructor?
(??)
Has any one of the instructors above hidden his qualifications at the time he signed on the dive?
(???)
Has the guy who hid his quals been hounded as a deep pocket for "lying"?
(????)

Sometimes, the posters on SB get a little carried away with what-if's.
(myself included)

Do we have ANY legal facts here?

 

[randytay]

You're an instructor, right...... oh wait......

You, of all people, should understand that what motivates one person does not motivate the other.

right?

Clearly, you wish to ridicule students who take achieving MSD as a matter of pride or who feel a sense of accomplishment.... To me that's illogical.... what kind of teacher puts his own needs ahead of those of his student and is willing to undermine the students' feeling of self confidence in order to affirm his own cynical point of view?

Never forget... as an instructor *you* are there for *them* and not the other way around.....

R..

out of point. Since when does that even remotely implies I am putting my needs ahead of my students? And since when is MSD a *need*?

and if it is alright to be motivated by an MSD certification, what's wrong with wanting a Master diver supreme? (Or supreme dive master). As you said, it's a business model and there is nothing wrong with selling something to someone who wanted something no matter how superfluous that something is. As an instructor, my job is to educate my students what is *necessary* vs what is an empty title. That is my business model. Maybe you like an instructor who sells you empty titles e cause they are not *ridiculing* you, I rather just tell the truth. I have more backbone than that, and I don't need to sell MSD as a *need* to motivate my students.

that said, I still want a master diver supreme certification, because that will trump your master diver

p.s. it's ok, I understand that as a MSDT, you use the MSD as a way to motivate your students and I happened to pissed on your parade. Seriously, tell PADI to have a SUPREME MSD by having 25 specialties, they will sell

p.p.s. I have a MSD course too but it's not a collection of specialty, but I'm sure you already knew.

 

[Diver0001]

p.s. it's ok, I understand that as a MSDT, you use the MSD as a way to motivate your students and I happened to pissed on your parade. Seriously, tell PADI to have a SUPREME MSD by having 25 specialties, they will sell

Truth be known, I've actually never sold one. That wasn't my point. My point is that as instructors we need to account for what motivates our students, which isn't always what motivates US.

Upon re-reading, I think I was far too hard on you. Sorry about that.

R..

 

[absolute_mess]

Just a quick word of advice on the legal issues ... if you're really worried, go and actually talk to a lawyer. The chances are that you assume no added liability just from being a DM and it would equally be no problem if you withheld your DM qualification. I'm not going to go into the law behind that because I'd be typing all night, but that's the truth of it. Often there's a huge amount of speculation and worry as to what the law might be and what people imagine it is. The quickest way to resolve it is to actually seek legal advice. Contrary to some people's views around here, we don't all lie and cheat, so you are pretty likely to get good legal advice at a reasonable cost. For what it's worth, if I had a DM qualification, I'd be flaunting it. Personally, I wouldn't be worried about the prospect of litigation (and I used to be a litigator!).

 

[Diver0001]

Contrary to some people's views around here, we don't all lie and cheat, so you are pretty likely to get good legal advice at a reasonable cost.

This was directed at me so I'll respond to explain where that comment came from.

My experience with lawyers is mixed. I have several close friends who are lawyers and I find them to be intelligent, thoughtful, logical and extremely hard working people who take representing their client's interests very seriously. I've also had to make use of the services of lawyers from time to time due to the nature of my work and for some private issues and my experience as a client has universally been positive.

But..... and here is comes.

There is a knife-edge between theory crafting and lying. That's what I referred to above. A few years ago me and my dive team executed a rescue of a diver who had run out of air and drowned during an AOW course. He was not part of our group, he was not anyone known to us, we had had no interaction with him before the accident and we just *happened* to be at the right place at the right time. It was one of the very few rescues of a drowned diver ever executed in which the diver lived and made a full recovery.

The DM in question had a lawyer..... who I believe did several things that were so unethical that it left me cynical and bitter.

For one thing, the DM caused the accident. He was instructed by the instructor in charge to wait at a certain location with the divers in question and wait he did.... in 18m (60ft) of water. The divers indicated at several moments in time that they were running low on air. The DM initially did not respond at all and subsequently told the divers to stay put.

The divers *should* have initiated an ascent when the air situation had become critical but they did not. They asked the DM what to do and he indicated to stay put. As students and inexperienced divers they did what they were told. Was this dumb? Yes. Was it the DM's decision? Yes.

Fast forward and one of the divers tank is empty. He signals to the DM that he is OOA and approaches the DM to take his octopus. All of this was witnessed by the buddy who saw it happen. The DM (not the diver in question, but the DM) panics and pushes his OOA student away, inflates his BCD and makes a buoyant ascent to the surface, failing utterly in his role, failing utterly in his responsibility and failing utterly in his judgement and decisions made leading up to the event. He left two students, one of them OOA on the bottom... to die.

Meanwhile back on the bottom the buddy tried to help but was unable to initiate an ascent with the OOA diver because he had been given too much weight (by guess who...) and was unable to swim the kit up. The buddy's octopus had also become dislodged and in the confusion, in the few moments they had and in a near silt-out due to the thrashing around, the OOA divers were unable to locate the octopus, the OOA inhaled water and drowned.

At this point the buddy surfaces to find the DM on the surface essentially "chilling out" and waiting for them. She starts screaming at him, which is the point in time that my dive team realized that there was a problem. He agreed to go look for the diver. He descended (according to his computer) a maximum of 5 metres (remembers, they were at 18m). Waits about 10 seconds, re-surfaces and informs the buddy that he was unable to locate the drowned diver.

At this point the buddy raised the alarm, my team jumped on it and we rescued the guy who the DM had left for dead. In the end paramedics transported not only the drowned divers but also the DM to the hospital because he was "so upset" by what had happened that he fainted.

So... that's what happened. How did the lawyers deal with it?

PADI's legal team spent a day or so on it to confirm that me and my team would not be held responsible. Although the diver in question was still in a coma they assessed that it was "unlikely" that the plaintiff would find our actions "contrary to his best interests". The DM's lawyer, however, DID.

We were asked by police if we thought the tank was empty when we found him, which we did. We tried to inflate the BCD but found that it was non-operational because the tank was empty. This was consistent with the story told by the buddy. The DM's lawyer claimed, however, that that diver was NOT OOA and that for reasons unknown he "attacked" the DM without reason. The DM, therefore, felt that his life was being threatened and in the law it's not required to render assistance to someone who is threatening your life.

But the tank was empty... right?

Wrong. The DM's lawyer proposed the idea that the tank had run empty due to a free flow either after the DM had left the scene or as a result (and get this) of the "sloppy" handling of the rescue team that ultimately saved the diver.

The victim had drowned. Nobody, including the DM or the DM's lawyer could explain why a pink frothy foam came out of the victim's mouth. Any doctor can tell you why... but the lawyer insisted that due to an "inadequate handling of the victim" by the rescuers that *we* had caused a lung over-expansion injury which was the direct cause of the injuries which left the victim in a coma in hospital.

There was no barotrauma. This was confirmed by doctors.... The victim had drowned and the pink frothy foam was caused by the drowning. It was a deliberate lie, a red-herring intended to distract the public prosecutor. He knew this, but he said it anyway.

And it went on and on and on like this throughout the process. The DM lied to his lawyer, the lawyer's theory crafting included multiple deliberate lies .... DELIBERATE LIES .... in a court of law .... which to me undermined everything I had ever thought about the legal process. I honestly (and naively) thought that lying to a judge is something that lawyers just don't do.

But they do.... apparently ALL the time. the DM's lawyer was no greenhorn. He had evidently been lying in court for decades. He had gotten away with it, and had been successful.

The DM got off. He was found to be completely innocent of wrong doing based on two main arguments:

1) The divers were taking an AOW course and therefore they were certified and should have known better
2) The DM felt that the OOA diver was attacking him and he was afraid for his life and was therefore justified in leaving the scene.

The fact that the DM was exonerated of all responsibility in this, and that, in fact, the victim himself was laid to blame for "not knowing better", is, in my mind, completely inexcusable. That, combined with the lies that the DM's lawyer told, was proof positive to me that lawyers will say literally anything in order to win.

R..