Instructors losing certification for non-teaching reasons

Recently a thread was posted seeking confirmation of rumors that a cave instructor lost their instructor certification due to their actions that resulted in a fatality. Some of the opinions seem to imply that there should be no situation where an instructors certification should be at risk when they are not diving in an instructor/student relationship. I believe that there could be situations where an agency revoking an instructors certification could be justified.


Below is a hypothetical situation and in no means to be interpreted as actual events.


Let me give a hypothetical example of a possible accident that could occur.

A fairly new cave diver is off diving with a couple others. This diver has 12 cave dives, most of which were their cave training dives and trimix training dives, and this diver has no experience diving with DPVs. He is diving with borrowed doubles and a borrowed scooter. His deepest penetration is this system to date is 500'.

The dive plan is to scooter a cave on a single stage, turning either when the stage has nearly exhausted, or at 1500'. During the dive, the leader notices an intermittant freeflow on the inexperienced diver that he most likely can't hear due to the noise from the scooters. At some point prior to the dive being turned at 1700', the inexperienced diver exhausts the stage bottle and switches to their back gas.

At the 1200' foot mark, the inexperienced diver indicates his back gas is at 150 psi and takes the long hose from the dive leader. The inexperienced diver has some bouyancy issues, but gets them under control and they proceed to exit, sharing gas, both operating their own scooter.

At 100' of depth, the inexperienced diver once again has bouyancy issues. He ascends to a point where he looses the leaders long hose. He swims down, and grabs the secondary from the leaders mouth. The leader recovers his long hose and finds the out of gas diver missing.

The leader assumed the diver must have gone to another diver for gas and continues to his 70' stop. On arrival at the 70' stop, his 50% deco bottle is there, as is the inexperienced diver that was out of gas, and the 3rd team member's bottle is not there. The same situation is at the 20' stop [his bottle is there which he takes, the now missing out of gas divers bottle is there, and the 3rd members bottle is not there].

After 30 minutes of deco the leader exits the water, finding the 3rd team member there as well as another team that was diving the cave. He asks them if they have seen the missing diver, which they have not.

When the other team goes in the water, they find the now deceased diver stuck to the ceiling at 100' with empty tanks, a scooter, and a completely closed drysuit exhaust valve.

--------------

It is my understanding that an instructor and agency is liable for a student for a certain amount of time, in that they can assure the student successfully demonstrated competency in all required skills for that level of certification. With that understanding, I believe it would make sense that an agency would keep an eye on their instructors so the agency can have the confidence that the instructor can adequately train their students. So while it's an instructors responsibility to ensure that their students can adequately demonstrate the class skills, I believe it's an agencies responsibility to have confidence in their instructors. If an agency can not be confident that their instructors have the skills necessary to teach skills to a student, regardless if the demonstration is inside our outside of a class setting, they have a responsibilty to not allow that instructor to continue to be an instructor.

In my hypothetical dive, let us assume the dive leader is an instructor, and has been the cave and trimix instructor for the inexperienced diver in all of their cave dives. If an instructor plans a dive well beyond the experience of a former student, with unfamiliar equipment, and something happens... should that divers certification as an instructor be put into question. What if that diver neglects to keep a close eye on the inexperienced team member? What if that diver neglects to turn a dive after witnessing a possible equipment malfunction? What about if it's possible the inexperienced diver isn't even aware of the equipment malfunction? What if that diver fails to take full control of the situation and allows the buddy to independantly scooter out while receiving donated gas? What if that diver neglects to search for a lost buddy that is out of gas and having bouyancy issues?

Personally I feel there are situations that, while not in an class setting, should definately put an instructors credibility into question and potentially result in their loss of instructor certification.

But of course that's just my opinion after thinking through a hypothetical situation.

WOW for a "hypothetical situation" it's an awful lot like what happened in Roubidoux last year.

I think most agencies have wording in their instructor agreement that allow for a parting of ways due to conduct that makes the agency look bad.

MikeFerrara:

WOW for a "hypothetical situation" it's an awful lot like what happened in Roubidoux last year.

Click to expand...

You ain't helpin' my attempt at a hypothetical discussion!

Lessee here...
(1) Planning a dive beyond a team member's training...
(2) Failure to pull back the plan to accomodate some unplanned lost gas...
(3) Worse, exceeding the plan TWICE
- failure to turn on the planned gas plan
- failure to turn at the planned distance
(4) Failure to recognize a developing emergency
(5) Failure to maintain team integrity in handling an emergency
(6) Ultimately losing the bubble and losing a diver.
Sad, very sad.
Now I'm a tolerant man, and I can excuse lots of errors made in the "fog of war" - and liberally, 2, 4, 5, and 6 could possibly fall into this category.
But for an instructor to violate basic tenets of planning (1), and to then violate even that plan (3)...
I ain't the judge, but that's pretty damning.
Rick

FYI:
As a licensed officer in the merchant marine I can loose my license for being convicted of drinking and driving even if Im not currentaly assigned to a ship or employed.

I don't think it's so clear cut. I agree that it looks bad for the instructor but the diver, IMO, has the primary responsibility.

The depth and the cave were within the divers qualifications. Certainly the wisdom of using a stage and a scooter could be argued but that's just what it is...an arguement.

It wasn't a class so there isn't any agency standards to break. That leaves things like exibiting poor role model behavior or something for the agency to work with.

Oh, and he had to have had more than 12 cave dives because you can't get cave certified with only 12 dives.

MikeFerrara:

Oh, and he had to have had more than 12 cave dives because you can't get cave certified with only 12 dives.

Click to expand...

You can if you are intro certified. I thought a little bit about what certification level my hypothetical diver had, but I thought I'd leave that as a loose end. Do note his previous penetration experience in that system [500'].

Any agency has an interest in making sure that it's instructors practice what they preach. I think it's hard to get upset about them tossing an instructor whose dive activities call the agencies standards and credibility into question. Actually, I suspect that most of us wish they'd do it more often, then there would be less need for the repetitive refrain, "the quality of the instructor is more important than the quality of the agency."

I guess I assumed full cave especialy since he had done trimix training dives in a cave per the story.


We're not talking about a new OW diver who followed a DM too deep. This is some one who's done a fair amount of diving and has a good deal of training. By this stage they should be able to pick they're own dives.

That said, I don't ask any of my former instructors to take responsibility for any dive I do and while I might ask for their opinion I don't ask for their permission.


I would expect them not to leave me if I needed gas though.

one part that becomes very interesting is the circumstances revolving around the turn pressure and distance. If he switched to back gas, why didn't he turn. If they got to 1500', why didn't he turn. Did he ignore it, or did he go into chase mode due to not being able to get the attention of the others? The 3rd diver was signalled by the leader when the inexperienced diver was receiving donated gas. The 3rd diver signalled ok and kept going... so we've established that there was communication issues.

So who was responsible for not turning the dive at the right time?