realistic drills - going too far

[wedivebc]

As a tech instructor who has to toe the company line as it were regarding what skills and drills I can provide for my students, I am wondering if sometimes instructors cross the line.

When I first did my rebreather training , we were taught things like buddy breathing the loop (yuck) and I was given the opportunity to breathe in a pool with no scrubber to experience the effects. (I declined)
In the past I have, without notice, removed a student's regulator/breathing loop. I have removed, masks, fins, regs, as well as closed valves in order to provide a realistic level of stress.
I have witnessed instructors going a step beyond, including a video I saw where a group of students where being subject to hpoxia by shutting off oxygen on their rebreather and continuing to breathe off a dead loop. This was done on dry land mind you but the look in the eyes of one student as he was just coming back around gave me chills.
Many student demand to be challenged by their instructors. The skills allowed by the agency sometimes fall short of a realistic challenge.
So my question is, what are the legal liabilities of stepping outside the training agency's standards and procedures?
I always thought how I would defend my actions to a jury of non divers about some event that led to the injury or death of a student.

 

[Omisson]

Your answer varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction- for example every state in America has slightly different tort-law statutes and bodies of common law on liability and training standards in risk-activities. While there are general guidelines and black-letter law - it still varies enough that there is no single answer even in one country (Like the USA)…

This analysis is from a guy who practiced in New York, but was admitted in many jurisdictions over the years, state and federal : to be clear, if you add “skills” that are not part of the standards based training system you are certified to teach- liability on you is likely going to be viewed as a “strict liability” issue, since teaching diving is categorized as an “ultra-hazardous activity” and you are not following the prescribed lesson plans developed to teach it. This sort of liability makes it hard to defend, and often eliminates direct causation as a necessary component of finding tort-liability.

I constantly hear how “great” agency XYZ is because they allow instructors to be “flexible” and “develop additional training” above their “minimum standards”. The reality however, is that This is a legal invitation to disaster. When the instructor does add something that winds up injuring a diver-the insurance company disclaims, saying it was “outside the scope of the teaching standard”, the agency cries “we didn’t authorize that”, and the court holds the instructor to a standard based on working “outside industry norms” and cripples their defense….leaving them out alone on the limb they’ve grown themselves….

 

[happy-diver]

Just as assisting the infirm leave us with dignity has become a mess since discussion and attempting legalisation

 

[Wibble]

Should an instructor attempt to drown a student to make the point that you cannot breathe water?

The point needs to be made, but most people are happy with an anecdote and not being deliberately put in danger. We all know that bailing out is an essential rebreather skill which must be practiced constantly as it will save your life and all rebreather divers will bail out sometime during their CCR career.

Buddy breathing from open circuit does make the point that it’s a last resort, extremely unpleasant, very risky and to be avoided at all costs by planning and execution. Memories of that on a twinset where it was probably the most horrible thing I’ve ever done underwater and utterly made the point that you should never get yourself into that position.

Buddy breathing from the loop won’t ever be used as you have bailout from both divers and the loop would flood.

A CO2 hit in extremely controlled and shallow conditions might be useful to experience the onset of hypercapnia. Arguably good knowledge to have. Rather dangerous to teach except in the shallow end of a pool.


Guess it all comes down to that rare skill of common sense. Rebreathers are more complex and dangerous than open circuit but many perils are mitigated by the one adage; If in doubt, bailout.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

When I first did my rebreather training , we were taught things like buddy breathing the loop

I have never seen nor heard of this being taught. I see that skill in none of the standards for the agencies I teach for: NSS-CDS, NACD, IANTD, TDI, and PADI.

I have witnessed instructors going a step beyond, including a video I saw where a group of students where being subject to hpoxia by shutting off oxygen on their rebreather and continuing to breathe off a dead loop.

I think this is indeed a step beyond and would be indefensible in court should an accident occur during this drill. Once again I see none of this in any standards I go by.

if you add “skills” that are not part of the standards based training system you are certified to teach- liability on you is likely going to be viewed as a “strict liability” issue, since teaching diving is categorized as an “ultra-hazardous activity” and you are not following the prescribed lesson plans developed to teach it.

This has been a LONG-HELD premise in the dive instruction world from Open Water through Expedition Trimix cave. Do not add skills. If you add skills and things go south be prepared to defend it, in court to a jury of non-divers. Plaintiffs' lawyers will most certainly eat you alive when you state that the people who wrote the standards are not as smart as you.

I constantly hear how “great” agency XYZ is because they allow instructors to be “flexible” and “develop additional training” above their “minimum standards”. The reality however, is that This is a legal invitation to disaster. When the instructor does add something that winds up injuring a diver-the insurance company disclaims, saying it was “outside the scope of the teaching standard”, the agency cries “we didn’t authorize that”, and the court holds the instructor to a standard based on working “outside industry norms” and cripples their defense….leaving them out alone on the limb they’ve grown themselves….

Once again this is a long help premise pretty much carved into stone.

I have found that cave divers, for example, learn how to safely cave dive by cave diving. They must learn how to share gas in the cave, they must know how to respond to a failed light and a plethora of other potential failures. However, conducting those drills OVER AND OVER AND OVER is counterproductive. Run the drills in the standards until the student "Masters" the drill. Then let them learn to cave dive without all the harassment which, again, IMO is counterproductive.

 

[kensuf]

Cave training should be pretty intense because it is a demanding environment. I agree with Jim on having skills practiced to mastery (ability to perform the skill on demand without thinking about how to do it) and then focus on the diving. And as a course develops I like to have my students manage compound failures (one on a backup light, another out of gas) to see how they handle the stress and their thought processes, but these don't include making up silly drills that aren't in standards (yank their fins off and hogtie them up with a guideline). Additionally, drills are only conducted when the dive team has turned for the exit - I want my students to spend time in the overhead, I'm not hitting them with drills on the ingress into the cave.

The big thing for me when conducting a cave course is the element of surprise. With the exceptions of a lost line drill, gas sharing with blackout masks, and the initial blackout mask drill, I do not pre-brief the drills to my students. We go over the drills at the beginning of the course and I will review procedures each day as we're building equipment / getting ready ("hey Wally, what steps would you do if you realize you lost your buddy?", "Stefanie, how would you handle a right post failure?", etc). I also go over some "rules of engagement" at the beginning of the course (ex, "if a drill is conducted that requires you to shut a valve down, after you close the valve you will feel me opening the valve back up - you are not allowed to use that valve for the remainder of the dive unless we a real emergency, so if you lose your right post you have to orally inflate your wing from that point on").

It gets amusing when some agencies have conflicting standards and you have to walk a tight rope. Example, one agency that I'm an instructor examiner with has a strict statement that instructors are not allowed to have students remove masks in an overhead environment, another agency I'm an instructor examiner with has a standard that requires students to deploy a backup mask on an overhead environment dive.

 

[kensuf]

Besides, they frequently make their own organic mistakes that give me plenty to work with in terms of coaching.