Panicking OW Student On Surface

[caruso]

just a comment about the girl who panicked. Without knowing the girl it's hard to say, but in my experience some people just were not meant to be divers

I would tend to agree with this. Panicking over a lost fin at the surface is far different than panicking when your tank valve is entangled in monofilament line on a deep dark wreck at 80' without your buddy in sight with your regulator briefly pulled from your mouth. I use this example because it happened to my girfriend. I am not going to beat myself up over swimming ahead of her and not realizing she wasn't next to me for the minute or so she took to disentangle herself but I digress.

 

[Fishyhead]

She and her parents are reevaluating her desire to dive. Last I heard, she might try a 1-on-1 dive with the instructor but she needs more time in the pool before going into the open water again.

As for her buddy - yes, definite fail on his part. I recall that he recited the right answers about staying with your buddy during the pre-dive brief but forgot it all during the actual dive.

 

[loosenit2]

I can't believe what I just read. Am I safe to assume you are not a DM or Instructor? If not then you had no business working with students. If something happened to her you could have ended up liable. The financial and/or legal issues you could have faced would have been devastating.

As for your original question about how you could have handled the situation better. 1. Become a Rescue diver. 2. If you want to play professional diver then do what those of us who are professional divers did and get the training and certification to work with students. 3. Don't dive with an instructor that puts the lives of their students into the hands of non-professionals.

I know that sounds a bit harsh but if you decide to go pro then you will understand the legal duty to act that we have. SSI is a bit kinder and friendlier, but the end of every chapter in the PADI Divemaster materials is a story where things went wrong and people were injured or killed, including in one chapter, the Divemaster died. I'm very glad you were there and wanted to help, but you should have never been placed in that position in the first place and as for the student, she deserved to have a trained professional with her.

You might be a little harsh in your response here. The OP said there were 2 Instructors, 5 OW students and 2 OW certified divers working on skills. He said the instructor asked him to help "keep an eye" on them. The OP did not say that the instructor asked them to help facilitate training, work with them on skills or any other such thing, just keep an eye on them. This is nothing more or less than I do on every single group dive I go on. I always keep an eye on anyone in my group so that I am aware of my surroundings and can spot any potential problems before they occur. I fully acknowledge that there are multiple ways to interpret this. Some one might interpret it as help us out. I don't think it was meant in that way at all, but was rather a way to encourage those two OW divers to stay close to the group by encouraging them to "keep an eye" on the OW students, so that the instructors did not have to work to hard to keep an eye on the OW divers who were working on skills.

 

[caruso]

You can be liable or at least sued (even if it's subsequently dismissed) by anyone on the dive boat. Even if you just happened to be in the same ocean at the same time. It's happened, it will continue to happen. It's a matter of "somebody gets hurt or even killed and the only way the heirs are going to get any relieve or comfort is to stick their hands into any available pockets and hope to be comforted by the biggest wad of cash they can pull out of there".

 

[boulderjohn]

The OP did not say that the instructor asked them to help facilitate training, work with them on skills or any other such thing, just keep an eye on them. This is nothing more or less than I do on every single group dive I go on.

Under the rules of scuba training, if an instructor is doing a training dive, then the instructor is responsible for everyone associated with the dive. Divers attending the dive who are not in the class count in the instructor/student ratio. If an instructor diving with the full limit of 8 students has a non-professional help keep an eye on things, then that instructor is violating standards by having 9 people in his care. If this case had resulted in an accident, in the ensuing trial, it would not be treated as a dependent student being attended by a diver--it would be treated as two dependent divers with no one attending.

If the untrained diver helping out had mishandled the case and contributed to the death or injury of the student, both the untrained helper and the instructor would have been in a world of hurt in the following lawsuit.

 

[loosenit2]

Under the rules of scuba training, if an instructor is doing a training dive, then the instructor is responsible for everyone associated with the dive. Divers attending the dive who are not in the class count in the instructor/student ratio. If an instructor diving with the full limit of 8 students has a non-professional help keep an eye on things, then that instructor is violating standards by having 9 people in his care. If this case had resulted in an accident, in the ensuing trial, it would not be treated as a dependent student being attended by a diver--it would be treated as two dependent divers with no one attending.

If the untrained diver helping out had mishandled the case and contributed to the death or injury of the student, both the untrained helper and the instructor would have been in a world of hurt in the following lawsuit.

Interesting, I never would have thought that the case. Is that Agency guidelines? If so are they not brining a legal problem on themselves by publishing guidelines saying instructors are responsible? Or are those guidelines just stating it to ensure instructors know because it is already settled case law?

I dove with my daughter during her OW dives, never did I ever think the DM or instructor were responsible for me in any way. By this standard though they thought they were responsible for me.

 

[boulderjohn]

Interesting, I never would have thought that the case. Is that Agency guidelines? If so are they not brining a legal problem on themselves by publishing guidelines saying instructors are responsible? Or are those guidelines just stating it to ensure instructors know because it is already settled case law?

I dove with my daughter during her OW dives, never did I ever think the DM or instructor were responsible for me in any way. By this standard though they thought they were responsible for me.

What if you had a problem that required their attention, and while you were requiring that attention, something happened to a student?

There was a case a few years ago in where a single certified diver accompanied an instructor with one student. This was an advanced class, so the instructor could leave the student alone for a while while he attended to the accompanying diver when she had a problem. He determined that the accompanying diver should end the dive, and he went with her until he determined she was close enough to the surface to return to his student. When he finished the training dive, he learned that the accompanying diver had somehow died.

In the ensuing lawsuit, the plaintiff argued that the instructor was fully responsible for that other diver's safety, and both he and the student should have accompanied her all the way to the shore. The case was settled, so there was no judgment, but you can be sure that no instructor who was well versed in the details of this case will take accompanying divers on instructional dives any more.

 

[Storker]

If the untrained diver helping out had mishandled the case and contributed to the death or injury of the student, both the untrained helper and the instructor would have been in a world of hurt in the following lawsuit.

Are you sure the diver helping out wouldn't be able to claim the "good samaritan" clause?

 

[JackD342]

I can only speak from PADI standards; I do not know what agency was being taught here, or if any others are less restrictive than PADI. But here are some notes on a few specific quotes, as I try to visual the details of what was going on:

The instructor asked me to help him and the other instructor keep an eye on the students.

That may sound reasonable, but it is very clear that PADI has exactly zero standards for "help" provided by non-pro divers. A DM assisting the class is filling the role of a Certified Safety Assistant, and a DM is the lowest part of the spectrum that can function in that capacity. Beyond helping schlep tanks and other gear around, I can't think anything a non-pro diver can actually be allowed to help with.

One of the instructors and I headed out first to wait for the students to swim to us.

No indication here that a DM or Instructor was accompanying the students on the surface swim to and from the dive site. Clear violation of standards, if that was the case.

I called one of the instructors over when she said, "I can't do this". It took him less than a minute to get to us but by that time I was already struggling with her. .

This suggests that the Instructor(s) were delegating oversight rather than watching themselves, which is 100% the personal responsibility of the pros.

The other instructor and I got her calmed down enough to get her fin back on and I swam her back towards shore.

Sounds like another description of a student on a surface swim without required supervision.

Did this instructor pair you together with that girl? Then that is a different situation.

No, she was assigned another student as a buddy but he ditched her on the surface swim to us.

Another indication suggesting that the staff were not accompanying or supervising the surface swim, whether or not they were relying on the volunteer OW diver to fill that role.

Under the rules of scuba training, if an instructor is doing a training dive, then the instructor is responsible for everyone associated with the dive. Divers attending the dive who are not in the class count in the instructor/student ratio. If an instructor diving with the full limit of 8 students has a non-professional help keep an eye on things, then that instructor is violating standards by having 9 people in his care.

Exactly. If a non-student accompanies my OW class, they are subject to the same restrictions and responsibilities as a student, and I am now responsible for supervising the OW diver. (but they don't need to do the skills...)
If you and a buddy on your own dive want to swim around us and observe then you are not part of the group, and cannot be interacting with and/or distracting the student group.

So my key point is that those things that "seem to be reasonable" for an OW diver accompanying a student group become anything but reasonable if/when something goes south, and at least with PADI are explicitly not allowed.

 

[Vicko]

That highly depends on where stuff like this happened.

In my neck of the woods I have to outright kill a student in front of 5 witnesses to even get investigated.