Divemaster Responsibilities

[meierdierck]

and if the DM catered to individual divers, he could only take 1 out at a time,
and if he refused every idiot with a c-card a boat ride to the dive site, he wouldnt have a job,
and if the guy had respected his own limitation he would be ordering pizza too, or maybe he should have paid for a private guided tour, those are available at Divers Down.....
we have standards, and i think they are pretty good ones given the alternative,
how can you police every person that gets off the boat, that is precisely the reason we have standards, the card is enough rope to hang yourself, and I tell each of my students that, I have worked the boats, and seen the people, on vacation and no common sense at all, hungover, havent seen a reg in ten years, set up gear upside down, not in physical shape, antiques not serviced, it goes on and on and on and on,,but you cant police every one of them, whos to say you re any better than this guy in cayman, it just happened, and given the absolute numbers they handle in cayman i am surprised it doesnt happen more, and I think you are blowing smoke and judging the DM, based on some ideal you have in your head, but I dont think you have dealt with tourists on this level, your ideal is great, but i doubt you could uphold your ideal in his situation, and still make a living, everyone agrees the guy had no business at 100', but you cant control what he does, is the kid at the cash register of burger king responsible for the fat guys order, or is it the manager, or is it the guy himself, he knows it can hurt him, and he chose to super size it, and our diver made the choice, he had an alternative to dive with his friends he chose badly, and unfortunately it didnt work out, it sucks, but it happens, and it could happen to you just as easily and quickly as the DM in Cayman, and ANY DIVE PROFESSIONAL SHOULD KNOW THAT TOO. it sucks, but it happens.....dont be so quick to blame, karma is brutal, and it could easily be you next time, it only takes a second ,,,,and again, we dont know what happened,

 

[Thalassamania]

... we have standards, and i think they are pretty good ones given the alternative,

I think that there is substantial disagreement there. Pray tell what "alternatives" are you referring to?

... whos to say you re any better than this guy in cayman, it just happened,

I don't buy it, we all know the act the DM was running, we've all seen it before, I can quite comfortably say that I'm a damn sight better (and probably you are too).

I think you are blowing smoke and judging the DM, based on some ideal you have in your head, but I dont think you have dealt with tourists on this level, your ideal is great, but i doubt you could uphold your ideal in his situation, and still make a living,

Perhaps not, but there's the difference ... to me, "making a living" does not equate with being an accident waiting to happen. I'd quit first, I'd refuse to do a job that way ... I suppose that's why I became a Temperate University DSO rather than a Tropical DM.

... everyone agrees the guy had no business at 100', but you cant control what he does,

If I couldn't I would not be there.

is the kid at the cash register of burger king responsible for the fat guys order, or is it the manager, or is it the guy himself, he knows it can hurt him, and he chose to super size it,

A specious simile if ever I read one.

and our diver made the choice, he had an alternative to dive with his friends he chose badly, and unfortunately it didnt work out, it sucks, but it happens, and it could happen to you just as easily and quickly as the DM in Cayman, and ANY DIVE PROFESSIONAL SHOULD KNOW THAT TOO.

Again, I disagree, it's not just a matter of skill and experience and situational awareness (that helps) it is also a question of taking responsibility and exercising moral authority. If that cuts into profits ... so be it.

it sucks, but it happens.....dont be so quick to blame, karma is brutal, and it could easily be you next time, it only takes a second ,,,,and again, we dont know what happened,

No, it doesn't just take a second, it takes misusing all the time that DM was in contact with the divers. It's a lack of situational awareness from back before the boat loaded up. It's not a question of turning your head away for just a second; it's not bothering to read the divers and make a good plan that would have prevented the problem in the first place. That's what I do when I supervise diving operations and that's what I expect of those whom I approve to supervise diving operations (what we call being a DM). It does not appear, from what little data we have, that this chap was up to the task.

I use these performance definitions, novice through expert, to provide an objective frame of reference. What this DM failed to do was to categorize his divers on this sort of scale and realize that at least one of them was a novice:

Novice: Diving knowledge is minimal and solely 'textbook.' It does not connect decisions with actions and ignores the context in which the action will be taken. The available suite of skills rigidly adhere to learned rules, other responses are not readily available. The possible use of knowledge for planning is without situational awareness and lacks discretionary judgment. The diver has available only rational decision making tools, nothing is intuitive or holistic. Individual actions are seen (and taken) in isolation with no conception of, or capability to deal with, complexity. Performance is unlikely to be satisfactory unless closely supervised.
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and come with a plan to deal with that situation appropriately.

 

[AquaExplorer]

Before this becomes a bun fight....

This incident aside;

It is not and will never be reasonable to expect a constant standard from DM's within the industry. In the perfect world, this might be the case, in this world I am afraid not.

If we condition ourselves to expect a definable standard (or even minimum standard), then we are setting ourselves up for disappointment at best and disaster at worst. If however we condition ourselves to expect the least from a DM (and our trainers do this too) then we have no choice but to think for ourselves and make our choices based on (better) judgements and hopefully deeper thought. Any better service we get from a professional DM can then be considered as a bonus and (that operator) will probably warrant consideration in the future again.

Defining standards for DM's (and thus creating expectations) means nothing unless the agency that the DM represents actually audits and imposes those standards through active means in the field and ensures that they are being met.

Best Regards
Richard

True Riger...but that very same sentiment can be said of MANY newbie divers. Since we cannot expect consistent standards from DM's, we cannot expect consistent standards from dive training. Thus we get a wide variety of new divers, all with varying levels of "skill". Then toss in "tourist divers", "vacation divers", and "hardcore divers" and man....you get a mess really quickly it seems.

 

[pilot fish]

Thats one of the points that needs making, this Ayn Randian, "well he was a certified diver." I find to be so much crap. Certified by whom and to do what? Does it no logically follow that if you certify something that "just ain't so!" you or the promulator of the standards that you certifiy to, should shoulder some of the responsibility? If I certify that a bridge will stand and it does not ...thal

This is a very good point. Let me make an addition to it, if I may, just because a pereson has a C card does not abslove the Dive Op and thier DM for everything that befalls the hapless newbie. The Dive Op and thier staff have a reasonable duty to see that newbie is not sent to a site that is obviously way beyond their skill level. It is COMOMON KNOWLEDGE that newbies don't always know what is within thier skill level. In the beginning they need GUIDANCE as well as reasonable care. All this pertains to their friends on the boat as well. Friends have an obligation too. = don't let friends drive, or dive, drunk and don't let newbie friends dive to 100 ft just after OW cert.

 

[pilot fish]

Web Monkey, yes, you can sign your rights away, which you do when you sign in to Dive Op, but you cannot sign your heir's rights away.

 

[krbailey]

If a local regulations, marine park (ex: Cozumel) or some other authority require a DM on every dive, does that imply that the DM has certain level of responsibility for the divers on that excursion?

Just curious.

 

[InTheDrink]

Agreed. But here is the problem, does not matter what we HERE on this board wind up finding out regarding the role of DM and Dive guide, if the Dive ops continue to be vague and misleading about it. They need to have a sign posted outlining what new divers should expect from DG and DM, and what the specific difference is. A newer, learning diver with less than 50 dives might be confused by all this? Clarity would help the newer diver and help prevent any more fatalities.

Agree 100%. Or even better, the fact that no-one is there to look after you but yourself gets drilled into you during OW as per Jim Lap's post in the New to Diving forum.

As long as the lines of responsibility are clearly drawn then I see much less of a problem. It's when it's blurry that people get confused about who's looking after who and what.

Until there is that level of clarity though, which of course there will likely never be, calling someone a Dive Master will carry a certain amount of gravitas and certain amount of assumptions to the non-suspecting public/newbie which may well be misplaced.

 

[JonKranhouse]

Much frustration has been expressed in this thread that the root causes of accidents are hardly ever learned by the public.
Clearly, lots of responsible people want to mitigate future accidents.
Maybe we should look to the past to determine a better way forward.

History of Accident / Incident Report Forms

In 1973, the dive industry adopted an accident reporting form that was 6-pages. The form was designed to find patterns, to mitigate future accidents.
MANY of the detailed questions / prompts have been eliminated on "modern" forms, by coordination between liability underwriters and training agencies.
Below are excerpts from the 6-page form.

In 1961 The Compressed Gas Association (CGA), began the "American National Standards on Underwater Safety," via the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

Called the "Z86" project under ANSI, the Council for National Cooperation in Aquatics (CNCA) took over management of the Z86 project in 1968,
involving OVER SEVENTY separate organizations. Seven industry members and consultants created the "ANSI_Z-86.2-1973" Standard Underwater Accident Report Form,
drafted over a 4-year period and adopted in 1973 by the Z86 Underwater Safety Standards Committee.

ON FIRST PAGE OF THE 1973 Z86 FORM:
"...research completed has identified needed improvements in diving instruction, accident management
techniques, and equipment performance."

Please read the last line above, "To...improve the overall safety of diving"


30-years later, on PADI's Incident Reporting form (page 1):

...and again on page 3:

In 2009, a major insurance broker brags to the industry:
"Carol also revised incident reporting procedures to minimize information reported in order to reduce discovery of incident information."

But in the old days...
(Excerpts from the 1973 ANSI z86 form)

Specific call-outs prompt inputs vs. "modern" forms that only ask one single question, with little space for a response (e.g. "Surface Conditions"):

Specific questions RE buddy diving, and if the Coast Guard was notified (lacking on "modern" form):

Specific background RE swimming ability, and a "human factors" section (ENTIRELY missing on "modern" form):

Specific spots for itemizing equipment and condition of gear. But missing from this 1973 form:
Was air tested for CARBON MONOXIDE? If so, _______ ppm? (part-per-million).
And who had possession of the equipment after the accident?

Specific prompts to collect names and contact info for WITNESSES (entirely missing on "modern" form):

 

[Web Monkey]

They need to have a sign posted outlining what new divers should expect from DG and DM, and what the specific difference is. A newer, learning diver with less than 50 dives might be confused by all this? Clarity would help the newer diver and help prevent any more fatalities.

The only way it will happen is if someone sues PADI's butt off or files some sort of criminal charges against the officers.

I'd like to see the DM to give the briefing and stay on the boat, and would be willing to bet that when divers have to jump off the end of the boat with nothing to rely on except their training and their buddy and instructions to "be back in an hour or @ 500 PSI", the 2-day OW classes would vanish faster than a $20 bill at a casino.

Terry

 

[spoolin01]

While we are discussing roles and duties, (as far as I'm concerned the DM DG thing is just a quibble and changes nothing) I am given to understand that the DM/DG was also the boat captain. Last time I checked a boat captain in a commercial operation is responsible for the life and limb of his passengers, from embarkation to debarkation even if the boat stops for a swim call or a dive.

Is there a crickets smiley?...

This is a can of worms for many here on SB, from what I can tell. Expectations and regard for this ethic seem to vary widely, perhaps as matter of local maritime culture and law, and from what I gather, an incipient legal distinction exists between scuba-by-boat and boating, the development of which has created a muddied body of law (as if that's new I suppose). It is a tradition which if supported more strongly, would save lives (and raise rates...).