Training Scuba Ranch TX Diving Accident

[ROUS]

I've dived a couple of times at SR. The last time I swore to never do it again.

My heart breaks for this family.

 

[okrunner]

Could you explain why you believe that? Who is conducting the investigation? When and how will they release a report? How do we know it will be accurate? I suspect your confidence might be misplaced.

I've been diving for decades now and seen a lot of news stories about incidents. In the majority of cases the only official report that ever gets issued is a vague coroner's report that essentially just states the cause of death was accidental drowning with no real analysis of the root cause. Those coroner's reports are often written by investigators with zero knowledge of diving and usually not even released to the public in an easily accessible way. So they're not actionable and the diving community learns nothing to improve safety. The training agencies usually brush things under the rug and either do nothing, or if they take any disciplinary action or settle a liability lawsuit the details are kept secret. So we have only rumors and hearsay.

DAN has done some good work with their Annual Diving Reports (although those have fallen off in recent years). But the reports only cover a fraction of incidents in any detail, and DAN even states that they were unable to find primary source details on many fatalities.

Perfectly stated. The truth is, no report will be released. Law enforcement simply do not, for good reason, and especially when a minor is involved, release a report. And, as pointed out below, they are simply determining if some crime was committed not viewing it from the perspective of violations of protocols/rules. As an example, two years ago shortly after I dove the Vandenburg off Key West, an instructor/dm died off a diving boat three days after I had dove the Vandy. There was wild speculation but relevant facts were never discussed here on Scubaboard as there was and continues to be a hush hush mentality. "Let's not talk about this and speculate, etc." I just dove the Vandy again and asked the DM on the boat I used about the incident. Guess what, lots of information that was never shared publicly or on Scubaboard that would be highly relevant to anyone using said dive shop of the deceased. Of course, no report was ever released and his body was never found. For instance, according to the DM, the dive shop hired this guy and he was known to have PTSD and severe alcohol issues. He went in alone to tie off the bouy and the boat crew threw a steel tank into him to set below the boat. One of two things occurred, either they hit him in the head with the bottle and he drowned or the bottle sank to the bottom and he went after it in 150+ feet of water. Either way, who would want to dive with these ***clowns. So, no, no report will be released and people should absolutely be talking about each and everyone of these problems.

 

[Nick_Radov]

I just heard from one of the paramedic that was investigating the issue that shocked the f out of me.

Are you certain it was a paramedic doing the investigating? Usually paramedics act as first responders. They aren't trained to do investigations.

 

[texfox98]

Are you certain it was a paramedic doing the investigating? Usually paramedics act as first responders. They aren't trained to do investigations.

Yeah that verbiage is confusing to me too. Maybe he means that the paramedic was there during the recovery and initial investigation and had access to details.

 

[John the Pom]

[...] so I'm more of a stick than carrot guy at this point.

If you punish a child for being naughty, and reward them for being good, then you are training them to do the right thing for a reward. But in the outside world, good behaviour frequently goes unrewarded and bad behaviour is not always punished - so a person raised that way may learn to act according to what is to their greater advantage, rather than being guided by a moral sense or conscience to do the right thing.

So it is with training - especially safety. Safety is all about the culture of an organisation, i.e., people doing the right thing because they work in an environment where that's the norm, and they understand why it is important and how devastating accidents can be to the lives of people, their families, and society in general - not because they are scared they'll be caught out and punished.

 

[HiddenDiver]

Yeah that verbiage is confusing to me too. Maybe he means that the paramedic was there during the recovery and initial investigation and had access to details.

Yea..it's really the verbiage there. Obviously, the paramedic isn't doing the investigation and I'm not a lawyer that focuses on the words and details on how to type things out.

With that said...

I will share what I heard. Take it with a grain of salt because you're getting it from third hand source. I'm sure the proper authorities will conduct their own research and I haven't done fact checks on any of these. I took it at face value and some things don't completely add up either. Let it flow into one ear and out the other.

I heard that Scuba Toys have tendencies to hire freelance instructors to teach their classes. Not saying that hiring freelance instructors are bad. But I would feel that having in-house instructors doing most or all the instructions would carry different weight. But that's just me. However, I do know that most tech instructors are freelance.

Apparently, the girl complained about how some of the equipments didn't fit her well while in the pool. Instructor didn't take serious consideration to swap out equipments for something that fits better. Specifically, her fins would fall off with little effort. I get that she's 12, but equipments should fit people well.
What I don't know is why her fins would not fit well. Generally, I know shops would require basic equipments to be bought, like mask, snorkel, fins. But this was something she complained about, I was told.

Here's where story gets a bit muddy. I was told that they lost her on the initial descent. Obviously, accountability wasn't there to ensure everyone made it to their designated area. Why I feel this is a bit muddy is because when rescue efforts were underway, the frantic person that was driving around asking for help told me that she was last seen with 1050PSI. This doesn't quite add up. How did they know her pressure when they lost her on the first descent? Maybe they did account for her and lost her later? maybe lost her on subsequent descent, where they asked her for her pressure before descending?

I was also told that sense of urgency wasn't there by Scuba Toys when they realized that she wasn't with the group. They disregarded it as not a big deal and kept going with their usual business. After some time have passed, they did report the missing girl, but even then, they weren't really too concerned. Obviously, as more and more time clicked by, that's when things seemed more real and that's when they were expressing concerns.

With all that said, don't take what I wrote as gospel. What I wrote may not all be factual. But from what I have heard about Scuba Toys by others (not related to this incident), I can connect some dots and feel like there are some amount of legitimacy to the story and how things could have ended much differently.

My heart really breaks for the girl. She had her whole life in front of her. God took her too early.
As a father, more I learn about this incident, it really angers me.
God bless their family.

 

[ScubaMeegs]

Preface. I am in the area, very familiar with Scuba Ranch and I do not know any details beyond just basic about what happened.

But... there has been some times where the visibility has been so bad at the Ranch I just can't imagine having divers on their first open water there. I can't imagine having myself and one diver there, I can't imagine having a group of first time open water divers with me. Honestly, gives me bad dreams thinking of it.

I did my open water there back in 2018 or so in a rain storm. We finished just before the lightning came

Preface. I am in the area, very familiar with Scuba Ranch and I do not know any details beyond just basic about what happened.

But... there has been some times where the visibility has been so bad at the Ranch I just can't imagine having divers on their first open water there. I can't imagine having myself and one diver there, I can't imagine having a group of first time open water divers with me. Honestly, gives me bad dreams thinking of it.

I completed my open water dives there. Day 1 was okay..maybe 10 ft visibility. But it was fun. I could see the instructors and they never took their eyes off of us. Day 2 was a little rough. It was storming and started pouring on the last dive. Visibility was basically zero.The dive shop I used seemed to be very safety conscious and took good care of us.

 

[cerich]

I'm arguing against cherry-picking a single factor and hanging everything on that. Low visibility is not zero visibility and is only a problem when not mitigated against and allows the situation to spiral out of control. People who are mitigating against it, and there are plenty of options, are not creating a dangerous situation which is what is being implied.

The risk is: I cannot supervise all my students.

Can I cut the student numbers to suit what I can see? Can I plant a divemaster somewhere that he can provide additional supervision? Can I move the training to another part of the site where there is nowhere for a student to drift off to or has a better bottom? Is it more appropriate to defer this to another day?

These are all perfectly reasonable mitigations. If those mitigations are appropriate in the circumstances then that does not make you a bad instructor and certainly not a dangerous one. The comparisons being made to instrument flying and skiing double black diamonds are ridiculously silly.






.

What agency standards allow your perfectly reasonable mitigation when we are talking an open water course?

Sounds like your mitigation is a standards violation to me as an instructor on most of the open water course has to be directly supervising, which means has to see the student at all times and be in a position to intervene.

Only guided portions of some dives may be done by a dive master.

 

[alv0065]

Yea..it's really the verbiage there. Obviously, the paramedic isn't doing the investigation and I'm not a lawyer that focuses on the words and details on how to type things out.

With that said...

I will share what I heard. Take it with a grain of salt because you're getting it from third hand source. I'm sure the proper authorities will conduct their own research and I haven't done fact checks on any of these. I took it at face value and some things don't completely add up either. Let it flow into one ear and out the other.

I heard that Scuba Toys have tendencies to hire freelance instructors to teach their classes. Not saying that hiring freelance instructors are bad. But I would feel that having in-house instructors doing most or all the instructions would carry different weight. But that's just me. However, I do know that most tech instructors are freelance.

Apparently, the girl complained about how some of the equipments didn't fit her well while in the pool. Instructor didn't take serious consideration to swap out equipments for something that fits better. Specifically, her fins would fall off with little effort. I get that she's 12, but equipments should fit people well.
What I don't know is why her fins would not fit well. Generally, I know shops would require basic equipments to be bought, like mask, snorkel, fins. But this was something she complained about, I was told.

Here's where story gets a bit muddy. I was told that they lost her on the initial descent. Obviously, accountability wasn't there to ensure everyone made it to their designated area. Why I feel this is a bit muddy is because when rescue efforts were underway, the frantic person that was driving around asking for help told me that she was last seen with 1050PSI. This doesn't quite add up. How did they know her pressure when they lost her on the first descent? Maybe they did account for her and lost her later? maybe lost her on subsequent descent, where they asked her for her pressure before descending?

I was also told that sense of urgency wasn't there by Scuba Toys when they realized that she wasn't with the group. They disregarded it as not a big deal and kept going with their usual business. After some time have passed, they did report the missing girl, but even then, they weren't really too concerned. Obviously, as more and more time clicked by, that's when things seemed more real and that's when they were expressing concerns.

With all that said, don't take what I wrote as gospel. What I wrote may not all be factual. But from what I have heard about Scuba Toys by others (not related to this incident), I can connect some dots and feel like there are some amount of legitimacy to the story and how things could have ended much differently.

My heart really breaks for the girl. She had her whole life in front of her. God took her too early.
As a father, more I learn about this incident, it really angers me.
God bless their family.

Considering Scuba Toys has been scrubbed from Scuba Ranch, and Scuba Toys has scrubbed all classes from their schedule... This may not be far off base.

 

[lizardland]

What agency standards allow your perfectly reasonable mitigation when we are talking an open water course?

Sounds like your mitigation is a standards violation to me as an instructor on most of the open water course has to be directly supervising, which means has to see the student at all times and be in a position to intervene.

Only guided portions of some dives may be done by a dive master.

In what way is it a standards violation? Or do you just want an argument?

I gave examples of possible mitigations, I did not give recommendations. You may have missed the part where I said "additional supervision" when you were inventing the strawman of a divemaster doing everything while the instructor bumbles around blind. Possibly you also missed the part where I said "Can I...?" when you were getting on your soapbox. Or reducing student nmbers to the point where an instructor can see everything. But don't let reading get in the way of having a whine.

It sounds like you don't really understand risk assessments. An RA is not the same as a general operating procedure. An RA is worthless if it is treated as something you just get down off the shelf and randomly pick a response with no thought. It needs to be done each and every time a diving activity is planned or it is pointless. As such, you need to come up with a set of mitigations that can be justified every time. Alternatively you either accept or avoid the risk. This is very basic risk management done in every single industry that takes itself remotely seriously. But the recreational dive industry is not a serious industry, it's a minimum wage pyramid scheme with the added bonus of everyone at the top playing litigation dodgeball wth everyone at the bottom for extra excitement.

In the UK, all diving for reward, whether that is saturation diving offshore or teaching open water students, is governed by the Diving at Work Regulations. One of the foundations of DAWR is that a risk assessment must be done and recorded for every diving activity and environmental considerations are a mandatory part of that RA. There is an additional code of practice for recreational diving that explains how dive instructors can demonstrate that they have met their legal obligations under DAWR. Inshore, we generally have low visibility year round around most of the coast (at least most of the populated coast). Going by the latest figures from BSAC accident analysis, there is not one single fatality involving a trainee in low visibility. That would suggest to me that training divers in fairly ****** water isn't something to be clutching your pearls over if appropriate safe diving procedures are adopted. Bad visibility doesn't kill people, bad decision making does.