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

[Esprise Me]

@Jim Lapenta , I'm so sorry about your daughter.

The thing that gave me pause about Snow being described as caring was actually that since-deleted social media post in which she blamed the student Bob, who recorded the incident, for not saving Linnea instead. I can see a lot of room to lay her other mistakes at the feet of the shop owners, but not that one.

 

[boulderjohn]

The thing that gave me pause about Snow being described as caring was actually that since-deleted social media post in which she blamed the student Bob, who recorded the incident, for not saving Linnea instead. I can see a lot of room to lay her other mistakes at the feet of the shop owners, but not that one.

I have been thinking about that post as well, and it has spurred other thoughts.

If you read through the thread, you will see many times where I and others pointed out the seeming contradictions and confusions in the filing. Here is a summary of the confusion:

• We are never told what specific class she was taking, so we cannot judge the instructor's actions in relation to the standards. This seems to be a curious oversight on the part of the attorney.
• At times the attorney's wording suggests that this was NOT an instructional dive.
• At no time in the sequence of activities as we are told them does the instructor (Snow) make any attempt to provide any supervision or instruction to the student. We have been taking that as a sign of gross instructor incompetence--you have a student in a class and you don't even begin to teach her anything?
• She was assigned a buddy (whom she blamed in the deleted FaceBook post) who would not have been part of any class she was taking.
• In the FaceBook post, Snow laid the blame for the fatality on the diver who was supposed to be her buddy for the dive, which we have all deemed as an outrageous statement for an instructor to make, knowing that instructor's have full supervisory responsibility for their students.

So, let's put it all together and pose a different scenario. What if she had told Linnae to do a get acquainted dive with another diver as her buddy and then begin actual instruction on another dive? How would that change things?

 

[boulderjohn]

As an addition to what I just wrote above, I would like to say that I know of a different case in which the lawsuit following a fatality tried to place the blame on another diver who was an instructor. He had been the victim's instructor in the past, but said she was not his student on that day of the dive, had just run into him by chance at the dive site, and tagged along on the dive with the instructor and a student. That was a major issue in the case, because the difference in the level of responsibility between someone instructing a student and someone just just being in water at the same time as a victim is significant.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

One would think that any business would want to get the best performance from its employees. I was flabbergasted when I heard a dive shop manager say what I described above, that the quality of instruction was not important as long as the student got certified. (He did not say it that way, but that is what he meant.)

As a lifelong educator in roles from teacher to high level administrator, that is the area I know best. Prospective teachers take multiple courses in college, go through different kinds of internships and student teaching experiences, take state certification exams, participate in new teacher mentor programs, have administrators assigned to them to observe their performance and evaluate it regularly, and still we have uncountable thousands of incompetent teachers across the country. Think of how many millions and millions of dollars taxpayers have poured into managing these teachers, and still I have seen examples that should horrify anyone.

One of the reasons for this is similar to what we see in scuba. If the management of a school or a dive operation does not see any benefit to improving the quality of the staff, then we can expect little effort in maintaining or developing quality. We can, in fact, see the opposite. I once heard a highly regarded principal say that he saw nothing wrong with hiring an incompetent teacher if that teacher was also a competent athletic coach. When I heard that, I thought of the time I was part of a 21-person English department with 5 teachers who had been hired in the past to coach basketball, with all 5 eventually fired as coaches but retained as English teachers. In scuba, the quality of instruction can suffer when dive management does not want to spend the money to send enough staff to manage instruction in low visibility settings or limits the time spent on pool training because of the cost of pool rental time.

So what about this case? I put a lot of the blame on the scuba shop's management. I cannot imagine this would have happened with quality management. Neither of the shops I worked for would have allowed this to happen.

I'm actually not surprised as to shops not caring. In my area, there are only few shops who care. The irony is, these are the most successful ones. I wish the shops that don't care would realize this. But that would require effort.

I unfortunately have worked for a shop that didn't care. When I was a DMC, we were being used as DMs. When I asked the owner (an MI) "hey, isn't this a standards violation?" His response was "La! La! La! I'm not listening."

There will always be some people who abuse different systems. Just because those people exist, doesn't mean that programs/requirements should be abandoned. There are people who would like to end social programs due to some small percentage of people who abuse those programs. If those programs were terminated, it would result in many people not receiving the assistance they need, and in my opinion, deserve

I do believe that some sort of mentorship/apprentice program would help with improving instruction quality and raising the bar overall. There will be some exceptions, and we need to accept that. Also, I would like to see recertification of instructors with gradually more stringent performance requirements in order to remain teaching. Maybe every 3 years? No more than 5.

One criticism I have of the entire industry is how cold water diving is treated the same as warm water diving. It simply has different requirements. Agencies should be more stringent with instructors who teach there.

The thing that gave me pause about Snow being described as caring was actually that since-deleted social media post in which she blamed the student Bob, who recorded the incident, for not saving Linnea instead. I can see a lot of room to lay her other mistakes at the feet of the shop owners, but not that one.

That is an entirely fair statement. I'm absolutely shocked. Did I misjudge this person to such an extreme? Her posts on social media (which are stuck in some groups as she was booted or left before deleting them - which I expect will be used to bury her in court) just blew me away. I just think back on when she was helping out. I have trouble seeing how that person that I thought I knew would react in such a way.

I'd like to think that if I was responsible for someone's death that I would crawl into a hole, as that would be extremely hard to live with. I'm still beating myself up for hitting a dog that chased a squirrel into the road when I was doing 25 in a 35 (but accelerating). Replace that dog with a person (or even worse, a child) and I'd probably lose my mind. I would expect that others value life like me. Is this a matter of (psychological) survival at any cost? That's rather sociopathic, no? Now that I'm a father, if I see any kids, even on the other side of the road on the sidewalk, I become hyper vigilant and slow down. I know of one person who ran over a child (not her fault at all), and she's been in therapy for decades.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

So, let's put it all together and pose a different scenario. What if she had told Linnae to do a get acquainted dive with another diver as her buddy and then begin actual instruction on another dive? How would that change things?

I'm a big believer in checkout dives. However, for that to be effective, the instructor has to be competent.

 

[Wookie]

So, let's put it all together and pose a different scenario. What if she had told Linnae to do a get acquainted dive with another diver as her buddy and then begin actual instruction on another dive? How would that change things?

What would that make the dive in Seeley Lake? Again, I’m looking at what an average person might think. Linnae wants a drysuit. Snow tells her where she can buy a drysuit. Snow tells her to join them at Cold-Ass lake in Glacier for a dive to get acquainted with her new drysuit. Assume Snow knows how to use a drysuit, even if she isn’t a certified drysuit instructor ( I am in the same boat. I know how to use a drysuit, I am neither a drysuit instructor nor an altitude instructor).

Would the average person be convinced that Snow didn’t arrange the sale of the drysuit, and would Linnae have the expectation that Snow would notice that it didn’t come with an inflator hose?

 

[boulderjohn]

What would that make the dive in Seeley Lake? Again, I’m looking at what an average person might think. Linnae wants a drysuit. Snow tells her where she can buy a drysuit. Snow tells her to join them at Cold-Ass lake in Glacier for a dive to get acquainted with her new drysuit. Assume Snow knows how to use a drysuit, even if she isn’t a certified drysuit instructor ( I am in the same boat. I know how to use a drysuit, I am neither a drysuit instructor nor an altitude instructor).

Would the average person be convinced that Snow didn’t arrange the sale of the drysuit, and would Linnae have the expectation that Snow would notice that it didn’t come with an inflator hose?

I have no idea what this means. Are you saying the fact that Snow arranged for her to buy a drysuit is proof that she was teaching a formal drysuit class and not just telling her to go in the water and do a dive with the drysuit to get acquainted with it?

You seem to be saying it makes sense that there should have been formal instruction on that dive. Maybe that's true (I have been assuming it all along, too), but where is the evidence that Linnae was taking a specific class and that Snow was teaching her a specific class?

 

[Esprise Me]

What if she had told Linnae to do a get acquainted dive with another diver as her buddy and then begin actual instruction on another dive?

Interesting thought.

I am not an instructor or DM, and compared to a lot of folks in this thread I'm a rank noob. But with close to 300 dives in the relatively chilly waters of southern California (plus a few more in warmer places), I like to think I know my way around a 7mm and drysuit. On a few occasions, I've offered to buddy with even noobier noobs who have only ever experienced tropical diving as they dip their fins in our local waters for the first time.

My MO when I do this is very unlike the circumstances in this case. I like to invite these folks to the dive park at Catalina Island, a fairly sheltered, beginner-friendly spot with stairs leading right into the water, permanent buoys with descent lines, and several dive shops within easy screaming distance. You have to swim out a bit to get deeper than 30 feet, and there's plenty to see right there in the shallows, near the bouys and steps; it's a popular snorkeling spot. The water is much clearer than you'll find at most beaches around here.

And still, I exercise more care with these folks than I do with my usual buddy, a dude with slightly more experience than I have. He and I don't really do buddy checks anymore; I might look him over quickly to see if anything strikes me as being amiss, but we're both pretty self-reliant. But with my noobs, I actually go through the whole BWRAF thing out loud, check to make sure things that should be connected are really snapped in, help them guesstimate how much weight they need (I would NEVER countenance anything like the weight Snow gave Linnea), and check in frequently to give them plenty of face-saving opportunities to call the dive if they're not feeling comfortable. I keep a closer eye on them during the dive, sometimes forgoing my camera until I feel good about their bouyancy. And I probably wouldn't offer to do this for someone who was both new to cold water and also using a drysuit for the first time. (Again, it's different with my regular buddy. He didn't take a drysuit course, but I was comfortable diving with him while he figured it out, because I know his general competence.)

If I were an experienced professional, I would be doing things I won't do now, such as teaching uncertified divers. But I would also feel more of an obligation to people diving with me, whether or not they were taking a class at that moment. I can't imagine I would tell someone with Linnea's experience to tag along on a dive like this, unless I expected to supervise her the way I would a student. But that's just my non-professional opinion.

 

[Wookie]

I have no idea what this means. Are you saying the fact that Snow arranged for her to buy a drysuit is proof that she was teaching a formal drysuit class and not just telling her to go in the water and do a dive with the drysuit to get acquainted with it?

You seem to be saying it makes sense that there should have been formal instruction on that dive. Maybe that's true (I have been assuming it all along, too), but where is the evidence that Linnae was taking a specific class and that Snow was teaching her a specific class?

Who am I? I am just a guy spitballing what ifs with another guy.

If you represent yourself as an instructor, and a student pays you for a course, and you give the student a manual and arrange for them to buy a drysuit, it is my opinion that 12 jury members (and that’s what this is about, after all) would think that if you weren’t instructing the student, you should have been.

It’s one thing to randomly show up at the quarry and see the person who did your OW instruction. Completely different for your instructor to invite you to the lake where you are offering instruction. We can split hairs about what was offered and what was signed and what was paid, but it’s really about who can convince whom of what.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Interesting thought.

I am not an instructor or DM, and compared to a lot of folks in this thread I'm a rank noob. But with close to 300 dives in the relatively chilly waters of southern California (plus a few more in warmer places), I like to think I know my way around a 7mm and drysuit. On a few occasions, I've offered to buddy with even noobier noobs who have only ever experienced tropical diving as they dip their fins in our local waters for the first time.

My MO when I do this is very unlike the circumstances in this case. I like to invite these folks to the dive park at Catalina Island, a fairly sheltered, beginner-friendly spot with stairs leading right into the water, permanent buoys with descent lines, and several dive shops within easy screaming distance. You have to swim out a bit to get deeper than 30 feet, and there's plenty to see right there in the shallows, near the bouys and steps; it's a popular snorkeling spot. The water is much clearer than you'll find at most beaches around here.

And still, I exercise more care with these folks than I do with my usual buddy, a dude with slightly more experience than I have. He and I don't really do buddy checks anymore; I might look him over quickly to see if anything strikes me as being amiss, but we're both pretty self-reliant. But with my noobs, I actually go through the whole BWRAF thing out loud, check to make sure things that should be connected are really snapped in, help them guesstimate how much weight they need (I would NEVER countenance anything like the weight Snow gave Linnea), and check in frequently to give them plenty of face-saving opportunities to call the dive if they're not feeling comfortable. I keep a closer eye on them during the dive, sometimes forgoing my camera until I feel good about their bouyancy. And I probably wouldn't offer to do this for someone who was both new to cold water and also using a drysuit for the first time. (Again, it's different with my regular buddy. He didn't take a drysuit course, but I was comfortable diving with him while he figured it out, because I know his general competence.)

If I were an experienced professional, I would be doing things I won't do now, such as teaching uncertified divers. But I would also feel more of an obligation to people diving with me, whether or not they were taking a class at that moment. I can't imagine I would tell someone with Linnea's experience to tag along on a dive like this, unless I expected to supervise her the way I would a student. But that's just my non-professional opinion.

Didn't Snow know her way around a drysuit? Do you have to be an instructor to know that the inflator hose is required? But as an instructor, whether the victim was on an instructed dive or a dive along, Snow is the one who told the victim not to worry about not having that hose and Snow is the one who loaded the victim up with weights. In these regards, to my mind, it matters not whether Snow was "instructing" the victim as the victim's "instructor" in a "specific" class or not.