Recent OOA incident in Cozumel, and questions for the experts

[Firefyter]

When I say "Cannot dive" I don't mean can't physically do it, I mean that they aren't supposed to be diving below 60 feet on just a OW certification right? The dive op puts them on a boat on a dive they know the divers aren't supposed to do with just an OW certification. No responsibility here? No responsibility if the dive op knows they are virgin divers?

While I agree that these particular divers should not have gone on this particular dive, there are LOTS of divers who regularly dive deeper than 60' with just an OW cert. The 60' limit is a recommendation, no more or less. Many divers with just an OW have hundreds if not thousands of dives under their belts, and are vastly more qualified to do these dives than an AOW diver with 10 total dives. I had over 200 OW dives before I took Rescue, and I only took it then because I was bored. I never wasted my money on AOW.

It's the diver, their skills, and their mindset that matters, not the cert.

 

[TexasKaren68]

The dive shop can certainly ask what the experience level is, but I still say the bulk of the responsibility lies with the new divers.

Lets say I showed up at a dive op expecting to go out on a beginner dive and get told that due to cancellations, or a DM calling in sick, or their second boat catching fire, or whatever, there would only be one boat going out instead of two. This is where I would start asking questions.

Are we still going to the beginnershallowreefdive?

No, we have 36 other divers with 5,000 dives each, and you two are the only beginners so we're heading to the "deathwallcavedive".

Um, OK, how deep is the top of that wall, where the dropoff starts?

80 feet.

Um, I'm a brand new diver and have never done a deep dive before

That's OK, you'll have plenty of experienced divers to watch over you.

Um, well since I paid for the beginnershallowreefdive and we're not going, could I just get a refund?

Sure, if that's what you want.

It is, thanks <leaves shop very grumpy and heads for the beach bar to drown sorrows>

 

[DandyDon]

Just remember, when you leave the US - you leave the US. Rules are only suggestions around the Caribbean. I am always quick to advise newbies going to Coz or similar destination to hire a private DM the first day for other reasons, but it's all too common to see newbies on wall dives below 60 ft there.

 

[haumana ronin]

Without really knowing the situation and the conversations that took place, would guess that a good chunk of the fault lies with their instructor. New divers should be scared to drift dive that deep right out of class, either from the OW book, the instructor, or both. Did the instructor say "forget the book, I will teach you everything you need" and then not go over it? Not out of the question for a short course. There are known unknowns and unknown unknowns, and the possibility that this was an unknown unknown seems pretty high.

Or it could be that they knew the risks, didn't care, and went for it anyways. Who knows. Everything here is speculation and assumption.

Also, what is the hand sign for "she is bolting?"

:zen:

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Without really knowing the situation and the conversations that took place, would guess that a good chunk of the fault lies with their instructor. New divers should be scared to drift dive that deep right out of class, either from the OW book, the instructor, or both. Did the instructor say "forget the book, I will teach you everything you need" and then not go over it? Not out of the question for a short course. There are known unknowns and unknown unknowns, and the possibility that this was an unknown unknown seems pretty high.

Or it could be that they knew the risks, didn't care, and went for it anyways. Who knows. Everything here is speculation and assumption.

Also, what is the hand sign for "she is bolting?"

:zen:

New divers are often pumped up by their instructor. They have little or no "real world" diving experience and have no clue about what they don't know. when the professional divemaster and shop set them up for a dive, they trust in these people judgement.

Sorta like when I get on a ride at Disney. I have no idea if the thing is going to crash and burn, but I trust that the "professionals" would not put me into a dangerous or out of control situation.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Both of you are correct. New divers should be leery of dives beyond their recommended limits and the responsible instructor will take the steps during ow training to give them the tools to evaluate each dive regardless of what some so-called professional tells them. In this case it would seem that for whatever reason these divers did not do that. They exercised poor judgment and did a dive beyond their limits, skills, and capabilities. I'd be willing to bet that it was not just one thing that led to this. Not sufficiently warned of the risks; not just in this type of dive but diving in general. The buddy system also seems to have been a foreign concept to them. Not surprising as it is often given lip service in training and then ignored in the pool and on checkouts so the lesson does not stick. They may have even been encouraged to go on the trip even though they did not have the training for it with the "you'll be ok you'll be diving with a DM" line of crap that some less than scrupulous instructors will use to justify courses where corners are cut. But the op does stare some responsibility in allowing them to do this dive but as Don said they aint in Kansas anymore and the rules seem to not apply. In addition the agency that allows the operator to take divers on these dives and says nothing has a hand in it as well. Money talks. There is plenty of blame to go around and there always will be until someone or some entity steps up and says enough and people listen. I've been doing that for a couple years. Some have listened and I get their emails and pm's of thanks. Not as much as I'd like but enough to keep me saying the things I do. And enough to give me the inspiration and drive to put out a book dealing with much of this stuff. To be honest one thanks is enough to do that.

Now I just need a chorus of voices to say to these operations, instructors, a d agencies one word. Enough.

 

[openmindOW]

New divers should be scared to drift dive that deep right out of class, either from the OW book, the instructor, or both.

Amen. Poor training will produce poorly informed divers.

 

[openmindOW]

Now I just need a chorus of voices to say to these operations, instructors, a d agencies one word. Enough.

Jim, I agree with you. Unfortunately, I don't think the recreational SCUBA industry is going to change direction.

The industry seeks to certify more and more people and that means the industry will produce shorter classes.

 

[tddfleming]

Being new myself, with a whole 19 dives in, all in the cold quarry. I would have to say this is a cycle, we read about this all too often. I think it would be interesting to be able to track these incidents that involve newish type divers and see what trends would develop over time. Who trained them, what shop, what operator took them aboard, ages, states trained in etc.

The cycle starts at the shop, the owner/inst selling the class with the promise that once done with OW you will be able to dive the wrecks, vacation at the warm resorts and boat dive all day, all the fun you will have. Lets not forget the boasting of all the cool things you can do once cert. Wreck penetrations, running low on air and needing to share your buddies octo to get more bottom time. They do not tell you the truth, the things you cannot and should not do. So now you have your new shiny card, so you jump on the boat and go. Only to find out that you also suck at diving and all the things the shop told you are not true. But the boat op took you aboard, so there lies some blame. This is not every shop or inst out there, just my personal experience so far.

Having an inst I would NOT recommend to anyone, I can say, when we were done with OW I knew I was not ready for anything other than the quarry. Even through the dive shop and inst encouraged students to go do a trip in a nice warm place, I knew better. At least I have a few more sense than god gave a billygoat. I knew that I sucked, and being an anal, OCD type of person, I knew I needed more time and training before I jumped on any boat. So, I dove the quarry more after OW class, I went to the pool about once a month to pratice, I took AOW (not because it would make me advanced, but it would give me more time to pratice with another inst.) I took Nav, again a way to more pratice with an inst. I have also signed up for GUE Primer. Why, because I knew I SUCKED. I was honest with myself after class and knew I needed more training and time before I was ready for anything other than the pool and quarry. I now have a boat dive scheduled for the end of May, at which point I should have in 30 dives. When I called to book the dive I was very honest with my/our experience, I also hired a DM for our first dive off a boat. Not to babysit us, but to guide us around and show us the ropes for the boat.

Anyway, after my/our not so good OW class, I can honestly say that even though we did not have the greatest of time or inst. I still learned a lot. Such, as do not follow your inst blindly. Do not trust just anyone, I'm a hardhead, don't believe everything I hear regarding diving, and I/we are tougher than we thought. I think each person out of OW needs to be honest with themselves and really look at the skill level they acheived during class before jumping in deeper. I think this is a cycle that starts at the shop, on to the diving ops and the student themselves. The person selling the class needs to be more upfront with what one will gain out of OW and be realistic. In the end the student should not be so gullible. Been there done that, but no t-shirt.

 

[Mike]

Just remember, when you leave the US - you leave the US. Rules are only suggestions around the Caribbean. I am always quick to advise newbies going to Coz or similar destination to hire a private DM the first day for other reasons, but it's all too common to see newbies on wall dives below 60 ft there.

I think that's the crux of the issue right there. If that's the case then too many dive ops are thinking about the money more then their customers safety.

I'm glad I dive with a dive op in Cozumel that would never put me in a situation like this. Yes, I'm being selffish here, but I don't ever want to be put on a dive with 6 experienced divers and 2 virgins. A dive op who would put two virgin divers with my nice experienced divers would frankly piss me off. That's a total waste of my money as far as I'm concerned. My dive will be cut short, that's a guarantee just based on air usage from the virgins if they even make it through the dive.

There is no doubt responsibility on a diver to understand their own limits and be in charge of their own safety. But a virgin diver? Come on now. No matter how well trained how much is a virgin diver being overwellmed with on their first dive ever after OW?

At some point responsibility lays with the dive op to

#1 Ensure the safety of a virgin diver
#2 Give their other guests their moneys worth by not subjecting them to what results grouping divers like this together

Not to mention maybe it would be smarter to be think about your business and the benefits of the opportunity that exists to make a virgin divers first dives absolutely wonderful. To be that dive op that they will come back to over and over again because they had a great dive experience, felt safe and cared for and looked after, instead of the memories these two have which was a complete disaster. If these two gain experience and talk to enough other divers, eventually they are going to come to the realization that they were pretty much thrown to the sharks by this dive op. Maybe the dive op did nothing legally wrong, but there sure was no over abundance of care in this situation.

I just think this stuff going on is very short sighted from a lot of different perspectives, even if it technically isn't 'wrong'.