How many fatalities would you guess are caused by the diver consciously thinking "my safety ain't worth the 50, 100, 200€ my weight belt / weight pockets cost"?
How many fatalities would you guess are caused by the victim not realizing they have a serious problem and thus believing they don't need to drop their weights "just yet"? Until they have a full-blown emergency on their hands, panic and don't think of, or are unable to, drop their weights?
I don't have any numbers, but I'm willing to bet that the latter number is larger than the former. Remember that I was commenting on what was said to an inexperienced and insecure diver.
... and I'd be willing to bet that anyone who makes decisions that poor are not adequately trained to begin with. And the problem goes way beyond the concept of when to drop lead and to the fundamental aspect of where your priorities are ... because these are divers who are capable of making a wide range of bad decisions based on an inadequate comprehension of the risks they face underwater.
Rather than putting the onus onto the person who rented them the gear and told them they are responsible for returning it or paying for it ... what say we begin, from Day One, emphasizing to these new divers that the backbone of safe, responsible diving is making good decisions and taking responsibility for your own safety. Let's emphasize that, as dive equipment goes, weights are cheap ... and dropped weights are usually recoverable anyway. So don't hesitate if you think you need to get rid of them.
It doesn't matter how experienced or inexperienced you are ... if you're incapable of understanding that lead is less important than life, then you shouldn't have been certified in the first place. Diver training needs to go beyond a checklist of "skills" and an emphasis on how safe and fun scuba diving is. We also need to focus on the importance of good decision-making and personal responsibility. When the training doesn't do that, it creates a whole class of dependent divers who are a danger not just to themselves, but to everyone around them. We need to address the source of the problem ... which is a serious need for an attitude adjustment ... rather than simply making it easier for them to do the right thing. Because there's a whole raft of other things that can go wrong that will come up on the short end of safe decision-making if that person doesn't get their priorities in order.
Ultimately, it's my own responsibility. I totally agree. My decisions are my, and only my responsibility. I can't excuse my choices by transferring any of that responsibility to someone else.
... then why call a business decision by a company that rents equipment irresponsible? All they're doing is protecting their own investment.
However, I don't think responsibility is a zero-sum game. If I lost a friend in a diving accident, he was found on the bottom still wearing his belt and the last thing I had told that friend was "Remember, if you drop those weights, you'll have to pay for them", I'd feel pretty miserable and there wouldn't be anything you could have said to convince me I didn't bear a part of the responsibility for his death.
How are you responsible? If your friend couldn't accept responsibility for his life over the loss of a piece of equipment, he shouldn't have been diving in the first place. It was completely his decision to decide that this piece of gear was worth more than his personal safety.
What if he owned the weights, rather than renting them? Should he have an expectation that someone else will buy him a new one? Who, I wonder ... Santa Claus?
The reluctance to drop weights has - AFAIK - caused fatalities and near-fatalities in the past, which is why any member of a club affiliated with the Norwegian Diving Association will get their weights refunded if they choose to drop them. No questions asked. And if our diving association believes that that can reduce the number of diving fatalities, I believe that anything that makes a diver - particularly an inexperienced one - more reluctant to drop weights does the opposite, i.e. increases the risk of a fatality.
Just IMNSHO, of course...
It's great that your dive club has that policy ... many dive shops in my local area do too. And I applaud them. But it's not their responsibility to do that.
And it doesn't address the real problem ... which is certifying divers without giving them a straight education on the very real dangers of diving and the approach they need to take to making good decisions in order to keep themselves out of trouble. A great deal of this lies at the fallacy that diving is "safer than bowling" ... giving many divers, newer ones in particular, a false sense of security. More emphasis needs to be placed on the very real dangers, and what each and every one of us who dives needs to do to deal with them. Emphasis should be placed ... from Day One ... on the notion that a reluctance to drop weights is a bad decision ... and bad decisions can get you killed quick underwater. Dive gear is replaceable ... and in most cases, it's recoverable. Hesitating to jettison weights out of a concern for cost is making a foolish decision ... and underwater, foolish decisions can kill you quick. So don't make them.
And yes ... I do use exactly that language with my OW students. I'm not trying to scare them, but I won't sugar-coat the reality either. If they can't handle it, they shouldn't be in the class ... because the last thing I or any other instructor wants is to read about one of our former students getting killed because they did something dumb.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
