Panicking OW Student On Surface

[boulderjohn]

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

It is not a good Samaritan case of you agreed ahead of time to act in a professional capacity while not having professional credentials. If you just happened to be nearby and intervened, that would be different.

 

[boulderjohn]

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.

I am in the process of writing an official report on a dive accident that happened outside the USA last year, and that is what I am discovering. It happened during a class supposedly conducted by dive professionals. I say "supposedly" because when things went south, the instructors hit the road, and their identities and actual credentials are unknown. The police were not present for the body recovery, which took place the next day. There is no evidence that they did any further investigation. The fatality did not make the local papers.

 

[loosenit2]

A lot to unpack here.

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

I would view this as a matter of who is the instructor responsible to. In my mind the instructor has a responsibility to the student first as they are under his supervision. The other diver who has trouble the insturctor only has a “Good Samaritan” responsibility to. So in this case you could act as a good samaratain only so long as it does not place your student in danger.

What the lawyer suggested as a matter of liability is something we should all think of, it makes simple sense. Why did he leave his student behind rather than having the student return with him and the distressed diver? A two person assist would have been better. For all parties involved. More to learn from this example than the legal aspect.

 

[kelemvor]

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.

I didn't know about the case, but it does explain why I wasn't allowed in the water during my daughter's OW class...

 

[JackD342]

I didn't know about the case, but it does explain why I wasn't allowed in the water during my daughter's OW class...

Yep. And a certified parent in the water with a student child is very special risk - getting them to let me teach and to stay out of it themselves.
I would not off-hand reject the parent joining the group, within guidelines, but they first get a very pointed and private conversation about how things are going to happen, and more importantly how they are NOT going to happen.

 

[Graeme Fraser]

Would have been better to deflate. If someone in panic happens to grab you, descend! No person that thinks they are drowning is going to hold something that's going down. Then, come up from behind, control the tank and inflate their BC. Never try and work with a panicking person from the front.

^^^^ This. Also, if someone is in full panic mode and likely to put you in danger, back off, prepare and wait for them to burn themselves out a bit first. Easier said than done, but you learn that lesson pretty damn fast on a rescue course.

Oh and I agree with everyone else about the liability and training issues, but that's on the instructors who should know better.

 

[Graeme Fraser]

It took him less than a minute to get to us but by that time I was already struggling with her.

'Less than a minute' is way way to long for an instructor DM to be able to assist a student. It may be on the surface, but bad things happen up top as well.

 

[SapphireMind]

Overall, this discussion has been very enlightening for me, thank you. Hopefully I won't have a buddy or nearby diver panic, but I wouldn't have immediately thought of descending to avoid a panicked diver. It makes perfect sense though! I'm not going to be in a position to be the expert for quite some time, but it's always good to know emergency information, and how to "escape" a panicked diver could be really important some day.

ETA that it is also really good to see the discussion on "helpers". In many classes that are not diving, it is pretty commonplace to have an experienced person help out on the fringes (look for people who are lost and/or not doing something right) and I've filled that role in dance class a lot, but always good to remember that diving classes are not like many other types of lessons, due to the danger involved.

 

[KevinNM]

I am in the process of writing an official report on a dive accident that happened outside the USA last year, and that is what I am discovering. It happened during a class supposedly conducted by dive professionals. I say "supposedly" because when things went south, the instructors hit the road, and their identities and actual credentials are unknown. The police were not present for the body recovery, which took place the next day. There is no evidence that they did any further investigation. The fatality did not make the local papers.

Well, with 33,341 'official' murders last year, most of which were not investigated, the odds that anyone will be held responsible for an accident that doesn't involve a prominent local, an internationally known person or someone whose survivors has money and a willingness to spend it in legally questionable ways seems unlikely.

 

[BlueTrin]

It is not a good Samaritan case of you agreed ahead of time to act in a professional capacity while not having professional credentials. If you just happened to be nearby and intervened, that would be different.

If the instructor tells you to keep an eye, it does not mean that you will act as an instructor, isn’t it ?

I mean he could shout at a random passing by on the shore to keep an eye and that would make this person a person with professional capacity ?