Rescue Diver Class..........worth it?

[kwesler]

My $.02 on this, although the thread has become about tort reform!

As background, let me state for the record that I have been the victim of many frivolous claims. Performing arts centers have big targets painted on them as far as slip and fall cases go. It is pretty well known that insurance companies are good for a quick settlement rather than go through lengthy and expensive litigation. In fact, I pressed our insurance company to fight one claim-they won, but it cost them over 10 times what it would have cost to settle.

My dive buddy is a plaintiff's attorney, so he can be construed as "the other side" in these matters...

What I have learned from him, is that the number of frivolous actions is dwarfed by the meritorious, needed actions which are the only way for "the little guy" to be heard. Again-I am politically conservative so that is a painful admission for me!

Case in point-I was one of the many people who was outraged by the "hot coffee lawsuit" in which a prominent fast food chain was assesed enormous punitive damages for serving coffee which was too hot, resulting in serious burns by a Customer who, admittedly, was dumb enough to hold the coffee between her legs. What I later found out, was that this chain was in court repeatedly over this issue, and only reduced the temperature of the coffee as a result of the huge judgement against them. The jury knew of the previous cases, hence the seemingly out of left field damages awarded.

Not only are there usually two sides to every story-sometimes there are three sides.

Our legal system is flawed, but what complicated system, designed to attempt to serve multiple consituencies, is not?

So I respectfully suggest that professions not be universally despised without a little consideration of the other point of view. I hope you and I never need to sue anybody for anything, but if we do, I can almost promise that SOMEONE will think our suit frivolous, and it will not be to us!

Again, just my $.02

Ken

 

[Butch103]

is the course worth the money....absolutely and more so with an instructor who is good. I just this past weekend finished succesfully the rescue course....and inif anyone found this a cake walk...well.......you are in phenominal shape with great stamina, or the course was too easy...My instructor had me do the skills at least three times each. That is each skill....this is tough and exhausting...........

As for the good samaritan acts ........hmmmmmmmm....I guess if you got sued you could counter sue for having all the paperwork to fill out, loss of your fun time on the dive, the emotional stress you went thru saving the fools useless ass..............or we can all let the idiots die...........hmmmmmmm......nasty choices to have to make ..

 

[earl]

kwesler: to further derail this thread into soapbox territory, why would you believe anything a trial lawyer (who remember, gets paid out of winnings) tells you WRT the appropriateness of most lawsuits?

To illuminate just one of my experiences, I am a fairly senior karate student. Our teacher pays an ungodly amount of money because someone might get dinged up -- participating in a sport where you practice fighting! It is expensive enough that he has been discouraged from adding classes because there weren't enough students to pay for the increased insurace liability. Obviously, the above is an anecdote. However, it is an example where simply the possibility of a lawsuit and the amount of money that the leeches suck forces people to change their actions in a manner that I consider detrimental. Being a karate teacher is another profession like dive instructor where you certainly don't do it for the money. And remember: it doesn't matter if the lawsuit is right or wrong; from experience, it costs 10-15 thousand dollars minimum.

You can see it when I talk to my scuba instructor and hear his insurance went from 400 odd dollars to 650 odd dollars between last year and this year. He doesn't make much money as an instructor; here is yet another prod for him to find a field that actually is willing to compensate him for his expertise.

And finally, on to the company I work for. Without going into too many specifics, we are a bioscience company involved with genetics and sequencing. We have an excellent product, yet we are a small company competing with a very large (market cap >3B) company. The larger company sued us to help damage our superior product; the suit has dragged on for FIVE YEARS; that is the entire game. We will win in court; we are 100% correct, and the US attorney's office is becoming involved in one aspect of the case. Nonetheless, they are essentially paying $5 million a year to heavily damage our product and do a pretty good job of keeping us out of the marketplace; this is more than made up for by their increased sales. We, on the other hand, are a small company paying $3M a year in legal fees -- a very large amount of our annual operating budget.

-earl-

 

[kwesler]

as I said-I have suffered them myself. I am not going from what anyone said-I have read the public records out of curiosity.

Insurance premiums have little to do with legal actions-that is an excuse the insurance community uses. It has to do with the fact that they are publicly traded companies, who feel a need to increase shareholder value. When the economy went south, their holdings did too. Their shareholders do not care to hear about economic reality. What does the insurance company do? Raise rates! Our premiums went up 70% last year!

Look-I cannot believe I am in the position of defending lawyers! My point is, to condemn the entire profession, in the public forum of this board, is IMHO, just an easy out. "I had a bad experience with a lawyer=all lawyers are 'scumbags'"

Would you give up diving because a reg failed on you? If one fails, or even 1,000 fail, then clearly they are all not to be trusted!

The same kind of lack of careful thought that leads to stupid lawsuits and endless trials.

 

[earl]

Actually, they were losing money all along strictly based on their premiums to payout ratios. The difference was they could make up the difference and turn a profit by speculating on the market. When the stock market went to hell, well, they adjusted the insurance rates to mirror the real costs of the insurance. And my problem with it stems from this: several dollars of the fees I pay every weekend go to protect the dive charters from morons. That is money out of my pocket.

And the reason I am comfortable blaming all lawyers is the lack of a concerted call from within the profession to do what they can to change the situation -- particularly given the control the Bar has over lawyers.

-earl-

 

[nk5]

What does the course cover? Can anybody give me an overview...:around:

 

[earl]

http://www.padi.com/courses/rec/rescue.asp

-earl-

 

[Stone]

The PADI "End of Chapter Knowledge Review Questions" for the Rescue Diver course can be downloaded in Word Format by clicking on my URL below and following the "Dive Documents" link. Reading the questions might give a person better insight as to what they can expect to learn in the course.

The "book learning" is nearly 100% the responsibility of the student, but, as stated in previous posts, the skills practiced and the number of repetitions of each skill is the responsibility of the instructor. . . and can make or break the class.

 

[ebbtide]

YUP

I would have to say so.
the monie issue well thats annother story and thred.
ive recently taken my rescue and found it to be most rewarding and challenging .
but as with anything that you do , you get out what you put into it . witch is the biggest thing that you have to take in account.
for some people monie isnt a concern (and ide like for thoes of you that feal that way to send me some) .
as with any thing that you do if you put your 100 % into it thats what you are going to recieve . if you only do something half hartedly you wont get mutch back or may expect too mutch in return.

 

[NudiBoop]

Well. Despite the hard swerve into Good Samaritan legal exposure, I think the virtually unanimous consensus on Rescue Diver is a first for my experience on SB. Thanks for the input, folks. Class scheduled.