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

[Subfiend]

I gave advice about what to do after an accident in an Article I wrote in 2014.

I wrote another Article about preserving dive computers and their data in 2007.

 

[tursiops]

if there's a problem with standards, they want to change them

As they just did for drysuits used in training.

 

[Omisson]

Looks like it to me.

Seems odd, why would the defendants want to settle one at a time? Maybe the family figures including the minor child won't really affect the larger settlement and want to keep the minor out of it?

If cash was exchanged, I wonder who paid and why? Maybe insurance companies since it was cheaper to simplify the case?

I don't think we'll ever really know.

Generally, unless the suit has a verdict beyond the policy limits- insurance companies are the primary source of settlement funds- its why "nuisance value" exists in tort litigation. Here there would be E&O and Liability insurance from multiple sources, PADI, the Dive Shop, and the Instructor.

 

[Omisson]

I'm not a lawyer, and have no more insight than y'all, but:

The Plaintiffs are L. SCOTT MILLS, Individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of LINNEA MILLS; ROBERT GENTRY; SHANNON GENTRY; E.G., a Minor, by her Mother and Next Friend, Shannon Gentry; and JOEL WILSON

And the defendants are DEBBIE SNOW; GULL SCUBA CENTER, LLC d/b/a GULL DIVE CENTER; HEIDI HOUCK; PADI WORLDWIDE CORPORATION; PADI AMERICAS, INC.; and JOHN DOES 1-10,

That means everyone signed. SHANNON GENTRY signed for E.G., because E.G. is a minor. Shannon Gentry is a plaintiff.

Correct. This suit is completely settled, with prejudice- as to all parties.

 

[Omisson]

4 to 1 on dives deeper than 60ft?
How many hands does an instructor have to get a hold of divers who have a problem?
You get a diver who starts a rapid ascent. You reach for him and if using proper buddy procedures and supervision distance you can maybe grab the buddy and use them also to help slow the ascent. Or you can immediately signal the buddy and have both in sight.
But the others are now not being supervised because the instructor is too occupied with the one having an issue.
One of them starts to get freaked by this and takes off.
Another possible fatality because greed trumps common sense.
Two to one is better.
And 6 to 1 in the first two atmospheres where the most risk of overexpansion is present.
Un freaking believable.

As you are well aware, the Advanced Open Water course is taught to students who are already CERTIFIED to dive. Therefore a baseline of skill is presumed. If you can take 4 Open Water students into open water to certify them, then 4 Advanced students is a perfectly reasonable number. Moreover, if one develops a problem the other 3 divers are capable of being at depth WITHOUT an instructor, as they are all "buddied up" with each other and ARE ALREADY CERTFIED DIVERS.

Now you are just being contrarian for its own sake.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

As you are well aware, the Advanced Open Water course is taught to students who are already CERTIFIED to dive. Therefore a baseline of skill is presumed.

Do you really make that presumption if you haven't seen them in the water and don't know the quality of their training?

I had someone come to me for AOW, he was rototilling the bottom with his knees, actually bumped into a harbor seal laying on the bottom. I stopped the dive and referred him to another instrutructor at the shop, as I had never seen something so egregious, though one of the instructors at the same shop was famous for producing open water divers who do this.

 

[Wookie]

Do you really make that presumption if you haven't seen them in the water and don't know the quality of their training?

I had someone come to me for AOW, he was rototilling the bottom with his knees, actually bumped into a harbor seal laying on the bottom. I stopped the dive and referred him to another instrutructor at the shop, as I had never seen something so egregious, though one of the instructors at the same shop was famous for producing open water divers who do this.

I remember my CD heartily encouraging us to perform a skills test for any customer coming to take an advanced or rescue class, or specialty.

Part of that was charging them $25 to go diving with them, but the rest was to assess their diving skills. Someone rototilling or harming sea life isn't ready for Advanced, they need a Peak Performance Buoyancy class. Or something. I'm not trying to get you to upsell, I'm trying to add skills assessment and needed remediation to their tool kit.

We all talk about every other instructor and how they suck, and we are all studs who make perfectly buoyant students who love to dive. Here's the chance to take a student with sucky skills and make them life long divers, but not by passing them along.

 

[Omisson]

An investigator sent to Montana by PADI’s insurer and/or an attorney who regularly works for PADI and PADI IDCs (and who was already representing Gull) collected the computers worn by Snow, Liston and Linnea in November 2020 and brought them to the attorney in California. Then, in early January 2021, the computers were downloaded by Christian McDonald at Scripps and the profiles were given to the attorney.

None of this information was provided to the ISB investigators.

In fact, none of this was revealed until July 2022, even though the production of the computers had been requested by the plaintiffs for many, many months. Additionally, the dive computers were not brought to the equipment inspection conducted by all parties and their experts at Glacier National Park on August 4, 2022. The profiles of the fatal dive were produced, but not the profiles of the earlier dives. We were never given the computers to download.

Not to split hairs, but- if the ISB investigators immediately AFTER the incident did not request the computers, then they remained the property of the dive shop, which owned them, no? You call it "Linnea's" computer- but it wasn't, was it? Wasn't it a rental from the dive shop- it was the Dive Shop's computer that Mills rented, right?

Therefore, if the owner (the dive shop) voluntarily surrendered the computers THEY OWNED to the PADI investigators, who then began analysis - what issue is there?

Until you sued civilly and Discovery was ordered, AND you demanded them, or a criminal investigation subpoenaed them, what exactly is the legal issue in what happened from a "chain of custody" perspective? As far as I can tell, there is none.

They (PADI) safeguarded potential evidence, via counsel, did not destroy it, and engaged in their own investigation with voluntarily acquired dive computers directly from the owner (the diveshop) of those computers, after criminal investigators passed on taking them.

Or are the facts something else?

 

[Omisson]

Do you really make that presumption if you haven't seen them in the water and don't know the quality of their training?

I had someone come to me for AOW, he was rototilling the bottom with his knees, actually bumped into a harbor seal laying on the bottom. I stopped the dive and referred him to another instrutructor at the shop, as I had never seen something so egregious, though one of the instructors at the same shop was famous for producing open water divers who do this.

Again- you are bootstrapping the argument and creating a strawman. The issue isn't whether there are bad instructors and students who took their courses. The question is whether someone who is a certified diver can be presumed to know baseline diving as a general rule.

If I am a boat operator, do you want me to pool test divers with a certification BEFORE letting them on the boat - even though they have a certification? Really?

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I remember my CD heartily encouraging us to perform a skills test for any customer coming to take an advanced or rescue class, or specialty.

Yup. Wish I had been given that same advice.

Part of that was charging them $25 to go diving with them, but the rest was to assess their diving skills. Someone rototilling or harming sea life isn't ready for Advanced, they need a Peak Performance Buoyancy class. Or something. I'm not trying to get you to upsell, I'm trying to add skills assessment and needed remediation to their tool kit.

We all talk about every other instructor and how they suck, and we are all studs who make perfectly buoyant students who love to dive. Here's the chance to take a student with sucky skills and make them life long divers, but not by passing them along.

Well, in this case, I was that sucky instructor, though I will say my students were not quite as bad, though they did sometimes crater/cork as they were overweighted - the method we were taught to weight them actually resulted in 5 lbs overweighting - not the end of the world, but it is an impediment.

Agreed on the PPB course as that course is designed for addressing poor open water courses.

Honestly, I shouldn't have been allowed to teach, but I met standards and the bar was know, and I may have been the president of the Dunning-Kruger Club. No one knows who the president is, not even the president himself/herself!