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

[wetb4igetinthewater]

certainly divers have bought drysuits and used them without taking the class or "special training."

Did they all have inflator hoses attached? Was the class they took the first time they would use one and also first time in cold water? Did they have 44 lbs of unditchable lead?

 

[boulderjohn]

Read paragraph 83 of the Complaint: "Consequently, before a diver is permitted to use a dry suit instead of a wetsuit, the diver must successfully complete special training to learn the features of a dry suit, including how the dry suit functions and how to use the dry suit safely in cold conditions, with unfamiliar buoyancy characteristics, to prevent squeeze on descent and an uncontrolled, rapid ascent from depth."

Permitted by who? I took the drysuit class, but certainly divers have bought drysuits and used them without taking the class or "special training."

Yep. It is one more example of what I feel is intentionally loose language.

 

[KevinNM]

Permitted by who? I took the drysuit class, but certainly divers have bought drysuits and used them without taking the class or "special training."

Doesn’t PADI want instructors to verify certification and competence of students with skills and equipment that are being used in subsequent classes? In that you can’t expect someone taking a dry suit class to be either certified or competent in a dry suit, you certainly should expect that before diving to 130 feet in a class with them

 

[boulderjohn]

Doesn’t PADI want instructors to verify certification and competence of students with skills and equipment that are being used in subsequent classes? In that you can’t expect someone taking a dry suit class to be either certified or competent in a dry suit, you certainly should expect that before diving to 130 feet in a class with them

Instructors teaching advanced classes are indeed required to make sure the student has prerequisite skills, which would include drysuit skills if one is to be used. Here is what you find on Page 18 of the General Standards and Procedures. Note that General Standards and Procedures apply to all courses, not a specific course.

Dry Suit Orientation

Orient divers to dry-suit use in confined water before
they use them for the first time in open water.​

Curiously, I do not see that standards violation listed in the complaint.

 

[Bob DBF]

Curiously, I do not see that standards violation listed in the complaint

I don't know if every detail of the case has to be included in the complaint. I believe it would come up when the instructor answered the complaint by claiming everything was done to standards, as that would be the major defense for a death during a class, other than saying there was no class.

 

[boulderjohn]

Okay, so I will again need attorneys to chime in, but I have a thought on some of what has confused me.

I just noted that the complaint does not seem to mention an outrageous standards violation in post #564. I have pointed out that the complaint does not mention the names of AOW dives that were supposedly being done and does not identify the standards violated for each one, especially the fatal dive. I have said I am confused because all of that would show how seriously standards were being violated. It finally dawned on me why that would be true. Maybe they do not want to emphasize that standards were violated.

To understand why, we need to go back a few years to another fatal dive, this one at a Boy Scout Camp in Utah, in which a boy scout died on a Discover Scuba Diving dive. In that case, PADI was also included in the list of defendants, but they got out of the case early, with the blame being placed squarely on the instructor and the dive operation. When they did, there was outrage, with plaintiffs and people supporting them (including on ScubaBoard) saying over and over and over that the instructor had not violated a single standard. In fact, it is hard to find a single DSD standard that the instructor did NOT violate. Because of their connection (which I still do not understand) to the instructor's insurance company, SDI/TDI went very public with their repeated claims that the instructor had not violated a single standard, so it was the PADI standards that were at fault. After a while, PADI published an open letter specifying a long list of standards violations, and I think that letter missed some. The instructor's performance was in the ballpark of this case in his incompetence.

So, in the Utah case, the plaintiff's attorney tried to keep PADI in as a defendant by pretending that the real fault in the case lay with PADI and its poorly written standards, not so much the performance of the instructor who was so understandably confused. Something similar might be going on here. If their complaint shows that the instructor clearly violated all sorts of standards, then the judge might wonder why PADI is being blamed for having unclear standards.

 

[Wookie]

So, in the Utah case, the plaintiff's attorney tried to keep PADI in as a defendant by pretending that the real fault in the case lay with PADI and its poorly written standards, not so much the performance of the instructor who was so understandably confused. Something similar might be going on here. If their complaint clearly shows that the instructor clearly violated all sorts of standards, then the judge might wonder why PADI is being blamed for having unclear standards.

So the plaintiffs attorney in this case was the instructor's attorney in that case. And there were shenanigans. When PADI was dismissed as a defendant, they came back in on the side of the plaintiff, and IIRC Hornsby got in some trouble with the judge? But man, that was a long time ago and my memory is fuzzy. I only remember because the instructor's insurance company was my insurance company and I had a chat at DEMA with the broker to discuss it. I clearly remember shenanigans though.

 

[runsongas]

with how often padi ends up in lawsuits, surprised they didn't just keep concannon on retainer

 

[Wookie]

with how often padi ends up in lawsuits, surprised they didn't just keep concannon on retainer

Ummm. They keep Hornsby on retainer. Concannon is who (lately) has been suing them.

 

[runsongas]

didn't he defend them previously though?