Utah: Boy Scout drowns diving in Bear Lake

[DandyDon]

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52184249-78/rowberry-lake-diving-scuba.html.csp

A 12-year-old Boy Scout drowned Wednesday afternoon while scuba diving in Bear Lake.

A Boy Scouts of America official confirmed the death of the boy, who is from Las Vegas.

Vic Rowberry, a spokesman with the BSA, said the boy was participating in a scuba diving experience as part of a week-long aquatics camp.

Rowberry said the organization is still gathering information, but what is known so far is that a group of scouts went out in the water to dive and the boy apparently became separated from the group.

Once the others surfaced and the boy did not, a search went on for about 30 minutes before he was found and rushed to a hospital in Logan, Rowberry said.

The boy had the proper equipment for the activity, including a buoyancy control vest, he added.

The organization has an aquatic and risk management committee that will investigate and review the incident to determine what happened.

Rowberry said the Bear Lake Aquatics Base camp — located on the east side of the lake — provides activities ranging from nature and conservation studies, to archery and scuba diving.

Rowberry said the boy’s identity will be released at the discretion of his family.

 

[Scott]

This one really hurts. I know the location, the program, the Instructor and Aquatics Director.

 

[DandyDon]

They had another Scout killed by lightening the same day, different locations. Utah Scout killed by lightning identified; no ID in drowning yet | The Salt Lake Tribune

 

[VooDooGasMan]

I hate when this happens to kids, and I am not to happy with the organization to investigate and review.

The way they said they took him to hospital, are the boy scouts equal to fire and rescue, not liking how this is handled, was he taken in a secured emergency vehicle.

Anyways, just have to see the news reports in the future.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Ok quik enough Don, left them and went back down, Oh Deer, this is not good, and same info, except giving CPR and going to hospital.

 

[rsldonk]

I dive Bear Lake fairly often and was just wondering if anyone had any further details? There is a pretty dramatic thermocline there at about 15 feet, and the temperature drops like 10 degrees, was this a factor in why the scoutmaster and instructor surfaced? Also, I'm assuming this was a resort course/discover scuba type thing and if it was, how deep are they allowed to go and also, how many students are allowed per instructor? Seems that may have contributed to this accident. Anyone have any information to help explain this?

 

[DandyDon]

I hate when this happens to kids, and I am not to happy with the organization to investigate and review.

The way they said they took him to hospital, are the boy scouts equal to fire and rescue, not liking how this is handled, was he taken in a secured emergency vehicle.

Anyways, just have to see the news reports in the future.

I don't know how well Scout Leaders are trained, but EMS was on the scene. Excerpting from Uinta County Herald UPDATED: Boy Scout drowns in Bear Lake July 13

According to Boy Scouts Greater Salt Lake Council Executive Rick Barnes, the 12-year-old was one of a handful of Scouts participating in the "Discover Scuba"...

Barnes said it took about 30 minutes to locate the boy, and although emergency responders were on the scene by then, they were not able to revive the boy.

And excerpting from http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52189951-78/lake-rowberry-instructor-shore.html.csp it sounds like they were prudent in their planning except for a couple of issues. Continued below...

The boy was diving with another Scout, an adult leader and an adult instructor, said Vic Rowberry, spokesman for the Salt Lake Office of the Boy Scouts of America.

The death occurred at the Bear Lake Aquatics Base camp, a roped-off area on the east side of Bear Lake that is only 14 feet deep. At the camp, there is a line laid along the bottom of the lake that guides divers back to shore.

The four divers were on the line when the instructor and adult scoutmaster resurfaced. The instructor checked the scoutmaster and OK’d him to swim back to shore, Rowberry said. When the instructor went back down to find the boys, they were no longer on the line.

"What he thought had happened was that as he came up, he thought the boys had followed the line toward shore," Rowberry said. "That was not the case."

Two questions come to mind...?

1: If neither the adult nor the two boys were certified and all were involved in the Discover aspect, is 3 per Inst not excessive. I started with a Discover class and my first dives got wild, but I always had my private Inst (or DM, or Guide - it was in the Caribbean) as a partner.

2: My original Inst once mentioned that he never left OW students below. I don't like solo ascents for any recreational diver, but in this case with 3 students - I'd think bringing them all up together would have been more prudent. There may well have been additional problems that the Inst saw as a possible emergency with the adult he escorted up tho, no time to get the boys to go too - and ascending with 3 Discovery students sounds very challenging, which is probably part of why they used the rope to shore, but again: 1 Inst to 3 Discovery students?!

 

[Quero]

Without hearing from the Instructor and reconstructing the time line, it's hard to know if there is negligence. And the instructor will have been cautioned by legal counsel not to make any statements, so we are not likely to get any insight from that source. If both boys were together and one of them perished, the other one knows what happened and will have been debriefed by the authorities. We can only wait for these authorities to release more information.

Just from a standards point of view, instructors must never lose control of uncertified dive students. It's among the most serious of breaches in terms of duty of care, and every instructor has this drilled in during training. I hate to imagine an instructor surfacing and leaving students unsupervised at the bottom, especially children, so I can only hope that there is some information missing from the report of the incident.

 

[DandyDon]

Quero, very good post, but tell me - how many non-certified divers may a Inst take on a Discover class alone?

 

[Quero]

Don, I have Instructor Manuals for only two agencies--PADI and SSI. For PADI, in a non-pool environment that is classed as "confined open water," the ratio of students to instructor is 4:1 in the case of a fully-rated instructor or 2:1 in the case of a Divemaster who has been trained to conduct DSDs. For SSI, the ration is 4:1 and only full instructors may conduct the TSD program in open water.