Please read the threads by Frank Wasson on...

[daylight]

Dee,

I think you are right on target.

IMHO, What we are seeing is the result of lowered entry standards combined with increased numbers of low-skill divers. The result is increased accidents and fatalities like what has been happening this year in California and The Flower Gardens. These locations require capabilities and skills beyond the criteria for OW certification.

I know that DAN's accident/fatality data is contradictory, But what we are all observing must be going beyond a run of bad luck. Maybe the caribbean/resort DM's are doing an outstanding keeping the lower skilled divers alive. A lot of the folks just flop in the water and follow the DM around and climb back on the boat. As long as there isn't any current or contingencies, no problem.

When the S**t hits the fan is when the diver must deal with failures, stress, and task loads beyond their experience and physical conditioning capabilities. This seems to be the common thread to the accidents and fatalities.

Marketing diving as a low risk, easily aquired skill, available to any and all of any age just seems to be a recipe for accidents and fatalities.

Thanks for tolerating my Friday rant. As Dennis Miller says, "But then I could be wrong"

DSAO,
Larry

 

[hphobbie@aol.com]

First off, he was over matched. Secondly, the boat cannot be all and end all, some responsoibility has to be taken by the diver. The shop hopefully advertised this as an advanced type trip, but obviously with only 2 dives did not follow thru. He only made 2 dives since certification? Did he at least do a review before the trip?

I like the way boats run in Southern Cal, you dive and are expected to take care of yourself. Same with the locales on East Coast I have dove at. The Caribbean has too much hand hold diving for my tastes. Is the DM gonna go to the chamber with you?

As an instructor I have had people take a trip certified by other people I respect. I knowe they knew their skills when certified. You wonder what happened in the interim.

Now, Could a shop and or dive boat say no to someone and be covered if they get pissy and sue? Or in this case do they expect the shop that booked the trip to screen?

My hearts out to the family, my prayers go to them for losing a loved one. As an insurance agent I hope he had alot of life insurance to help them in this time of need. As a diver and instructor, I hope this death adds to our knowledge, is not forgotten and will keep someone else alive in the future.

 

[jbd]

on the diving at the Flower Gardens. I've not been there nor have I dove in salt water yet. I have heard, as other here just mentioned, that the Flower Gardens are not considered a novice dive area. I've also heard that the operators in this case are very safety conscience and run a top notch operation.

I find the discussion on responsibility and where it lies very interesting. Socaldiver has pointed out at least some responsibility goes to the dive operation and some to the diver. Others mention the dive shop that arranged the trip. As noted by simonk999 the dive operator assesses som responsibility to the training agencies--ie too lenient on standards.

Personally I lay responsibility fully on the diver. I accept full and total responsibility for anything that happens to me as a diver. I take this view since no one forced me to learn to dive or to dive in any situation. Being underwater is not a natural place for humans to be. We go there by choice; our own personal choice. No one else can put us there. Anytime a diver decides to go on a dive I think that person is responsible for learning about that dive environment and the hazards that are there. I think that in this particular case the man made a poor choice given his personal health and dive history. I also can see that he may well have died at this point in time regardless of what he was doing or where he was.

 

[TxAgs92]

A little bit about the profiles at the FGs. I live in Texas, and regularly fish offshore in the gulf, but I have not been diving on the FG, so maybe somebody can provide a bit more detail than I can. The FGB are in about 80-100' of water 110 miles offshore. That far out, the Gulf is rarely calm. Even when it is, swells from distant storms, and changes in wind or current can occur without warning and cause drastic changes in the dive conditions. The changes can include but are not limited to: 2-3 foot rise in swells within 10-30 minutes, 90 degree or greater change in current direction and changes in speed of the current on the order of more than 1 kt within a few minutes time. The Rinn boats DMs enforce a STRICT 100' depth limit. I say strict because they have forced several divers to sit out several days of diving for violating the depth limit. Their safety precautions are stricter and more diligently followed than any I have heard of on any dive boat anywhere. My diving has all been carribean, and what I have heard of their operation makes the best carribean operations seem recklessly careless. The distance from shore, depth of the dives, and multiple repetitive dives (4-5 per day) all conspire to present a very challenging environment even if you don't factor in potentially strong and unpredictable currents, at times very rough conditions, and at times, challenging visibility conditions. As has been said, it is not a dive for novices. One of the reasons I have not taken a trip aboard the Spree is that I do not feel I am ready for the dives yet. I have ~60 dives and am rescue diver trained, and I do not feel I am ready. Do I think I could handle it?...probably. Am I willing to bet my life that I can handle it?...Nope.

That being said, I wanted to say a word or two about why Rinn boats and Capt Frank probably shouldn't be checking log books and probably shouldn't be doing check dives or fitness tests on the divers that come to dive with them. A logical society would see such actions as the diligent and conscientious operation of a business involved in a potentially dangerous sport. However, the vultures of our legal system see such actions as an opportunity to place responsibility for the abilities of every diver on-board squarely on the shoulders of the crew. Does the crew have a responsibility to the divers? You bet! Do they have the responsibility to decide who can handle the dive and who can't? Absolutely not! Image this scenario...Diver A shows up and is obviously out of shape (physical health has been a very significant factor in several of the incidents at the FG this year). The Capt. of the boat, seeing that the diver is too fat to get onto the boat from the dock without assistance, and is breathing heavily after bending over to untie his shoes, decides the diver is not fit to dive the FGs. He gives the diver a refund and sends him packing. Diver B then comes aboard and seems fairly fit, but unbeknownst to the Capt, has a serious heart condition which should prevent him from diving in strenuous conditions. When the divers begin diving, diver B has a heart attack and dies due to his lack of fitness for diving. Because the Captain took responsibility for the fitness level of his divers by sending diver A packing, in a court of law, our screwed up legal system will in many cases hold him responsible for not properly evaluating the fitness level of Diver B. I know it makes no sense, but I work in a similar business where we have to deal with very similar issues. As easy as it would be for us to send some unqualified people packing, to do so places us in legal jeopardy of becoming responsible legally and financially for the ones we allow to stay. The end result is that Rinn boats and other operations dealing with challenging diving conditions can post guidelines, they can advise shops who they don't want to see on their boats, and they can vigorously enforce rules designed to provide the highest degree of safety for their divers...But they cannot place themselves as a judge of a diver's ability without accepting a huge financial burden in the event a diver they accept gets hurt or killed.

Like it or not, we are responsible for ourselves...and the divers who refuse to dive within their abilities and place themselves in danger will continue to pay the price for their stupidity. If we expect our training agencies, our dive operators, our instructors, our dive shops, or our buddies to be responsible for deciding what we can and can't handle, we place ourselves in danger and should expect to get hurt.

TxAgs92

 

[socaldiver]

I respectfully have to disagree with you jbd and txags92.

jbd, I agree a diver is responsible for themselves. I know I am responsible, and if I feel a dive is out of my league, I don't do it. I have been on dives I have called because things didn't feel right. To me that is being responsible. This unfortunate tragedy possibly could have been avoided IF the diver had accepted the fact this was over his head (which IMHO it was, based on the information that was previously posted). But, the boat operators as well as the dive shop that sold the trip are equally at fault. I don't see any other way, sorry.

txags92, nice scenario but I think you are comparing apples to oranges here. It isn't a matter of if 1 diver is fit or unfit. I am talking about experience, logged dives showing that a person can handle the level of skill required for the dive. A person with 2 dives since being certified in a 2 year period is a novice diver and therefore should have been turned away.

Don't you think the lawyers for this man's family are going to just let this slide? Hello!! No chance, the boat operator and probably the dive shop, along with chantal and anything associated with the water in that area will be named in a lawsuit. And that's a shame but reality.

I will now step down from my soapbox.

 

[jbd]

I think you are correct that the diveshop and the dive operation should have reviewed the logbook and STRONGLY discouraged the diver from making this trip. Its just the legal point in which I don't feel the dive operation should be held responsible. From a moral perspective the dive shop and dive operation in this case made a poor choice. Morals and ethics though are not the same as legality and I think that puts us(collectively)in a jam sometimes. I think this is what is bothering Frank Wassson--he covered the legal responsibilities but he feels(conjecture on my part)he may have made a poor choice morally or ethically.

BTW if I had a $ for every mile I made on US 27(almost to Crestview) in the past 2 months I could afford a trip to salt water somewhere.

 

[socaldiver]

jbd,

Are you in N Ky?

I just ate my last 2 cans of dixie Chili ;-0 .

I need to order more online and some more Gliers goetta. Can't get that out here.

Where do you normally go diving back there? I am going to be there over the Xmas holidays, maybe we can go diving.

 

[TxAgs92]

Fitness has been at least as large a factor in the most recent fatalities and injuries at the FGs as experience level. So to me, fitness and experience go hand in hand at the FGs and any operation that screened divers for experience but not fitness would be seen as legally negligent knowing what an important factor fitness is.

Let me put you on the witness stand as a boat captain...

Sir, you use 50 dives minimum as the minimum experience level on your boat...my client had 55 dives in a 30' deep quarry with no deep dives and no dives in true open ocean conditions...yet you let him on your boat. Why? Aren't you responsible for his death since you approved his level of experience prior to letting him on your boat? By agreeing to take him out, didn't you by default give him the false reassurrance that his skills were adequate for the dives?

Thats the scenario you set up when you place yourself in the position of approving or disapproving the divers. Where do you draw the line and why? Better think it through if you are a boat operator. Every time you accept a diver, you better think through your answer of "why did you accept diver A and not diver B?", because you never know which diver's family lawyer you will have to answer it to.

Yes the guy should not have been out there, yes he should have had somebody sit his ass down and tell him to wake up and get the hell off of the boat. But if the boat captain does that with one diver and not another, it places him squarely responsible for approving the fitness and experience level of the diver. I hate that our legal system does that to us, but it is how it is. Any operator screening divers that way will eventually get nailed by a lawsuit and will probably have to shut down. Diving is an individual sport and you are responsible for yourself...the minute you try to make a dive operation responsible for your safety, you place yourself at the mercy of which operator is most in need of cash that day.

TxAgs92

 

[socaldiver]

txags, it is hard for a dive operator to pick and choose who can and who can't go with the exception that a "novice" diver has no business (no exceptions) to do a dive as advanced as FG. Your point on fitness is well taken and again I agree, but that is where responsibility on the diver comes into place.

Unfortunately, in any scenario, when a tragedy happens such as this, no matter what the mitigating circumstances are, the truth of the matter is people will be sued.

 

[TxAgs92]

I agree that it would seem logical to set some limit or place a minimum on the experience level. But stupidity and lack of common sense don't disappear with a certain number of dives. I have seen divers who had 10 dives who were far better divers and knew much more than divers with 50 dives. I know the lawsuits will be filed either way, but the difference between winning or losing the lawsuit is oftentimes something as simple as past patterns of behavior. If you screen divers successfully for 5 trips and somebody dies on the sixth, was it your fault? If there was something wrong with them that you missed in your screening, are you at fault? I agree that somewhere along the line, somebody should have told this diver to go home. I don't advocate complete anarchy when it comes to letting divers choose if they are skilled enough to be on a boat. But I do disagree with anybody trying to place blame for this incident anywhere but on the diver. It was his responsibility to learn about where he planned to dive and decide if his abilities were up to it...nobody else's. If you could give me a bulletproof definition of a "novice" that won't let anybody through that might get into trouble, I would agree with you applying it wholeheartedly. But when it comes to diving skill and ability, there is no bulletproof definition of who is or isn't skilled enough. Therefore, we have to continue to place the blame where it belongs...with the diver who jumped off the boat into conditions over his head. Placing the blame anywhere else is a huge cop out and completely ignores the blatant stupidity of somebody who didn't belong there and should have known better himself.

TxAgs92