Two fatalities in Monterey

[Peter Guy]

Facts -- or lack thereof.

I received a communication from one of the instructional team that no comments will be forthcoming from the team until the investigation is finished. So go on and speculate but, in reality, all WE know is that the two boys went into the water alive and came out dead.

 

[Scott L]

No kidding ... OW certification is supposed to prepare you for planning and executing your own dives. If you cannot do that, you shouldn't have passed the class.

There has been no indication in anything I've read that these boys were inept, and required a dive guide. As I understand it, this was an outing ... not a class. The instructors were along as adult chaperones ... just as there would be for any other type of high school outing.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Regardless of what PADI stamps on their newly minted OW cards, the divers are extremely inexperienced. In virtually every diving training publication I have read, seeking local guides for initial ventures is always recommended. Just as DD stated, whenever my nieces or nephews visit my area, I hire an extra DM to shadow them for an additional $50 per trip. I do not wish to ever pick-up the phone in order to call my sisters with bad news...

 

[ScubaSteve]

Regardless of what PADI stamps on their newly minted OW cards, the divers are extremely inexperienced. In virtually every diving training publication I have read, seeking local guides for initial ventures is always recommended. Just as DD stated, whenever my nieces or nephews visit my area, I hire an extra DM to shadow them for an additional $50 per trip. I do not wish to ever pick-up the phone in order to call my sisters with bad news...

My 7th lifetime (remembering that the first 5 were certification and the following 2 were fun dives with my instructor) dive was just me and my GF at the time......by my 14th dives I was leading dives in viz<2'......maybe not impressive but the whole idea is that your certification means that you should be capable of planning and executing a dive as of your 1st post-certificatification dive.

I understand about hiring a guide......but when does that no longer get used as an excuse to schluff off blame? Nobody here knows exactly how many dives these two had so these arguments are senseless. You have no clue if they had 10 lifetime dives or 20 dives or 50 dives. All would be classified inexperienced IMO but at 15 or 20 dives if you need a guide to plan and execute a dive for you then you should be disposing of your certification.

People can hire a guide but anybody that believes that the action of hiring the local guide alleviates any of the responsibility from them or a loved one is destined for heartache because it absolutely is not true.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Regardless of what PADI stamps on their newly minted OW cards, the divers are extremely inexperienced. In virtually every diving training publication I have read, seeking local guides for initial ventures is always recommended. Just as DD stated, whenever my nieces or nephews visit my area, I hire an extra DM to shadow them for an additional $50 per trip. I do not wish to ever pick-up the phone in order to call my sisters with bad news...

Are you sure these were PADI-trained divers?

I'm pretty sure they were not ... most school programs aren't, yanno ... so if you truly want to take this conversation into the rathole of agency-bashing, you're bashing the wrong agency.

If you truly believe that hiring a DM can guarantee the safety of a loved one, you are deluding yourself. Take some time to read some recent threads in this and other forums on ScubaBoard, and you'll come to the realization that DM's can sometimes make judgement errors too.

You're asking for a risk-free world ... it doesn't exist.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

My 7th lifetime (remembering that the first 5 were certification and the following 2 were fun dives with my instructor) dive was just me and my GF at the time......by my 14th dives I was leading dives in viz<2'......maybe not impressive but the whole idea is that your certification means that you should be capable of planning and executing a dive as of your 1st post-certificatification dive.

I understand about hiring a guide......but when does that no longer get used as an excuse to schluff off blame? Nobody here knows exactly how many dives these two had so these arguments are senseless. You have no clue if they had 10 lifetime dives or 20 dives or 50 dives. All would be classified inexperienced IMO but at 15 or 20 dives if you need a guide to plan and execute a dive for you then you should be disposing of your certification.

I was doing unguided dives straight out of OW ... in fact, my instructor wanted me to log at least 20 dives before signing up for AOW, which I did. None of them were with an instructor. The majority were with a fellow student from the same OW class I took.

I make pretty much the same expectations of my OW students ... and if for any reason I didn't think they could handle it, they wouldn't be receiving a C-card ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Scott L]

Are you sure these were PADI-trained divers?

I'm pretty sure they were not ... most school programs aren't, yanno ... so if you truly want to take this conversation into the rathole of agency-bashing, you're bashing the wrong agency.

If you truly believe that hiring a DM can guarantee the safety of a loved one, you are deluding yourself. Take some time to read some recent threads in this and other forums on ScubaBoard, and you'll come to the realization that DM's can sometimes make judgement errors too.

You're asking for a risk-free world ... it doesn't exist.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

You are building a straw-man argument. There are no guarantees, but the probabilities can be significantly reduced.

 

[rjack321]

Facts -- or lack thereof.

I received a communication from one of the instructional team that no comments will be forthcoming from the team until the investigation is finished. So go on and speculate but, in reality, all WE know is that the two boys went into the water alive and came out dead.

Do you know who is doing this investigation? Police/sheriff? Medical examiner? School?

 

[mdb]

I have been diving for 40 years. I don't log dives but I have several thousand in California waters and 400-500 in Florida, The Bahama Islands, NJ, NY, MA, Japan, the Caymans and all that.

I do not purport to be any great diver. I just like being in the water and find diving one of the best ways to relax.

Both my sons are certified divers. Anytime we go someplace new I hire a local to guide our dive. He/She knows where they are going and what to see. I don't have to worry about navigation-even though I do my own checks-I can just enjoy the diving. Even here in NoCal if it is a site I am not familiar with I hire a dive guide.

I agree with Scott L-"There are no guarantees, but the probabilities can be significantly reduced."

I also agree with NWGD that certified OW divers "should" be able to dive on their own. That is a pretty big "should" and we will never know what would have happened if these young men in Monterey had a DM/Insturctor or more experienced diver with them.

This tragedy continues to provide information that can and should help divers dive safer. I hope so, the cost was very high.

 

[DandyDon]

Do you know who is doing this investigation? Police/sheriff? Medical examiner? School?

The local authorities and coroner will do theirs, the Coast Guard will do their own, and there could be others - but those will end with official opinions. Only if the case were to go to court for some reason would any judgements be made.

I've read that they still have not recovered their gear. I suppose the reports of one being OOA and the other LOA were from rescuers' quick views as they removed them from their kits for retrieval. It is common for newbies to overweight for various reasons, hell they are often trained that way so they will get down with the Insts, so I'm guessing the kits are weighted down on the bottom - perhaps pushed into deeper waters by currents.

My Inst wanted us to feel confident in our training but I really feel that my Padi basic OW just got able to start learning for real in practice. He never suggested hiring a private DM but I can see in retrospect that it would have helped us deal with challenges and learning opportunities even in our FW dives in Santa Rosa NM's Blue Hole, must less the ocean. In this accident, such a DM hired to dive with the boys could certainly have made a big difference possibly.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I also agree with NWGD that certified OW divers "should" be able to dive on their own. That is a pretty big "should" and we will never know what would have happened if these young men in Monterey had a DM/Insturctor or more experienced diver with them.

How do we know they didn't? Or didn't start out that way?

I remember a time, back when I was a DM at one of our local shops, that I was asked to chaperone a pair of 12-year old girls on a local dive. Five minutes into the dive, damn if they didn't take off on me ... one going one way, one going the other ... like happy little harbor seals flitting around with not a care in the world.

Scared the crap outta me ... but unless I had 'em on a leash, all I could do about it was decide which one to follow and hope the other one had sense enough to turn around. We reunited after a couple minutes ... but y'all know how long that couple minutes were, or how many bad things went through my head during that brief time?

It's all well and good to talk about what people "should" have done ... but let's keep it in the perspective that not one of you knows what they "did" do ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)