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

[cerich]

No it isn't. It's the place to:

"This is the place to discuss court cases and legal matters that affect the SCUBA industry."

a discussion of ratios in instruction is something that affects how litigation in the dive industry occurs IMHO.
Standards, RSTC/ISO/Agency/Employer are something that comes up, and will be used to defend or prosecute even if the standard may not be your agency etc.
How agencies define stuff like confined water, open water, supervision , and more are all things that both sides will try and shape in court one way or another, and hire SME's to do so.
If this becomes simply "they broke standards so they are guilty" or they didn't break standards it must be the divers fault, then the purpose of discussing it is pretty lame.

Ultimately, discussions in here help shape how instructors teach, expose them to things they may not have considered. That will help dive safety.
Like the heart attack thing that Omission throw out above, it's correct stats wise. What he omitted (Love ya brother), and may not have considered is how many medical forms may have been filled out in a formal course that the student indicated something that the instructor didn't notice and didn't require a medical that had they noticed would have done so by standards (happens), how many the student may have lied on (it happens) and finally how many fill out a second form when the instructor notices something and says "you mark that you need a medical and will have to join the next class because we are starting too soon for you to get one" (it happens). The first two can be somewhat quantified the last virtually impossible. So possibly some of the heart attack numbers do rightfully belong under the heading of systemic failure somewhere on the industry side, most likely aren't and just happened with no games being played anywhere by anyone.
regardless, the fact is the recreational accident rate is within margin of error unchanged for like 4 decades plus. Gear has gotten vastly better and many, many things on gear side introduced that should have increased safety. Classes have changed. IMHO we "should" have much better accident rates than we do, why we don't concerns me. It doesn't concern others because they feel (maybe with a valid point) that diving is known risky and the rate is still better than other risky activities. We see more type 2 dcs hits now and in table days it was more type 1 hits in recreational diving. It's easy to understand why but the amount of people getting bent per 100000 dives is pretty much the same for stats. The resolution of those hits medically are not pretty much the same. Using one stat without the other is marketing not research , again IMHO.
In CCR (and those stupid FF snorkel masks) we are seeing the return of more IPE like we saw in the 60's-70's. Again the reason is easy to understand but still the numbers are so small, will the needle get budged in overall accident stats? Not so much.
All of this crap eventually sees the inside of a courtroom, so all of it relates tangentially to litigation.

 

[chillyinCanada]

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[cerich]

OK.
Now that I made a case for discussing ratio's as it relates to ratio's and litigation...
I am going to talk THIS case and where the industry, specifically something that I was first introduced to when doing my PADI instructor Cross Over in 1997, during which I was a NAUI Instructor Trainer. This was introduced by my PADI Course Director in great detail and he called it the "Concurrent Training Model". Up front, it makes sense and money for an instructor, and is REALLY profitable for a IT or CD. I employed it for ages, and indeed have taught my instructor students it and have encouraged shops to examine and implement it when doing consulting. My term for it was "The 3 Ring circus" and make no mistake, it's profitable but it's also a technique that if not done well, with great discernment and common sense by the instructor doing it can be a recipe for disaster. This case in this thread is actually an example of how a relatively benign attempted implementation by a poor instructor killed someone.
PADI has blogged about it and written it into their Guide to Teaching. There they refer to it as the Multi-Level Dive Training.

The magic of Multi Level Dive Training
Basically, it's where you know and use the standards, specifically the degree of supervision required by the instructor of various level courses to get the most people in the water doing the most different classes at the same time. Do this right and instead of making a hundred bucks a day and you can make a grand a day as a dive instructor. I have done it. It also GREATLY increases how many divers take cont education and that is well explained in consumer behaviour and psychology for any of us that have a business degree.
It's truly a 3 ring circus, with the instructor as the ringmaster

Now, I have admitted I have done this, and have taught and encouraged it. How about I admit now that that was horribly naïve of me? How about I say that maybe, just maybe it was borderline negligent of me? Because I think it was now. The whole darn thing is predicated on the stars aligning and nothing happening. It stretches the standards to the point that the instructor is in no position to respond appropriately to anything more than what is immediately in front of them, and ignores the simple truth that every accident(s) are normally a chain of events that lead to a snowball effect. Have I personally caught, mitigated and arrested problems while doing this circus? You bet I have, and how much of that was skill and experience and how much of that was luck is REALLY hard to say. At one point when younger, doing 800 dives a year teaching every day I would have been very confident it was my skills and experience. That is behind me now and I am pretty sure it was my ego and delusional.
I see in this thread, many good instructors that by their comments have bought in on the mindset that certified divers don't need as much supervision in a class, I get it. I did. Not only did I really believe it, but the use of the techniques of concurrent training actually is a big part of making it possible for me to have a near 30 year career in the dive industry, because money. I can tell you that i have read many accident reports of courses where there was concurrent training happening, and while not given as the direct cause because standards were followed, some of them obviously would not have occurred had there been a more focused level of supervision of the certified student doing cont education or the instructor not as bandwidth limited with the circus occurring who likely would have reconsidered, caught, and mitigated issues early in equipment, environment or execution of planned dives.
People pay us to teach them, but also for our attention so they are safe in learning. We (as a general statement regards industry) have taken a "you're certified and responsible for your own safety" approach, there is a SERIOUS disconnect and friction here, one that we are loath to confront. We want the protection from liability of having that stance, even as we are getting paid to keep them safe from the perspective of our students. We all know that, and too many have no intention of delivering that and will argue we were paid to let them try new things with some instruction from us..because they are a certified diver. The "the boat is only a taxi" mentality in the dive industry is a offshoot of this mindset in the industry, and completely wrong and at odds with martime law. But the dive industry stubbornly clings to it because in some things they are the honey badger, and the honey badger doesn't care because it needs to survive in a harsh environment. the dive industry is a harsh environment to make money in...just saying.
There is a place for concurrent model, in particular with training leadership, in fact it is a very valuable and needed tool there with divemaster/AI and Instructor students to gain experience with real divers and students under the guidance and mentoring of an experienced instructor/IT/CD. Funny enough, that has almost gone away with the zero to hero leadership training model that is also very profitable.. For diver level training.. I wish we could just charge enough that we could not do it, it introduces more chance of incidents and accidents. It's distracted instruction at best.

If as instructors the best interests of our students and their safety was paramount, we wouldn't be. If as instructors we are there to make money, don't stop the carnival



Meanwhile, make no mistake, a NEW instructor HAS NO BUSINESS trying to do this model. ANY instructor has NO BUSINESS trying to do this model in anything but the very best of environmental conditions, and for the sake of our students, know when to reign yourself in. I have had over 20 students of mine in the water at a given time doing up to a half dozen different classes, I was a moron.

 

[formernuke]

When I was doing my msdt prep there were 5 of us each doing different specialty. The course just pointed and said you there etc. One of them didn't have the required gear for his. But the shop got the money and we got our instructor certs for those specialtys. Don't even get me started on self certification.

 

[cerich]

When I was doing my msdt prep there were 5 of us each doing different specialty. The course just pointed and said you there etc. One of them didn't have the required gear for his. But the shop got the money and we got our instructor certs for those specialtys. Don't even get me started on self certification.

yeah, but we don't talk about that because then we plan to make money teaching what we have no business teaching. Admitting it makes us less marketable and who does that? We have a conspiracy of silence based in self interest around the disparity between how we present the "dive professional" and the reality.
I had one instr, that posts here a LOT, that is a VERY loud voice for a certain agency one tell me straight up in a DM that he defends it because as an instructor for that agency he will not make as much money if people read comments here that are critical of the agency and their offerings. He did not GAF if the criticisms were true or not, he viewed it as in his best self interests to vigorously defend the agency and attack those who were critical. He is a very smart person, and is quite accomplished at it honestly. Ethics? Yeah, he and i aren't on the same page at all.

 

[Angelo Farina]

@cerich, I agree with your conclusions.
The fact that despite the improvement in equipment and safety procedures the statistics on accidents did not improve in the last 40 years can be explained by your conclusion on how scuba teaching has evolved, with those many "specialty" classes, often done concurrently, and with instructors and shops organising courses for profit.
When I started diving, in the seventies, scuba training was done exclusively by no-profit clubs here in Italy, the instructors were not-paid volunteers and the first OW course was 6-9 months long.
The first 3 months was free diving...
Then other months with the ARO (CC rebreather) and finally a nice twin tank of air.
There were no specialty: but there were three "degrees", to be followed one per year.
So certifying a full recreational diver did take at least three years.
Not-paid instructors were not motivated to passing students with sub-par knowledge or "aquaticity".
So, at each of the three degrees, the percentage of students being certified was less than 30%.
The fully certified 3rd-degree divers were allowed to a max depth of 50m, in air, with deco stops, and using pure oxygen during deco (possibly using an ARO for it). There was no nitrox, just air or pure oxygen.
Such super-trained divers were not far from what nowadays is considered a tech diver.
So, even if the equipment was crap (no computer, no BCD, no SPG, we used US Navy deco tables, horrible regulators, crap exposure suits, inefficient fins, etc.) the number of deadly accidents was small, as skills made up for those adverse factors.
Everything changed in 1980, when PADI arrived here, promoting for-profit courses organised by shops.
Fracturing a 6-9 months course offered for a very cheap price by a not-profit club in a dozen of short courses, costing in total 10 times more and providing full recreational certification in a few weekends (zero to hero), if wanted, or diluted in time in an almost permanent relationship hooking the customer to a shop, which also profits in selling and servicing equipment.
The success rate in these commercial courses skyrocketed by less than 30% to almost 99%, as Padi was advertising that "everyone can become a diver".
Free diving training was removed, ARO training too, the BCD was introduced for fixing the lack of buoyancy control of unskilled divers, and generally new, upgraded equipment was introduced as a replacement of months of training.
I must admit that, after 5 years as a volunteer instructor in my club, in 1985 I switched to this "pro" world, working for 5 further years as a for-profit instructor in holiday resorts (Favignana and Maldives).
But after a couple of accidents happened to my students I ubderstood how this approach was wrong.
So, both I and my wife (also an instructor) stopped professional teaching. We made sons and did teach only to them, of course with the old-style didactical approach. It did take several years to bring them to a decent recreational level. Almost 10 years, as they did have their first contact with diving around 18 months and continued very slowly their training until 12 y.o., when they were certified AOW.
In conclusion I agree that the current state of training for divers has degraded significantly. This model of for-profit instructors working for shops creates a number of conflicts of interest.
Money is driving most of the choices and this often impacts on safety.
Albeit the number of accidents occurring during training is still remarkably low, we are not creating safe, self-reliant divers, with the proper "aquatic" mentality.
We are certifying many people which could never had been certified even at the first OW level with our traditional not-for-profit method.
We provide super-advanced equipment for allowing to dive people who cannot swim down to 5 meters in free body to 15 meters with fins and mask, which were mandatory skills in our old club-based courses.
I think it is time to modify the current for-profit approach, retrieving at least partially the old approach.
But while profitability is the criterion driving the choices, this is going to be hard...

 

[cerich]

@cerich, I agree with your conclusions.
The fact that despite the improvement in equipment and safety procedures the statistics on accidents did not improve in the last 40 years can be explained by your conclusion on how scuba teaching has evolved, with those many "specialty" classes, often done concurrently, and with instructors and shops organising courses for profit.
When I started diving, in the seventies, scuba training was done exclusively by no-profit clubs here in Italy, the instructors were not-paid volunteers and the first OW course was 6-9 months long.
The first 3 months was free diving...
Then other months with the ARO (CC rebreather) and finally a nice twin tank of air.
There were no specialty: but there were three "degrees", to be followed one per year.
So certifying a full recreational diver did take at least three years.
Not-paid instructors were not motivated to passing students with sub-par knowledge or "aquaticity".
So, at each of the three degrees, the percentage of students being certified was less than 30%.
The fully certified 3rd-degree divers were allowed to a max depth of 50m, in air, with deco stops, and using pure oxygen during deco (possibly using an ARO for it). There was no nitrox, just air or pure oxygen.
Such super-trained divers were not far from what nowadays is considered a tech diver.
So, even if the equipment was crap (no computer, no BCD, no SPG, we used US Navy deco tables, horrible regulators, crap exposure suits, inefficient fins, etc.) the number of deadly accidents was small, as skills made up for those adverse factors.
Everything changed in 1980, when PADI arrived here, promoting for-profit courses organised by shops.
Fracturing a 6-9 months course offered for a very cheap price by a not-profit club in a dozen of short courses, costing in total 10 times more and providing full recreational certification in a few weekends (zero to hero), if wanted, or diluted in time in an almost permanent relationship hooking the customer to a shop, which also profits in selling and servicing equipment.
The success rate in these commercial courses skyrocketed by less than 30% to almost 99%, as Padi was advertising that "everyone can become a diver".
Free diving training was removed, ARO training too, the BCD was introduced for fixing the lack of buoyancy control of unskilled divers, and generally new, upgraded equipment was introduced as a replacement of months of training.
I must admit that, after 5 years as a volunteer instructor in my club, in 1985 I switched to this "pro" world, working for 5 further years as a for-profit instructor in holiday resorts (Favignana and Maldives).
But after a couple of accidents happened to my students I ubderstood how this approach was wrong.
So, both I and my wife (also an instructor) stopped professional teaching. We made sons and did teach only to them, of course with the old-style didactical approach. It did take several years to bring them to a decent recreational level. Almost 10 years, as they did have their first contact with diving around 18 months and continued very slowly their training until 12 y.o., when they were certified AOW.
In conclusion I agree that the current state of training for divers has degraded significantly. This model of for-profit instructors working for shops creates a number of conflicts of interest.
Money is driving most of the choices and this often impacts on safety.
Albeit the number of accidents occurring during training is still remarkably low, we are not creating safe, self-reliant divers, with the proper "aquatic" mentality.
We are certifying many people which could never had been certified even at the first OW level with our traditional not-for-profit method.
We provide super-advanced equipment for allowing to dive people who cannot swim down to 5 meters in free body to 15 meters with fins and mask, which were mandatory skills in our old club-based courses.
I think it is time to modify the current for-profit approach, retrieving at least partially the old approach.
But while profitability is the criterion driving the choices, this is going to be hard...

sadly, we are just this guy as far as most are concerned.

 

[kammel78]

a discussion of ratios in instruction is something that affects how litigation in the dive industry occurs IMHO.

If this becomes simply "they broke standards so they are guilty" or they didn't break standards it must be the divers fault, then the purpose of discussing it is pretty lame.

Ultimately, discussions in here help shape how instructors teach, expose them to things they may not have considered. That will help dive safety.

All of this crap eventually sees the inside of a courtroom, so all of it relates tangentially to litigation.

Sorry to cherry pick from your post, Chris, but I think you hit the nail on the head.

There's really 4 different arguments, obviously they're not necessarily mutually exclusive and as stated above are all tangentially related to litigation (because...well that's a whole other argument).

1. Discussion on what best practices we as instructors can/should adopt and apply to current standards to provide the best instruction in the safest manner.

2. Discussion on what standards the training agencies can adopt to encourage if not exactly dictate quality instruction in the safest manner.

3. Discussion on what standards the training agencies can adopt to limit their potential liability.

4. Discussion on what standards the training agencies can adopt to maximize their potential revenue.

I don't think anyone here is really interested in #3 & #4 except for how those impact #2. The discussion, assuming #3 & #4 are driving standards at the agency level, really comes down to instructor self-governance.

Unfortunately, I think that's a cultural imperative and not model-driven (though the model can certainly encourage one or the other). When Angelo (and others) mentions the club-based model, I think what's actually different is the culture that was predominant at that time. I don't think the for-profit model will ever go away, but can we have a safety-first, self-governing culture inside that model? I don't know, though Gareth and a host of others here are certainly attempting to drive that. To circle back, having these 100+ pages of discussion about what Snow should've done will hopefully encourage some of us (myself included) to reevaluate how we apply the fairly loose standards the agencies have put in place. Tangentially, conversations on how PADI standards could have encouraged or dictated Snow to make better decisions is also somewhat pertinent, but sadly probably ultimately moot.

 

[Outbound]

@Angelo Farina you bring up some interesting points. I wasn't around (as a diver, at least) in the halcyon days of yore, so I can't comment on the training back then. I have heard stories of it, though, and a few things come to mind. First, the hardcore training of old definitely seemed to have some items/skills in it of dubious value. Second, the physical fitness and mental toughness required for some of the old training acted as a filter of sorts on who decided to pursue dive training in the first place. I'm guessing that students - and thus, ultimately, certified divers - were disproportionately young, fit men. Third, and very much related, is that most students and divers were people who were serious about diving.

Was that the best model? Perhaps in some ways. Perhaps not in others. We need to find a balance between making dive training accessible while also keeping it as safe as possible. To be clear, I'm certainly not arguing that we weaken standards and dumb down the teaching so that anyone can become a diver. In fact, I'm for strengthening standards. But somewhere along that spectrum is the proper balance point. I can't tell you where, exactly, it is though.

The way I see it, one of the major problems is with dive marketing and its downstream impacts on students and dive pros. Because in many ways the marketing is either driving the standards or is at least related to them. Despite what the training agencies - and, let's face it, it's predominantly a PADI thing - want people to believe, no, not everyone can or should become a diver. We don't necessarily need to filter out all but the most hardcore people. But we also need to be realistic about the fact that while rec diving is relatively safe, it comes with the potential for some extreme consequences. It irks me to no end when I see people sign up for OWD certification courses who have no business doing so. I'm talking about people with severe fear of the water, with major anxiety issues, people who cannot swim, etc. We've all seen and dealt with those students. Some of them work hard and actually earn their certification. Some of them drop out. A lot of them, however, manage to squeak by and get certified because the standards bar is set so low and because instructors are trained in such a way as to churn out certified divers.

I won't pretend I have the answers, and there are lots of folks on these boards who have been at it far, far longer than I have who have a ton more insight. But for starters, at the very least, I think training agencies need to get a much better handle on the quality control of their instructors. Snow, for example, should never, ever have been allowed to become an instructor. I'm surprised she even made it through her DM training.

We also need a Flexner Report of sorts when it comes to dive schools, and a lot of IDC mills need to tighten up their game or be shut down.

The prerequisites to become a dive pro need to be strengthened. Divers should have a LOT more experience before they are allowed to make the transition to pro. No more zero-to-hero crap.

Students should not be taught on their knees, ever. We need to stop overweighting students just to get them to the bottom/platform so they can do the skills, get out, and move on to the next dive. We need to stop allowing students to bicycle kick and hand scull their way through the water. All these things make for sloppy diving and lead students to believe that sloppy diving is fine. It's not. If we want to have a culture of serious divers, we need to cultivate that from the very start.

Not everyone is cut out for diving. Almost everyone can learn to dive. But we need to let students know - and demonstrate it through every step, action, and approach we take - that it will take work and dedication on their part.

 

[Wookie]

I'm surprised she even made it through her DM training.

Do you have personal knowledge that either her DM training or her IDC was sub-par?

It takes no special knowledge to be a DM.

Students should not be taught on their knees, ever.

I was taught on my knees and I’m a pretty ****-hot diver.

My point is that making blanket statements like this is how cases are lost. I have no idea why Debbie Snow showed such poor judgement for that class. But it is unlikely in the extreme that it was something she learned in her DM class, or at Rainbow Reef in her IDC.

The point of the case, and this thread, is not that she showed poor judgement, it’s that she was allowed to show poor judgement by her boss (Gull Dive) and by the training agency that was supposed to oversee her. Their insurance company all paid the price for allowing her to teach under the conditions she was teaching in.

Notice that Rainbow Reef and her DM instructor were not named in any lawsuit.