Suit filed for Carbon Monoxide fatality - Washington state

[Peter Guy]

Demed -- PLEASE DO sue the Bar Association! Heck, if the Dept. Of Corrections can be sued for letting someone out of prison who then goes on to commit a crime, then the Bar Association (and the Supreme Court) should be liable for some of the things they allow attorneys to do!

Go For It!

 

[RJP]

Oh, this is incredibly tragic. It is standard procedure on Puget Sound charter boats, that the crew is not suited up

Standard procedure is not necessarily a GOOD procedure. When I was crewing I always stayed in my drysuit with gear at the ready when divers were in the water. Originally I did this because I didn't feel like getting in and out of my suit during the surface interval.

Then one day - when the divers were in and it was just me and the captain on the boat - he yells down from the flybridge "Holy ****! Diver up! Diver up off the bow! Ray get in the water get in the water!"

Sure enough... an unresponsive diver, inverted in her drysuit, drifting away at a decent clip. The boat was tied in with divers on the line and Carolina rig. I pulled my zipper up, put fins and mask on and jumped in. Took all of 15 seconds. Another minute to get to her. She was GONE when I got to her. 2 min to get her back to the boat. Another minute to get her on the boat. We got her breathing pretty quickly, and by the time the CG copter got there she was responsive.

If I had needed to take several minutes to don my undergarments and drysuit before jumping in... I have no doubt that woman would be dead right now.

---------- Post added December 12th, 2014 at 09:12 AM ----------

Frankly, I'm confused as to the purpose of having unsuited DMs on board. Especially if they aren't prepared to help a diver in trouble.

Don't confuse "boat crew" with "DMs" because they are very often not the same thing.

A.) The boat crew in many places (like NJ) are probably not DM's from a certification standpoint.
B.) Even if they ARE a certified DM, in many places (like NJ, and it sounds like PNW) they may not be acting in that capacity on the boat.


I happened to be a certified DM during the past six years I spent crewing on a NJ boat. However, I never once acted as a DM on that boat. In NJ - like many places - the boat is a ride to the wreck and back. The crew works for the boat... not for the divers. We don't plan your dive. We don't set your gear up. We don't dive with you. We don't even give dive-site briefings. At the dock we do a boat briefing, tell you where we're going, the depth, and the procedure for getting off the boat and getting back on. Even if we're in the water at the same time as you... we're doing our own dives, not yours.

All that said... if someone needed help I would - and have, as you've read just above - jump in the water and do everything within my capabilities to save them.

---------- Post added December 12th, 2014 at 09:19 AM ----------

I have never seen a DM suited up on a Puget Sound, San Juan Island, or Vancouver Island charter boat. And I would not get in the water here in street clothes to save someone. It would create a second victim very quickly. Our max water temp is low 50's.

I think you've just made a great argument for why someone crewing on a boat in Puget Sound SHOULD be suited up.

---------- Post added December 12th, 2014 at 09:28 AM ----------

Lynne, I wanted to come back and expound on this some more. I notice that there are a very few skippers out there who will jump up and say that they are merely a water taxi, that they have no duty of care to the diver once they are off the boat. No doubt, there are some who feel this way, but the vast majority of the folks who proclaim loudly "we are just transport" are the divemasters on the boat, and we've already established that their opinions don't mean much.

The way it works here in NJ is that...

• Every passenger has the expectation that we are nothing more than a water taxi... and they prepare/plan/dive accordingly.
• Captain and crew members have the expectation that they will do what needs to get done in an emergency... and they plan and prepare accordingly. (And the passengers know that.)

They EXPECT that we won't be there to save them... but they KNOW that we will be if we can.

 

[flots am]

I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything but...

So the question with the gear issues raises how far was the person from the boat. What were the currents like. There are several values that would make me very worried about hopping in to what amounts to 46-50f water with a distressed diver that could easily take 2-3 min to get under control or more(if you think your a strong person bath tub with water at those temps and tell me how well you handle it, a leaking dryglove is annoying and cold but its nothing compared to full immersion). Considering distance they had drifted from said boat or what the currents are like. "Encouragement" could have been to try and get them to move closer to the boat. The question should be asked are we looking at high currents that could easily result in more victims.

I've been in 40 degree water with no thermal protection. It's not pleasant, but if you're expecting the "holy sh**! that's cold moment" and already have a quickly workable plan, it's doable. On the other hand, it should never be necessary. The boat should always have someone suited up with appropriate exposure protection and ready to go into the water, regardless of conditions. If you're taking people out on the water, you need to be capable of dragging them back onto the boat.

I have no idea what the currents were like, but can tell you that "encouragement" is useless to a panicking or injured diver. Yelling "inflate your BC" works sometimes for a diver who has popped up but not yet panicked, but it's certainly not a valid rescue plan.

Also, regardless of laws or jurisdictions or "common practices", I would never use a boat that had nobody on deck capable of performing surface assistance or a surface rescue

flots.

 

[RJP]

I don't get it. Who would just sit on the boat while someone drowned, regardless of which little piece of plastic was in their wallet or if they were or were not "ready to get in the water"? It might be cold, but it's not immediately fatal.

I doubt anyone was "just sitting around" watching the guy drown.

The hard thing for many to appreciate - unless you've been in the situation - is that quite often "the situation" doesn't look like "a situation" until it's "a crisis."

- Guy is a little less that graceful as he jumps in the water - no problem
- When he comes to surface he gives a reflexive "ok" tap on the head - no problem
- He's struggling with his gear a bit - seen it a million times, no problem
- He's lost a fin - "Geez, would you look at this guy!" But not a huge problem
- Great, now he's overbreathing - "I better keep an eye on him. Wait, what the...?"
- HOLY S**T THE GUY IS DROWNING!

Of course your situational awareness needs to be keen... but there are other divers on the boat as well... and the captain... and the other divers in the water... and the boat's rocking a bit... etc.

Not giving excuses for anyone, and don't know the principles personally... but I will guarantee you that no one "just sat on the boat while someone drowned" while saying "not my job"

Of course... all the more reason to be suited up for that one in a million time that "Geez, would you look at that guy!" turns into "Jesus! You need to save that guy!"

 

[flots am]

The hard thing for many to appreciate - unless you've been in the situation - is that quite often "the situation" doesn't look like "a situation" until it's "a crisis."

- Guy is a little less that graceful as he jumps in the water - no problem
- When he comes to surface he gives a reflexive "ok" tap on the head - no problem
- He's struggling with his gear a bit - seen it a million times, no problem
- He's lost a fin - "Geez, would you look at this guy!" But not a huge problem

But you can see it coming.

• "OK" is pretty much worthless.
• Struggling on the surface is a huge red flag and should put whoever is doing surface support on alert.
• The lost fin after struggling would be enough of a reason to splash, and in fact, just the struggling on the surface would be enough of a reason, if it lasted more than a few seconds.

The fastest transformation in the world is the transition from "Having a problem on the surface" to "Everything just turned into sh**". If you see the first one, you need to be expecting the second one.

flots.

 

[boulderjohn]

I doubt anyone was "just sitting around" watching the guy drown.

The hard thing for many to appreciate - unless you've been in the situation - is that quite often "the situation" doesn't look like "a situation" until it's "a crisis."

- Guy is a little less that graceful as he jumps in the water - no problem
- When he comes to surface he gives a reflexive "ok" tap on the head - no problem
- He's struggling with his gear a bit - seen it a million times, no problem
- He's lost a fin - "Geez, would you look at this guy!" But not a huge problem
- Great, now he's overbreathing - "I better keep an eye on him. Wait, what the...?"
- HOLY S**T THE GUY IS DROWNING!

Of course your situational awareness needs to be keen... but there are other divers on the boat as well... and the captain... and the other divers in the water... and the boat's rocking a bit... etc.

Not giving excuses for anyone, and don't know the principles personally... but I will guarantee you that no one "just sat on the boat while someone drowned" while saying "not my job"

Of course... all the more reason to be suited up for that one in a million time that "Geez, would you look at that guy!" turns into "Jesus! You need to save that guy!"

Drowning Doesn?t Look Like Drowning

A friend told me this story.

She had finished a dive on the Spiegel Grove in Florida and was putting away her gear. She heard the DM on her boat shouting over at another boat to take care of one of their divers. She looked over to see what was happening. the man was on the surface, swimming toward the other boat, but doing it badly. He had not inflated sufficiently, and his head kept going under water. The other boat's crew was clueless. Her DM started shouting at the man to inflate his BCD, and when his head went under again, the DM jumped in the water and swam over to him. The man had not come up. The DM dived down and got him at about 20 feet. He got him back to the boat where he eventually became one of those rare cases of a person reviving with CPR.

 

[Wookie]

• Every passenger has the expectation that we are nothing more than a water taxi... and they prepare/plan/dive accordingly.

You SAY it...

• Captain and crew members have the expectation that they will do what needs to get done in an emergency... and they plan and prepare accordingly. (And the passengers know that.)

...but you don't believe it either. And the Coast Guard doesn't accept it as an operational plan. So why bother with the fallacy that you are "Just transportation"? No one would expect you to do an out of air rescue at the bottom, it just isn't practical (remember, the ALJ probably has made a dive or 2 too). They will expect you to perform a rescue at the surface.

Y'all are welcome to jump up and down and stomp your feet and brief your passengers that you're just transportation to and from the dive site. But you don't act like you believe it, you don't actually work that way, and no one really expects that. So you might as well suck it up and acknowledge that you DO have a limited duty of care to your passengers, and act accordingly.

If you had a diver missing following a dive, one solo diver hadn't checked back in, would you assume that they are dead, say to yourselves "Well he should have come back to the boat following his dive", and motored home? Or would you put boat crew in danger (every dive is dangerous, IMHO) to look for your missing diver underwater while the rest of the crew and passengers looked on the surface?

That's what I thought.

 

[RJP]

But you can see it coming.

• "OK" is pretty much worthless.
• Struggling on the surface is a huge red flag and should put whoever is doing surface support on alert.
• The lost fin after struggling would be enough of a reason to splash, and in fact, just the struggling on the surface would be enough of a reason, if it lasted more than a few seconds.

The fastest transformation in the world is the transition from "Having a problem on the surface" to "Everything just turned into sh**". If you see the first one, you need to be expecting the second one.

flots.

Completely agree... that's why I've pulled more idiots out of the water "who didn't need my help" than bodies.

but again, it's not like the mate was in the head with the newspaper.

---------- Post added December 12th, 2014 at 12:52 PM ----------

So you might as well suck it up and acknowledge that you DO have a limited duty of care to your passengers, and act accordingly.

I thought was what I said we do.

If you had a diver missing following a dive, one solo diver hadn't checked back in, would you assume that they are dead, say to yourselves "Well he should have come back to the boat following his dive", and motored home? Or would you put boat crew in danger (every dive is dangerous, IMHO) to look for your missing diver underwater while the rest of the crew and passengers looked on the surface?

Of course. We're in the water if you're past your run time and we don't see your boil on the line. We've even dashed over to another boat to look for one of THEIR divers. I'm pretty sure I have no duty-of-care to a passenger on a DIFFERENT boat. But I sort of feel like I have a duty-of-care to another human...

So why bother with the fallacy that you are "Just transportation"?

That's between Jim, his lawyer, and his insurance carrier.

:blinking:

 

[boulderjohn]

...but you don't believe it either. And the Coast Guard doesn't accept it as an operational plan. So why bother with the fallacy that you are "Just transportation"?

I agree, and I think it is something of a ploy, the kind of ploy that you see in other walks of life as well.

When I play golf on courses with homes built along the fairways, I frequently see signs stating that golfers are responsible for damage to houses. That is simply not true. It is only true if you intentionally aim your shot into the houses. If you are trying to hit a legitimate golf shot and screw it up, you are not liable for the fact that the guy bought a home where it could be hit by a legitimate golf shot. The purpose of the sign is to protect the homeowners by fooling people into paying for something for which the homeowner is actually responsible.

When I drive behind large dump trucks I frequently see signs that say something like "Stay back 300 feet--not responsible for broken windshields." Once again, that is a ploy to keep the driver with the broken windshield from attempting to collect for it. They absolutely are responsible for securing their load to prevent broken windshields.

 

[RJP]

When I drive behind large dump trucks I frequently see signs that say something like "Stay back 300 feet--not responsible for broken windshields." Once again, that is a ploy to keep the driver with the broken windshield from attempting to collect for it...

It's actually a very clever ploy to get you to stay back 300ft... and avoid the broken windshield thing altogether.