Over the last several days there has been extensive discussion of an incident, sparked by a video posted on YouTube, suggesting that a drift diver had been forgotten and left behind by a dive op before being spotted by a nearby boater and “rescued”.
It was soon discovered that there was more to the story than originally suggested. The diver had gone into a deco obligation when he wasn’t trained or supposed to be deco diving, and his dive buddies had acted poorly by re-boarding and leaving him alone without a secondary air supply or a dive flag float.
These factors put the captain of the dive boat in a difficult situation. He was aware of the delayed diver doing deco but he also had other divers surfacing that needed to be picked up. He decided to leave and pick up surfacing divers and come back for the lone guy after deco was completed. The dive boat was not nearby when the diver surfaced and was spotted by the passing boater – who had a video camera running and posted the incident on his YouTube account along with some inflammatory comments.
The dive op was concerned that the video suggested negligence in a difficult situation when the captain was aware of the issues and had a plan to pick up the delayed diver. They reacted quickly and forcefully and threatened legal action over the video which was promptly deleted from YouTube by the boater.
These events led in an interesting discussion here on Scubaboard and though it was quickly recognized that the diver and his companions had made poor decisions, it was also recognized that divers sometimes do dumb things and that there may have been other ways that the dive boat could have handled the situation – or options for other divers and dive boats that encounter similar situations in the future.
The SB discussion was generally quite civilized, people expressed differing opinions but nobody got nasty until a well-known, and highly-respected diving professional (who was conducting training on the same boat that day with a different group of divers) posted on SB and quickly started using negative terms and name-calling.
It is understandable that he would have a strong opinion of the events since he was there, and the SB members on the thread welcomed his input at first; but he also has a relationship with the dive op and the captain so that may have been the reason that he reacted so strongly and negatively. Whatever the reasons, his actions surprised and disappointed some SB members.
Almost immediately the entire thread disappeared from SB and the interesting and educational discussion was lost, but that may have been a good thing because the thread was starting to take a turn for the worse.
In my opinion, one of the best things about the SB community is that we can share our experiences and learn from our mistakes - and from the mistakes of others. It is natural for an individual to feel strongly about certain issues but we need to remember the importance of interacting politely with our fellow scuba enthusiasts. End of sermon!
It was soon discovered that there was more to the story than originally suggested. The diver had gone into a deco obligation when he wasn’t trained or supposed to be deco diving, and his dive buddies had acted poorly by re-boarding and leaving him alone without a secondary air supply or a dive flag float.
These factors put the captain of the dive boat in a difficult situation. He was aware of the delayed diver doing deco but he also had other divers surfacing that needed to be picked up. He decided to leave and pick up surfacing divers and come back for the lone guy after deco was completed. The dive boat was not nearby when the diver surfaced and was spotted by the passing boater – who had a video camera running and posted the incident on his YouTube account along with some inflammatory comments.
The dive op was concerned that the video suggested negligence in a difficult situation when the captain was aware of the issues and had a plan to pick up the delayed diver. They reacted quickly and forcefully and threatened legal action over the video which was promptly deleted from YouTube by the boater.
These events led in an interesting discussion here on Scubaboard and though it was quickly recognized that the diver and his companions had made poor decisions, it was also recognized that divers sometimes do dumb things and that there may have been other ways that the dive boat could have handled the situation – or options for other divers and dive boats that encounter similar situations in the future.
The SB discussion was generally quite civilized, people expressed differing opinions but nobody got nasty until a well-known, and highly-respected diving professional (who was conducting training on the same boat that day with a different group of divers) posted on SB and quickly started using negative terms and name-calling.
It is understandable that he would have a strong opinion of the events since he was there, and the SB members on the thread welcomed his input at first; but he also has a relationship with the dive op and the captain so that may have been the reason that he reacted so strongly and negatively. Whatever the reasons, his actions surprised and disappointed some SB members.
Almost immediately the entire thread disappeared from SB and the interesting and educational discussion was lost, but that may have been a good thing because the thread was starting to take a turn for the worse.
In my opinion, one of the best things about the SB community is that we can share our experiences and learn from our mistakes - and from the mistakes of others. It is natural for an individual to feel strongly about certain issues but we need to remember the importance of interacting politely with our fellow scuba enthusiasts. End of sermon!
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