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

[texspeleo]

Perhaps, but we cannot tell much about her instructional skill since we never see her use it, except on that first dive with E.G., which was certainly an abomination.

Back up far enough in this thread, and we see a contradiction. The complaint said that the dive in which she died was "noninstructional," but someone quoted the attorney (David Concannon) saying that the dive WAS instructional. That contradiction will have to be cleared up if we are to make any sense of it all. There was certainly no attempt at any sort of instruction on the dive.

True.

 

[Wookie]

Back up far enough in this thread, and we see a contradiction. The complaint said that the dive in which she died was "noninstructional," but someone quoted the attorney (David Concannon) saying that the dive WAS instructional. That contradiction will have to be cleared up if we are to make any sense of it all. There was certainly no attempt at any sort of instruction on the dive.

So, here is a hypothetical. And I’m asking because I’m not sure if it’s an instructional dive or just a standards violation. If it’s the final dive for a drysuit student, for which they received credit (and rightly so), but no pre-dive briefing was conducted, was it an instructional dive for Linnea?

And I do not know the answer, but I suspect it was an instructional dive with a violation of standards. Just one more of many.

The argument could be made that she paid for the class, bought the drysuit, did her knowledge reviews. Therefore it was instruction. You could also argue that no pool familiarization was performed, no pre-dive briefing, therefore there was no instruction. Then there is the argument that Snow enabled her to dive by loading her up on lead without a way to inflate her drysuit. There is a different name for that.

 

[texspeleo]

183. As the students were prepared for their training dives on the shore of Lake McDonald, Defendants, Snow and Liston, discovered for the first time that the low-pressure inflator hose on the Gull Dive regulator they had rented to Linnea did not have a connector that was compatible with the male stem on the Brooks dry suit’s inflator valve. Consequently, the low-pressure inflator hose could not be attached to dry suit’s inflator valve, and the dry suit could not be inflated.
184. Rather than cancel Linnea’s dives because she was not properly equipped to perform the training dives and safely operate her dry suit, Defendants, Snow and Liston simply advised Linnea that she could enter the water without an operational dry suit and use her BCD as her sole means of buoyancy control.​

My perspective as a lay person is certain not worth it’s weight in anything, but it seems to me here that the instructors crossed a line.

 

[boulderjohn]

So, here is a hypothetical. And I’m asking because I’m not sure if it’s an instructional dive or just a standards violation. If it’s the final dive for a drysuit student, for which they received credit (and rightly so), but no pre-dive briefing was conducted, was it an instructional dive for Linnea?

And I do not know the answer, but I suspect it was an instructional dive with a violation of standards. Just one more of many.

The argument could be made that she paid for the class, bought the drysuit, did her knowledge reviews. Therefore it was instruction. You could also argue that no pool familiarization was performed, no pre-dive briefing, therefore there was no instruction. Then there is the argument that Snow enabled her to dive by loading her up on lead without a way to inflate her drysuit. There is a different name for that.

If we have to go by the complaint, there is no indication that any instruction was done on any dive. When you do the AOW class, there should be 5 dives selected, with two mandatory. Each dive done should be specific to the dive for the which the student is being instructed. Thus, if the dives being done were Navigation, Deep (both required), night, drysuit, and whatever, then each dive would have a specific identification for what was to be covered in that dive. The complaint gives us no information on any of that, so as far as we know, she had not yet started her course. Did she cover two of the dives on that first day with the wetsuit? We have no idea. If she was doing drysuit for one of the AOW dives, it should have been the first (the fatal dive) that day, and she should have had the standard shallow water training first. I have a sense that the farce of a first dive was supposed to be that training.Even if it was, as I wrote many pages ago in this thread, there was no attempt to do any of the requirements for ANY AOW dive on the fatal dive. I specified drysuit, showing no drysuit instruction was attempted, but there was no instruction of any kind offered to Linnea.

 

[boulderjohn]

The argument could be made that she paid for the class, bought the drysuit, did her knowledge reviews. Therefore it was instruction.

No. When I go to a 3-day instructional weekend in New Mexico, I may have students doing different classes. They have all paid for the classes, and they have all done the knowledge reviews. I will work with students on instructional dives, and when I do, some of the students not participating in the instructional dives will go off and do dives on their own. I pay no attention to them; it's their dive. If the dive is instructional, then the student is clear on the fact that they are now doing dive [ABC] of course [DEF].

 

[Wookie]

If we have to go by the complaint, there is no indication that any instruction was done on any dive. When you do the AOW class, there should be 5 dives selected, with two mandatory. Each dive done should be specific to the dive for the which the student is being instructed. Thus, if the dives being done were Navigation, Deep (both required), night, drysuit, and whatever, then each dive would have a specific identification for what was to be covered in that dive. The complaint gives us no information on any of that, so as far as we know, she had not yet started her course. Did she cover two of the dives on that first day with the wetsuit? We have no idea. If she was doing drysuit for one of the AOW dives, it should have been the first (the fatal dive) that day, and she should have had the standard shallow water training first. I have a sense that the farce of a first dive was supposed to be that training.Even if it was, as I wrote many pages ago in this thread, there was no attempt to do any of the requirements for ANY AOW dive on the fatal dive. I specified drysuit, showing no drysuit instruction was attempted, but there was no instruction of any kind offered to Linnea.

Again, and I don’t disagree with you, but (and I have no evidence either way) what if anyone else earned credit for that dive? If so, if it was a training dive for one, was it a training dive for all? You mentioned it back in the thread, but I don’t remember your conclusion. Would you personally allow a non-student participate in a training dive?

 

[boulderjohn]

My perspective as a lay person is certain not worth it’s weight in anything, but it seems to me here that the instructors crossed a line.

No question that a very serious line was crossed, but that does not clear up the issue as to whether the dive in question was an instructional dive or a noninstructional dive, since the complaint either implies or states both.

 

[Wookie]

I ask the way I did because Bob was a student, on a drysuit dive, and the instructor seemed to blame Bob for not rescuing Linnea. So were they buddies with a duty of care for each other? I can’t imagine buddying a student with a non-student on a training dive?

 

[boulderjohn]

Again, and I don’t disagree with you, but (and I have no evidence either way) what if anyone else earned credit for that dive? If so, if it was a training dive for one, was it a training dive for all? You mentioned it back in the thread, but I don’t remember your conclusion. Would you personally allow a non-student participate in a training dive?

No it is not a training dive for all. Different people have different feelings on allowing non-students to accompany an instructional dive. If the instructor allows someone who is not doing instruction on that dive to dive with the group, then that other person is counted in the ratio as if that person were a student. Some instructors allow this. Some don't. I usually don't. If you want to dive at the same time I am teaching students, you are on your own. If I have to rescue you, I am losing contact with my students.

 

[boulderjohn]

I ask the way I did because Bob was a student, on a drysuit dive, and the instructor seemed to blame Bob for not rescuing Linnea. So were they buddies with a duty of care for each other? I can’t imagine buddying a student with a non-student on a training dive?

I raised that issue earlier in the thread. The dive shop operator apparently told Bob after the dive that he was Linnea's buddy and was thus responsible for her death. Snow seemed to suggest the same thing when she posted on a FaceBook thread. If Bob and Linnea were identified as buddies at the start of the dive, and if Bob was receiving instruction and Linnea was not, then Linnea was part of the group, and Snow was responsible for supervising her and Bob together. Although she was not literally receiving instruction, she was a part of the instructional group.