POINTING FINGERS AFTER A DIVER’S DEATH (rant & discussion)

[The Chairman]

Some boats are run solely for profit and care less about diver's qualifications.

All boats are run for profit and those that don't care about diver qualifications usually have no profits. Those that don't care about profits are destined to fail. Profit motivates dive ops and manufacturers to do a better job: not a poor one. I understand that profit is the emotional response to almost any accident, but it's rarely accurate: just emotional. A dive op, as well as a diver has to know and honor their limitations. Most dives are the result of divers exceeding their limitations in one way or the other. The dive op is not the Scuba police so why should we expect them to act like one? Do we expect the taxi driver to enquire about our ability to play golf as he drops us off at the links? No, and we could easily misconstrue any such enquiry as an invasion of our privacy. We choose to jump out of a perfectly good boat into danger. You just can't blame the dive op for our inability to stay on the boat. I'm not saying that there aren't any poor dive ops, but your life is your most important consideration. Your choices determine the length of your life.

The problem with dive analysis is quite often our emotions. Anger, frustration, loss and more elements of our emotional state will cloud our ability to truly discern the issues at hand. Hell, they even write novels where the truth finally comes out and the beleaguered dive op would be operated. No such luck in the real world. I've seen feuds in Cave Country over people who "just know" that so and so killed a friend of theirs in a cave. Why? We have a hard time accepting our own faults as well as our friends. Again, emotions cloud our judgement and we think our friends and we are somehow immune to making bad decisions or exceeding our limitations. Reality is a bitch and people die because they exceed their limitations.

So, as you read about any accident assume the diver paid for their mistakes with their life. Get that out of the way and if you're going to be mad at someone, be mad at the deceased. What could they have done differently that would have preserved their life? That's the ultimate takeaway for me. What did they do or failed to do that cost them their life.

the aim is to get as much money out of it as possible.

Malarky. Most people simply want justice. Ask them if they would exchange the money for their loved one and they would be almost unanimous. Most law suits are done out of revenge. They want to hurt the people they think are responsible. The money is a secondary issue. They would rather incarcerate them, but tort law doesn't accommodate that anymore.

 

[dberry]

What about "the boat action was a significant contributer" to the death but not a primary cause? How often, if any, have you seen that?

Does this include actions of DM in the water?

I agree that most factors leading to most accidents are under the control / responsibility of the individual diver. And I'd imagine accidents where "the boat" (captain, crew, DM) are the primary cause are rare.

So what ARE the (rare) causes of accidents where significant responsibility can rest with "the Boat"?

Diver left behind
Bad air (if the Boat provided the fills)
and yes, running over a diver.
Any others come to mind?

Again, I agree with the OP's main point, but many of the responses seem to be from the point of view of very experienced divers. Like it or not, newly minted OWC and vacation divers probably view the boat and crew as more than just transportation.

DMs usually give dive briefings. Are there situations where a bad or absent briefing could be thought to be a contributing factor?
(I'm just curious.)

 

[Steve_C]

Lack of attention from crew on boat. That is failing to notice a diver surfacing in trouble,

Poorly maintained equipment. In the Cayman's the equipment was waiting for me at my seat on the boat. I had to trust them to keep it in good working order.

 

[kelemvor]

Hiding information is only useful if there is something worth hiding.

Suppose there was only one charter dive boat in L.A. and that everyone who did a commercial boat dive would then have to dive on that boat. It would stand to reason that, if the death number stayed the same, that boat would account for every one of them. Would that make it a dangerous boat? No. It would simply be the way the numbers played out.

Not a reasonable supposition. In a world where there are many thousands of charter boats, it could be useful to know something as simple as "a lot of divers are dying from this boat, and not the others operating in the same area". That would definitely be reasonable cause to reconsider booking a trip on said boat. An example of that situation has already been presented by another person in this thread. I know the boat he's talking about, and while many have an agenda because they don't like what the boat does - I do not. I did a similar dive a month ago - on a different boat. I wouldn't get on the boat he was talking about if it was a free ride. Others can make their own decisions, but should have the benefit of making an informed decision. It is up to the opereator to decide if the available information is "we had an accident" (or many accidents in a short timeframe) vs "we had an accident, here is what happened, here are our safety procedures that were used when it happened."

I always think of @Wookie's operation when this topic comes up. He's had a number of fatalities on his boat over the years. I know that because he's provided information on them. It also lead me to believe he ran a very safe operation due to the details he shared about his safety procedures. I've never met him. I don't think any of my friends have ever met him. If he were to have another boat running charters in an area I wanted to go, he would be at the top of my choices.

 

[Wookie]

I must disagree with your premise. The boat has a tremendous amount to do with the safety of the passengers, and the outcome of any accidents. My BP is now up, so I'm going to rant back.

First off, I ran a charter boat for 17 years. We had a reputation of being safe to the detriment of our reputation as a$$holes. So be it, my stated purpose was to bring every diver home. I was not sucessful, but it wasn't due to a lack of duty of care on my part. In the beginning, nitrox was a profit center, and we charged a pretty penny for it. $10 a fill. We ran an average of 8 cases of DCS per 3 month dive season. We dove the Flower Gardens, which are deep and remote, offering 5 dives a day. In 2008 I made nitrox inclusive in the trip fee. My DCS rate dropped to zero that day. As I said, we were a$$holes, we insisted everyone dive nitrox, to the point where if you weren't nitrox certified, we gave you a certification class. If you wanted the card, you had to buy that. Poof, My incidence of DCS dropped to zero. For the following 8 years, I never had anyone get bent.

But the real issue is not what happens in the water, the boat crew can't do MUCH about that, except describe what is unacceptable behavior and carry through with whatever penalties are described for that behavior. For instance, it was considered to be unacceptable in the Spree to run out of gas. If you ran out, you sat out. No exceptions. It was considered unacceptable to surface in deco. You did, you sat until your computer cleared. 24 or 48 hours. No exceptions, unless you were wearing 2 computers. It was considered unacceptable to surface without your buddy, unless you had a good story, or if you were a solo diver.

But back to after you surface. A responsible boat crew makes sure you are back on the boat. A responsible captain makes sure they made sure. A responsible boat makes sure that all first aid equipment is there, ready to use, and in working condition. We had a fatality in Key West yesterday. No AED on the boat, and the O2 kit had a regulator and hose, but no working mask. A dive boat had no working O2 kit. A dive boat had no working O2 kit. Did that sink in yet?

I saved a life last week on another boat. Pretty happy to have one in the win column. Wasn't a diver, but it took all of my skills, an AED, an ambu-bag, O2, Oropharyngeal airway, and plenty of help. I ran a liveaboard with 7 crew so I could have plenty of help and still get underway.

So, yes. The dive boat absolutely has a responsibility to make things not go pear shaped. And regarding profits. I owned the Spree for 14 years. I made a profit in 4 of those years, 1 when I sold the boat, and 3 when I had winter jobs other than diving. Running a dive boat where safety is job 1 and customer service is job 2 is hard on the bottom line. What it does is create an absolutely loyal client who places safety above all else. That was the client I was looking for, it was the client I cultivated, and I didn't want the other kind. That was hard on the bottom line too. I enjoyed an 80 percent return customer rate.

And in 18 years I was never sued for something I did or didn't do. Or for anything else.

 

[Wookie]

IAgain, I agree with the OP's main point, but many of the responses seem to be from the point of view of very experienced divers. Like it or not, newly minted OWC and vacation divers probably view the boat and crew as more than just transportation.

DMs usually give dive briefings. Are there situations where a bad or absent briefing could be thought to be a contributing factor?
(I'm just curious.)

It's interesting that very experienced divers also view the boat and crew as more than just transportation. I'm not talking about the divemasters (who never worked a class or led a dive) with 467 dives, those guys know everything and are a PITA. I'm talking about the guys who had thousands of scientific dives or even recreational divers with thousands of dives. You could tell who was listening to the briefings. The old guys were next to Mel listening intently, as they are hard of hearing and she isn't very loud. The younger newer divers were next, hanging on every word. The folks who knew everything were in the back, putting on their wetsuits and dicking with gear.

Guess which group got the most pickups in the dinghy?

 

[Cali_diver]

First off, I ran a charter boat for 17 years. We had a reputation of being safe to the detriment of our reputation as a$$holes. So be it, my stated purpose was to bring every diver home. I was not sucessful, but it wasn't due to a lack of duty of care on my part. In the beginning, nitrox was a profit center, and we charged a pretty penny for it. $10 a fill. We ran an average of 8 cases of DCS per 3 month dive season. We dove the Flower Gardens, which are deep and remote, offering 5 dives a day. In 2008 I made nitrox inclusive in the trip fee. My DCS rate dropped to zero that day. As I said, we were a$$holes, we insisted everyone dive nitrox, to the point where if you weren't nitrox certified, we gave you a certification class. If you wanted the card, you had to buy that. Poof, My incidence of DCS dropped to zero. For the following 8 years, I never had anyone get bent.

This is amazing to actually see this correlation and great to see that you did this.. so often we get on the boat and people complain about paying for Nitrox. Say,," no way am I paying for that... rip off blah blah". Usually by the end of the trip they are whispering to the CD asking for their tank to be switched. It is amazing how people can spend money on crap like Starbucks and bottled water, but not Nitrox. On my last trip I actually heard the the Cruise Director tell someone that it will really limit their bottom time if they don't use Nitrox (4-5 dives a day) and their response was oh I never run out of air.

 

[kelemvor]

This is amazing to actually see this correlation and great to see that you did this.. so often we get on the boat and people complain about paying for Nitrox. Say,," no way am I paying for that... rip off blah blah". Usually by the end of the trip they are whispering to the CD asking for their tank to be switched. It is amazing how people can spend money on crap like Starbucks and bottled water, but not Nitrox. On my last trip I actually heard the the Cruise Director tell someone that it will really limit their bottom time if they don't use Nitrox (4-5 dives a day) and their response was oh I never run out of air.

It's kind of off topic but I think that is a failure of certification agencies to present nitrox training during OW classes. You don't know what you don't know and that guy may not have understood the "why" of nitrox because he hadn't undertaken the class. Certification agencies should add a couple pages to their OW manuals and stop trying to make the buck on the extra class.

 

[Cali_diver]

It's kind of off topic but I think that is a failure of certification agencies to present nitrox training during OW classes. You don't know what you don't know and that guy may not have understood the "why" of nitrox because he hadn't undertaken the class. Certification agencies should add a couple pages to their OW manuals and stop trying to make the buck on the extra class.

They were Nitrox certified.. just didn't want to pay. They switched after 3-4 days. But if they got hit... would people blame the boat?

 

[Wookie]

They were Nitrox certified.. just didn't want to pay. They switched after 3-4 days. But if they got hit... would people blame the boat?

I wouldn't say the boat deserves or would necessarily get the blame, but the boat can prevent it. My point is that people don't take advantage of the one thing that they could do to be a little safer.