Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Dervan and his 16-year-old son were diving together at the park on Monday. The two surfaced together but the father went back down at about 3:30 p.m. for one final dive to an underwater cavern about 120 feet below the surface and never came back up, Davidson said.
I have never been a fan of certifying young divers for a variety of reasons. Granted, the kid here is 16, but the general point still applies. Whenever I bring up the youth issue to the parent, the response is almost always, "Oh don't worry, I'll aways be with him and make sure that nothing happens." And I say, "That's not my concern. My concern is what happens to the child if something happens to YOU. How will they deal with that?" And the universal answer almost always is, "Oh . . . I hadn't thought of it that way."
Now I'm not saying we should never certify young people (although I still think 10 years old is nuts) and some youth are better-equipped than others emotionally/maturity-wise to deal with it. But it's something that always should be considered when taking a youngster diving. What's the long-term effect if something happens to YOU?
We had a fatality out here in L.A. where a teenager was diving with his over-weight (300-pounds) father and the father had a heart attack underwater. The kid brought the father to the surface next to the boat and screamed for help. The father didn't make it but you certainly couldn't say the kid didn't do everything he could to try to save his dad. Nonetheless, he sat in a corner of the boat and said, "I killed my father." Desite everyone saying, "Absolutely not," that's something that's going to haunt him - and I suspect the 16-year-old in this incident - for the rest of his life.
- Ken