Galapagos Scuba Diving Fatality - February 12, 2010 - Eloise Gale

[Thalassamania]

The reality is that you have to be ready to help yourself. But that does not mean that a well executed buddy system shouldn't be in place as a primary backstop, nor does it excuse the DMs/Instructors who are conducting the dive from what I see as a duty to, at a minimum, at least keep the entire group in sight.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

I spent a week with John and Kimberly on the Belize Aggressor in December. They are fine people and safe divers. John is not an ambulance chaser. He has a point of view, and I can honestly tell you that he passionate about his profession. In three trips on live-aboards, I have never met a poor person amongst the guests and don't see how John's profession or intellect make him anything other than a very good observer and witness. I'd love to see Bubbletrouble call John a ambulance chaser to his face. I'd bring popcorn and beer to watch that conversation.

@darkstar: Please re-read my post. I didn't call Mr. Bisnar an "ambulance chaser." I am not into personal attacks. In fact, I don't know the man at all. I described his blog, in which he publicizes personal injury accidents, as the equivalent of 21st century ambulance chasing. It's thinly-veiled (and apparently effective) advertising for his business. I invite you to peruse his http://www.bestattorney.com/blog website. Nearly every post which publicizes an accident has a summation paragraph at the end which reads along the lines of: "I would urge the family of the victim to seek out an experienced personal injury lawyer in (insert location here) for help in holding (such and such party) accountable..." If you click on the hyperlinked "personal injury lawyer" text in that sentence, guess where you are transported? Surprise. Surprise. It's the website of the personal injury law firm of Bisnar-Chase.

I doubt that Mr. Bisnar would ever want to sit down with me and discuss his Internet marketing tactics, so you may want to save your popcorn. Whatever you want to call the tactics, they are effective. (Good seats at Lakers home games are indicative of that.) If we did meet, I would be very comfortable explaining to him what I thought of his Internet advertising. To be frank, this is the kind of marketing that amplifies the litigious nature of our society. I'm sure he sees his efforts as helping out the victims and their families. It's not mere coincidence that his firm stands to gain financially from any successful lawsuits. No doubt, there's great return on the negligible webhosting costs that Mr. Bisnar and Mr. Chase may incur. Bisnar and Chase are laughing all the way to the bank. I'd love to learn what percentage of their business they can attribute to web referrals through their blog.

IMHO, the fact that he posted his eyewitness narrative of the Galapagos tragedy on his personal injury firm's website is a not-so-classy, unprofessional move. Perhaps it was the only convenient WWW outlet he had. The tone of the blog post is very serious. The topic is serious. Bisnar writes well. (He's even published a book entitled "The Seven Fatal Mistakes That Can Wreck Your California Personal Injury Claim.") I thought he included a commendable level of detail that we don't normally read in such an early account of scuba-related accidents. It is pretty clear that he was disturbed by the experience. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn't have mixed my personal life with business -- there's less of a chance of people seeing his words as potentially self-serving that way. When a skilled lawyer with extensive experience in personal injury cases hints at some wrongdoing in an accident (in this case, the DMs perhaps?)...there may be an implied message.

I do not mean to side-track the thread on this matter. This was not a personal attack meant to impugn the character of Mr. Bisnar. I have no reason to question the veracity of his account of the tragedy. However, I do find his WWW marketing distasteful and question his judgment in selecting where to post the account.

 

[Ayisha]

Actually, the page does say at the bottom "Do not copy", so maybe it should have just been linked - especially when it's a lawyer's blog!

It is pretty amazing how Denise and the DM found Eloise's body and that she was still there when they got there. It was a pretty risky endeavour to bring her up from that depth in terms of being narced, accumulating deco, and the task loading involved, especially if they were not both trained, equipped and experienced enough to do it.

 

[diverrex]

I also think that it is insane to show up in a place like the Galapagos without a dive buddy that you have trained with. It's like gambling with your life.

I very seldom do a dive with an instabuddy. I absolutely refuse to do a challenging dive without someone I've dived with before. I am always surprised to find how many other people are willing to do so.

 

[bsee65]

I expect that we may be reading more into the word "struggling" than was actually meant by the blog author.

That was exactly my thought.

With regard to the issue of copyright, my understanding is as follows:

A writer immediately owns copyright to works produced. If they submit it formally, there are statutory damages for violation regardless of actual damages. If they don't register the work, they can sue for their lost income and/or the profits that were made from the unauthorized use of the work. In this case, there may be no overt advertising, but the presence of the article on a business website that feeds clients to the business does have a value that I am sure this owner could quantify for legal purposes. In addition, these pages do contain advertising so money is being made by someone other than the author from the work.

A site like ScubaBoard typically bears no responsibility as long as they remove the material once notified, and it is the poster of the copyrighted material who would be liable. I have seen quite a few complete news articles replicated here and ScubaBoard has been notified. I am worried that a pattern of ignoring copyrights will open the site up to some form of litigation where a single instance would leave it blameless.

There's also a line between what is legal and what is morally right. It may be legal for ScubaBoard to leave unauthorized copyrighted material up until the copyright owner complains, but I would label it as morally questionable once the site is aware that the material has been posted. The concept of fair use would suggest an excerpt or summary with a link to the original content as a more correct approach.

Hopefully this will get split off from this thread and some diving attorney with ties to ScubaBoard will enlighten us all on what the law requires.

 

[Misa]

Rest in peace, Eloise! I`m sorry for this tragedy. I cant even find my words for this. All i know is that i`ll dive Galapagos in June and for week and i`ve started an intense workout program (muscle workout, cardio, some swimming also, diet too) to be in the best shape i can be in June. The worst current i`ve had was in Red Sea and i barrely couldnt move but i`ve managed to go trough it.

You can never know how a DM will act so you have to be prepared and take decisions at the same point. I`ve met a DM in Egypt and he was givin the octopus on air sharing situation like a cigarette by holding it from hose with octo down. Some1 took it by mistake and put it upside down in his mouth and some water came trough. That was not fun.

In Mediteranean, Turkey side, wreck dive Paris wreck, 30m/90feet, 1 DM, 2 divers (me and another) and another DM ( very young girl, like 23y old ) was filming us. I was buddy with the other diver, the DM was leading and camera girl was shooting movie. We`ve started to descend. At 15m my buddy had problems equalising and went up 1-2m. He had problems with ear after 1 min. The DM made the "you and camera girl are buddy" and go down. In my mind a new plan came. So, thinking she`s young, i`m beginner what can be worst? We did the dive according to the main plan. Circle around wreck, few minutes above it and come up. The only second that we got separated was when she decided the film me and the wreck from above me. Exactly 3-5m above me. That was the last place where i`ve looked. Everything was ok even with the new plan.

Its up to you, the diver, to focus, breath, relax and call the dive if you have problems. Why ppl dont do it ? I called a dive, once, after 5 mins, i couldnt focus at anything at 5m and i thought i was in bue clouds.

Galapagos is not a joke and before june, beside work outsi`ve planed more then 30 dives to do.

Such a sad story to read today

 

[Stichus III]

Mr. Bisnar's piece is very well written, although judging from what he wrote, he did seem unprepared for diving the Galapagos.

 

[openmindOW]

I spent a week with John and Kimberly on the Belize Aggressor in December. They are fine people and safe divers. John is not an ambulance chaser. He has a point of view, and I can honestly tell you that he passionate about his profession. In three trips on live-aboards, I have never met a poor person amongst the guests and don't see how John's profession or intellect make him anything other than a very good observer and witness.

Amen.

Personally, I've always been in the divers are responsible for their own safety camp, but I do think that a dive operator should warn people about the dive conditions and the minimum standards that divers should meet. I looked at both the Peter Hughes and Aggressor web sites and neither of these talk about the minimum dive skills required for each location. Locations like Galapagos require skills that the average diver is just not going to get by logging even hundreds of dives in the Caribbean or the local quarry.

Good points. Shop owners that purchase space on Live-Aboards may feel some pressure to sell those spots. That's understandable.

There's a natural tension between having to sell a spot and advising an unprepared customer to not go on a particular trip. And that's where ethics comes in. A shop owner has to be able to say, "I'd love to take your money, dear customer, but this trip is not for you."

 

[openmindOW]

The reality is that you have to be ready to help yourself. But that does not mean that a well executed buddy system shouldn't be in place as a primary backstop, nor does it excuse the DMs/Instructors who are conducting the dive from what I see as a duty to, at a minimum, at least keep the entire group in sight.

Amen. If there is a DM in the water supervising a group of tourist divers, then the DM ought to be there to provide some measure of safety and control.

 

[H2O 70]

I found the decedents Friendster page. A lot of posts of 'haven't seen you in a while!', 'how was the trip?.

Sad.