Whose fault is it when an accident happens?

[nereas]

That sounds great. I'd be interested in hearing more details. For example, what performance requirements consitutes being ready for AOW to 100 ft?

1) graduate from OW1;

2) get some dives in and become more familiar with diving at shallower depths of 50 fsw or less; then

3) sign up and take AOW.

 

[RonFrank]

Hey Bob,

I'm not suggesting that the instructor did a great job. However based on what we know (profile, depth, time, student abilities) as you said, we don't know what we don't know! (Is that the NEW BLACK OR something? )

Ultimately it was not the instructor lying dead on the surface. I'll stick to my suggestion that we as certified divers need to be responsible for our diving regardless of what training we are involved in.

And you can DARN well BET that I had a good idea of my crummy SAC rate, and felt comfortable with my deep water dive plan when I did AOW with the HUGE experience level of I think 6 dives!

Gas management, and SAC rates are covered in PADI OW. Maybe not as well as some would like, but they are there, and our OW instructor did go over them as part of the dive planning. It was one of the things he really took some time to discuss in our OW classroom.

 

[nereas]

Who considers them expert divers and what is that assumption based on? Personally, being familiar with the instructor requirements and tesating of a couple of agencies, I would never assume any such thing. In fact, with one large agency an instructor candidate never has to do much more than entry level skill while kneeling...just like OW class only prettier. Nothing at all in the testing to indicate "expert diver". An instrctor of that agency is expert on the educational system of that agency. That, and not diving ability, is what is taught and tested. That does not indicate that they are any good at diving though because diving skill is NEVER tested!

The literature on diving normally refer to instructors as expert divers.

 

[RonFrank]

That sounds great. I'd be interested in hearing more details. For example, what performance requirements consitutes being ready for AOW to 100 ft?

From most agencies/LDS standpoint...

1) OW cert
2) $$$

Now it's up to the instructor to make that work!

I think most do a better job than the internet gives them credit for. I don't hear of a lot of AOW accidents or *deaths*

 

[Mako Mark]

Kneeling is just fine.

:no

 

[Mako Mark]

Many years ago my friend and diving buddy was on his AOW deep certification dive (I was not in that class). One of the three students ran out of air on the bottom, and the instructor and assistant got him an octo, and then the group started up. They lost track of my friend, and he was found face down on the surface when they completed their safety stop. He was unrevivable.

I know my friend messed up somehow- held his breath on an emergency ascent after running out of air I suspect, but I've always blamed the instructor a little. Yeah it was OW certified divers, yeah they are responsible for their own air, and yeah he drilled in to us "never hold your breath".... But it was in a class situation (first deep dive for them) where two out of three students ran out of air. To me that means poor planning, with fatal consequences.

The string of unbroken errors is a good analogy- many individual steps where that accident could have been avoided.

Zeph

It is interesting, I just recieved a DVD from PADI called DUTY OF CARE that discusses an accident almost identical to this. Ultimately, teh instructor was deemed to be negligent as he failed to break the reasonably forseeable chain of events that lead to the divers death.

 

[Don Wray]

OP:

We also agree we had excellent instruction from instructors who answered to an agency with rigorous standards.

No one else smells troll?

 

[nereas]

From most agencies/LDS standpoint...

1) OW cert
2) $$$

Now it's up to the instructor to make that work!

I think most do a better job than the internet gives them credit for. I don't hear of a lot of AOW accidents or *deaths*

I cannot agree that "most" agencies fall into this category. That is a myth. One or two at the most would.

The other two or three major agencies world wide are fairly thorough in their training, and take up to 2 weekends (4 days) of open water diving to train their students.

 

[gr8lakesdiver]

I understand that each situation is different. I also agree that divers have the greatest responsibility when getting in and out of the water. First, allow me to clear up the details of the specific situation that brought up the conversation. Second, lets think about the more global issue of rising diving incidents.

The scenario is as follows. Two overwieght about 40ish female northern cold water divers are in the carribean. They have about forty dives and are certified rescue divers. They were certified with some combination of SDI/PADI training. In an attempt to further their knowledge and not exceed their comfort zone take a private advanced deep diving course with the resort shop. I may be not exact on their profile but it was something like 129ft -39SI - 111ft - 2hourSI- 93ft - 25SI - 86ft. The dive instructor a fit fit twenty something on that second dive admitted to other staff that she could not help him because she was" ten seconds from being in decompression and on the line for 10 minutes" The diver who got bent dove the day before also below 80 feet on both dives and her computer showed it as a six dive day. her computer locked out on an diving error. She was not sure when. They dove with cobra computers that gave diver attention symbols in the logbook on the 2nd and fourth dive. She was diving nitrox and set the computer accordingly. However, when asked they admitted that they knew of tables but never learned them and also did not learn their computer as part of instruction or know it very well. That diver is ok. luckily she learned the symptoms and went to chamber early. She can't dive for a few months but still has a passion for the sport.

Now there is a specific situation. But in a more general sense are divers getting hurt because... Divers are older and lesss in shape than any other time in the history of the sport ... or instructors are being pushed to condense or skip valuable information and push a sale ... or agencies are sacrificing quality education to dumb down the sport and increase profits.

 

[nereas]

It is interesting, I just recieved a DVD from PADI called DUTY OF CARE that discusses an accident almost identical to this. Ultimately, teh instructor was deemed to be negligent as he failed to break the reasonably forseeable chain of events that lead to the divers death.

Normally a PADI instructor would have several DMs along, sometimes assigning a DM to each buddy pair, to make sure this tragedy does not happen.