Suit filed in case of "Girl dead, boy injured at Glacier National Park

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

The suit says it's a SP Glide. It has lots of zippered pockets, including the ditchable weight pockets.
Right you are:

191. Linnea was wearing a Scubapro Glide BCD, which was rented to her by the Gull Dive Defendants. The BCD had 29.2 lbs. of lift. The Glide BCD holds 20 lbs. of weights in two pockets secured by buckles on either side of the diver’s abdomen, plus two additional pockets for one small weight each on the back of the BCD. The user manual for this BCD states: “WARNING - practice fastening and releasing the weight pockets several times before diving.

https://scubapro.johnsonoutdoors.com/bcds/bcds/glide-bcd

1100602_primary.jpg

Easy to stuff weights in the pockets. I can't tell from the picture from the lawsuit if there are weights buckled in or not.
 
Two possibilities spring to mind:
1) simple ignorance/unfamiliarity with the equipment leading to putting the weights in the wrong place. I've seen it; I had an instabuddy on a boat once with a rental BC similar to that one who just didn't realize he was supposed to put the weights in the pouches, not the pockets.
2) malfunctioning/incomplete equipment. I saw that too: a student in a course with another rental BC like that. The clip on one weight pouch broke, so the instructor stuffed half the weights into her BC pocket instead.
 
Dive outlets only hire the bold and the beautiful to train novice divers. Didn't read whether any buddy checks were performed. Taking an advanced course with so little experience can be hazardous. I recently castigated a dive shop owner for not following procedures, and was banned from further entry for doing so. It's an ego thing. Sometimes your instinct is telling you this is all wrong but arrogant instructors will override the student's concern.
 
it reads as a terrible list of compounding issues brewing into a calamity - and reading it in black and white only seems to magnify them. I wonder if we had somebody analyse our 'bad hair days' from a legal viewpoint how remiss we would appear. I know i had a bad day a few days ago and had series of compounding issues that led me to call the dive after 30 min as i realised that if my buddy got into trouble i had very little left to help him. Later i considered had it all gone wrong how bad it would read in the cold light of day, little things that seemed insignificant that just add together with other little things that eventually tip over.
 
Two possibilities spring to mind:
1) simple ignorance/unfamiliarity with the equipment leading to putting the weights in the wrong place.
[snipped]
2) malfunctioning/incomplete equipment.

This boils down to an instructor who was too eager to get one dive in before dark to follow any of the most basic dive safety protocols. This operation needs its ass handed to it and spanked so bad nobody will ever be so lax again.
 
This boils down to an instructor who was too eager to get one dive in before dark to follow any of the most basic dive safety protocols. This operation needs its ass handed to it and spanked so bad nobody will ever be so lax again.
i skimmed the report somewhat but what level of experience did the other divers have ? i would have thought as a min the deceased should have been carefully watched considering her lack of cold water dive time
 
i skimmed the report somewhat but what level of experience did the other divers have ? i would have thought as a min the deceased should have been carefully watched considering her lack of cold water dive time
69. At the time she enrolled in the Advanced Open Water scuba diving training course, Linnea had participated in only five open water scuba dives in her lifetime: four dives in North Carolina in July 2017 to obtain her PADI Open Complaint and Demand for Jury Trial 17 Water diver certification, and one dive on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 2018. Each of these scuba dives was made in warm, shallow water (65 feet or less), at sea level, for a maximum duration of approximately 25-30 minutes. None of these dives had involved diving in a dry suit.
 
Make no mistake, this situation makes me angrier every time I think about it, usually when I realize there's yet another layer of bad practice that hadn't occurred to me before.

You summed up my thoughts precisely. This young lady needed to be in a remedial class, and get her diving sorted out before any new training took place. I don't understand what the instructor was thinking.
 
69. At the time she enrolled in the Advanced Open Water scuba diving training course, Linnea had participated in only five open water scuba dives in her lifetime: four dives in North Carolina in July 2017 to obtain her PADI Open Complaint and Demand for Jury Trial 17 Water diver certification, and one dive on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 2018. Each of these scuba dives was made in warm, shallow water (65 feet or less), at sea level, for a maximum duration of approximately 25-30 minutes. None of these dives had involved diving in a dry suit.
i read that bit i- was referring to the other divers on the course
 
i read that bit i- was referring to the other divers on the course
Ah, sorry. Did another scan. I don't think that they say, other than they were students. It doesn't really matter, as they were students, not the one dive pro (the instructor). The shop employee assisting was not qualified to do so (not a Certified Assistant).
 

Back
Top Bottom