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

[boulderjohn]

I don't know whether this part of the complaint is confusing or misleading.

97. Training in how to safely conduct dives at altitude is important because higher altitude adversely affects a diver’s buoyancy, making the diver more negatively buoyant, and the diver must compensate for the effect of altitude to avoid suffering from decompression sickness and gas expansion injuries.​

1) I am not sure what they mean about altitude making the diver more negative. 2) Altitude does indeed affect buoyancy, but not as described, and at that altitude, I doubt an expert with thousands of dives could detect the difference. 3) With the planned dive, altitude would make no difference in DCS planning. 4) I have no idea what they are talking about regarding an increased concern about gas expansion injuries.

 

[boulderjohn]

At several points in this thread, people commented that the inflator valve on the Brooks drysuit was not compatible with the inflator hose used for BCD inflation. I believe someone specifically said the suit used a Poseidon inflator. This part of the filing says the suit used a SiTech inflator, which does use an inflator compatible with a BCD inflator, provided that the BCD does not use an integrated alternate air source.

136. Brooks dry suits are manufactured with Si-Tech inflator valves, which are equipped with either International or CEJN connectors, depending on which connector is specified by the customer. Brooks then provides an inflator hose with the appropriate QD connector to the customer.​

Brooks drysuits now advertise that they use both kinds of inflators, and the wording on their website suggests they stopped using Poseidons for a time.

 

[boulderjohn]

And perhaps that's the genesis of this Instructor's error chain. Perhaps she thought that since AOW only requires indirect supervision (I have not confirmed this in my manual, and frankly doubt that is completely true), .

Check post #457

 

[rsingler]

Having checked my manual...
General — Indirect supervision allowed for dives
conducted to 18 metres/60 feet or less. Direct supervision required for dives conducted deeper than 18 metres/60 feet, unless all divers have completed the Deep Adventure Dive.
Supervision may vary by dive. Check Section Three for information specific to each Adventure Dive.

Therefore, the higher supervision standard for the Drysuit course mentioned by @boulderjohn above would govern, I would think.

 

[boulderjohn]

The direct/indirect supervision is something of a red herring because, as you see in post #457, the student has to perform skills, and you have to be there to supervise the skills. As I wrote in that post, none of the skills was even attempted. For example, she was supposed to perform a controlled descent, avoid suit squeeze, and perform some buoyancy exercises. All of those would require close attention. None of those was even possible for someone with that much weight in a drysuit that could not be inflated.

 

[Lostdiver71]

Having checked my manual...
General — Indirect supervision allowed for dives
conducted to 18 metres/60 feet or less. Direct supervision required for dives conducted deeper than 18 metres/60 feet, unless all divers have completed the Deep Adventure Dive.
Supervision may vary by dive. Check Section Three for information specific to each Adventure Dive.

Therefore, the higher supervision standard for the Drysuit course mentioned by @boulderjohn above would govern, I would think.

Yes, the higher standard is always the one you are required to use!

 

[boulderjohn]

All right, this was a big discovery for me that I had somehow missed on my first reading. I believe this will be a surprise for most people. This is on page 43:

193. Although Linnea was wearing a dry suit in the water, she was not qualified to take part in the dry suit diving portion of the training. Linnea was not a certified or qualified dry suit diver, she had no experience diving in deep water, and she was incapable of assessing risk or making an informed decision to take part in that dive. Despite this, the Gull Dive Defendants made no effort to ensure that Linnea was appropriately certified to participate in this dive, which was a noninstructional dive for her.
​

In other words, all the discussion about AOW standards, drysuit specialty standards, direct supervision, and indirect supervision is meaningless. On that dive she was not a student in any class at all. She was just a certified diver out for a dive. She was what is sometimes called a "tagalong."

But the page before, the suit says she was a student on that dive.

189. Snow entered the water before her remaining students, including Linnea. Those students continued to don equipment for their training dives, assisted by Liston​

On the page after, it said she as a student:

196. At the time Snow and Liston entered the water just south of the Lake McDonald Lodge at approximately 5:00 p.m. on November 1, 2020, they knew or should have known that:
...
d. at least three of the students, E.G., Linnea and Nathan Dudden, were not equipped with underwater dive lights;​

So, was she a student on that dive, or was she a tagalong?

 

[boulderjohn]

So, as I continued reading, it is very confusing as to whether Linnea was a student or just diving with the group. Later on we learned that the defendants tried to put the blame on Bob, saying he was responsible for her death because he was her buddy on that dive. (Whether that assignment as made ahead of time is not clear.) If he was indeed Linnea's buddy, then it does not matter if Linnea was a student or not, because the instructor would have to treat her as one because she was part of the group. If an instructor allows a certified diver to be included in a group of students, then that diver counts in the instructor's ratio and is treated as a part of the class.

 

[rsingler]

If an instructor allows a certified diver to be included in a group of students, then that diver counts in the instructor's ratio and is treated as a part of the class.

I agree with the first part, but I'm not sure about the second. In other words, the passive participant counts against the Instructor for supervision ratios, (presumably because of the possibility of distraction) but is there a duty to supervise?

This of course ignores the general responsibility of a dive leader who should have known that one participant had no drysuit experience...

Okay, you let a crowd of folks watch you teach a student, and supervision ratios prevent you from teaching but that one student, but are you responsible for the safety of all the gawkers?

Again, playing Devil's Advocate...

 

[boulderjohn]

I agree with the first part, but I'm not sure about the second. In other words, the passive participant counts against the Instructor for supervision ratios, (presumably because of the possibility of distraction) but is there a duty to supervise?

This of course ignores the general responsibility of a dive leader who should have known that one participant had no drysuit experience...

Okay, you let a crowd of folks watch you teach a student, and supervision ratios prevent you from teaching but that one student, but are you responsible for the safety of all the gawkers?

Again, playing Devil's Advocate...

You are obviously taking things to an extreme to emphasize a point, but the fear that you might have to rescue a on-student and thus take your attention away from your students is the reason that many instructors refuse to allow anyone to tag along on a class.