Divers dying every lobster opening. This has to stop!

[cb5150]

People are free to be people, dumb or otherwise. How is this even an issue?

 

[stevensamler]

Teach them to drop their weights in an emergency not just when they are on the surface as training agencies teach now. I have not read any of the reports about these deaths but I am sure most if not all were found dead wearing their weights. If you are found dead wearing your weights it is because you were a fracking MORON and that cost you your life. How fracking stupid do you have to be to die like that? Change that and a lot more divers will be saved worldwide not just in So Cal or Florida at the start of lobster season.

I'll get bent any day over the other option.

 

[flots am]

Talking about ditching weights, here is an additional parameter that changes around lobster season: the size of tanks. All my friends including me use the largest tanks we have to maximize our bottom time. That means heavier steel (usually) tanks that if worn with a back-plate, need hardly any weight in your belt. In an emergency, just dropping your weight belt may not be sufficient.

A good time to realize that, would be before getting in the water.

The inability to achieve positive buoyancy when out of air is a huge red flag and means that the last-ditch emergency procedures taught to OW divers are useless.

It's one of those "nearly dead but doesn't know it yet" moments like having a half hour of deco and 5 minutes of gas left.

flots.

 

[Scubatude]

WOW. I am stunned and saddened at the responses to this topic. In every community I have ever been involved with, including law enforcement, competitive shooting, martial arts, flying and motorcycles, safety was a concern of the entire community. When even one death occurred we would examine the circumstances, pinpoint the primary cause and work to eliminate that cause in the future. Sometimes that meant re-training for law enforcement, or new checklists or procedures for flying, new rules or laws for motorcycles riders. I am shocked that divers are not only passive about deaths within our community, but vocal about their right to do nothing and enjoy the "freedom" to die diving if they wish.

As a diver I am ashamed and starting to see why the agencies don't care. It is because we do not ask them to care. We are so fast to point a finger at this agency or that agency for not having standards they we feel are up to par, but when a incident occurs it is clearly the divers fault. As a scuba educator I am saddened that this type of behavior is tolerated. This thread is full of people who know what the problem is and won't lift a finger to solve it.

Each and every person has a right to their opinion. I am thankful to all who posted and respect all the opinions and views expressed.

 

[Steve_C]

If you are found dead wearing your weights it is because you were a fracking MORON and that cost you your life. .

You are right in many cases, but you could also have had a heart attack, stroke, or seizure. 40 year olds drop dead some times without warning.

 

[BUDMANOK]

When even one death occurred we would examine the circumstances, pinpoint the primary cause and work to eliminate that cause in the future.

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/accidents-incidents/

this is where that happens

 

[KeithG]

free choice or nanny state. pick one

i believe usa was built upon free choice.

 

[fire_diver]

WOW. I am stunned and saddened at the responses to this topic.

The real sadness is the knee-jerk reactionism that we always have to do "something" every time ANYTHING happens. Either we are free to live our lives (even if that means doing something stupid that results in our own death) or we subject ourselves to the further growing nanny-state where the government restricts the actions of everyone because of the consequences that happened to 0.00001% of the population.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

As a diver I am ashamed and starting to see why the agencies don't care. It is because we do not ask them to care. We are so fast to point a finger at this agency or that agency for not having standards they we feel are up to par, but when a incident occurs it is clearly the divers fault. As a scuba educator I am saddened that this type of behavior is tolerated. This thread is full of people who know what the problem is and won't lift a finger to solve it.

You are being less than forthright when you speak in terms of caring, as if simply feeling bad about things or maybe praying a little harder would alter the course of future events. That's not what you're suggesting.

What you are suggesting is unclear, though you seem to have some kind of sure-fire solution that we're all unwilling to implement in mind. If it's more information, awesome. If it's "new rules or laws" to protect divers from their own bad choices, I can only invite you to perform an anatomical impossibility.

 

[cb5150]

free choice or nanny state. pick one

i believe usa was built upon free choice.

THIS^^^ Exactly!!