Lost diver in Puget Sound

[Sasquatch]

Very much of what Mike said I agree with in principle. Obviously Bob's counterpoints are valid but the nuts of what Mike said I agree with. We are ULTIMATELY responsible for our own safety in diving. This was a principle I understood BEFORE I took my first class.

I am NOT saying that that excuses the authority figure/diving expert that led these divers to this disaster. I refer the reader to many well expressed posts in this thread.

Know your limits and dive within them.

 

[mikerault]

The diver had 150 dives. Even at 5 dives past OOW I knew 130 feet was the limit and why. I knew I didn't want to become a statistic. I wasn't writing it all off as BS. Just that it was not all the instructors fault. Yes, in this situation he appears materially at fault. However, was the person involved a child? No, he was an adult. Was the person involved unable to read or research on his own? no, he was not. Were the conditions readily conducive to say "This is not safe, I am not doing it" yes. Did he have the experience to say "This is stupid and unsafe and I am not doing it" yes.

We are not sheep blindly following the sheperd, we are supposed to be thinking on our own.

Should triple D be teaching or in a position of responsibility? No. However, we should be stressing that Chad died because he was not diving safely, especially because he had the experience to know better. Had Steve died (the OW noobie) then yes, the instructor was primarily at fault. That these may have been dive master candidates again points to the fact they all knew better.

All you have to do is read the OW manual to know better.

Remember from rescue Diver training...don't put yourself in jepordy during a rescue, because then there may be two victims.

Mike

 

[nlbford]

Well ... you're wrong to do so. This was a class. The instructor is ultimately responsible for choosing the dive site, setting the dive profile, and assuring that the dive is conducted in a safe manner ... within the limits set by his training organization.

I wouldn't agree that he is wrong. Even if this were the very first Open Water dives of a brand new diver I would disagree that the responsibilities for diving safely are purely the responsibility on the instructor. Granted there is a greater responsibility for him, however it is also incumbent on the new diver to actually read the materials provided by the AGENCY and beware of those guidelines and pay attention to them. Unless the Instructor completely withheld all the agenmcies materials and told his students there was no such thing, then the diver himself bares some responsibility in ingesting those guidelines and following them. There's no way a student who has read their materials properly would think this was a safe thing to do regardless of what the instructor told them - and at that point they need to evaluate whether this person who is instructing them and telling them to go AGAISNT what hey should already know is the right person to be teaching them. ESPECIALLY if that instructor is doing so.

And that is on the OW level. The claims are that this was a DM class and that this diver had 150+ dives . . . sorry, but regardless of whether this was the only instructor he ever had.

I would agree that there is some level of criminal negligence if along the way in Chad's training, this instructor had willfully withheld ALL the learning materials that we all know come with the OW, ADVANCED OW, RESCUE and other classes one must complete prior to going for one's DM status and intentionally misrepresented the guidleines of the agnecy - or flat out lied to the students

However, I still think that the victim in this case would have to have spent his entire dive carreer in a vacuum to have logged 150 dives, acheived the certifications he apparently had and not had at least an HINT that this was a very dangerous thing to do. I mean one has to accept responsibility for one's own knowledge. Chad would have had to have never read ANYTHING on diving from a magazine to a piecce of equipments instruction manual to be so grossly misinformed that he just bumbled along on this last dive just blindly believeing that the instructor "knew it all" and was the sole source of whether this type of dive was safe or not.

Not to be disrespectful to Chad at all. In fact, I think it is somewhat disrespectful to Cchad to assume that after his dive experience he was some naive fool who simply took a sheeplike attitude to what the instructor said. And that he had spent his entire time as a diver avoiding any other sources of information - if even simply having conversations with other divers.

I know there is a very strong and understandable tendency to want to blame in a situation like this. I understand that this instructor sounds like a dangerous fool who needs to lose his license. But really, the bottom line is as divers we ALL have to accept a degree of repsonsibility for how we dive each and everytime. Whether doing one's first certification dive, or taking a DM class.

It sounds like Chad along the way may have gotten some really shoddy instruction and advice along the way, and it is tragic that it lead to a series of events where he paid the ultimate price for that advice. And this is eactly why I feel so strongly that is an OBLIGATION for EVERY diver to play a very active role in their own education annd advancement as a diver form the second one walks into that classroom for that very first dive.

There is much that you don't know ... both about this incident, and about the responsibilities of a dive instructor ... that are known by those involved in the investigation. Don't write it off as BS ... it's far from that.

I expect to see this instructor criminally charged for his actions ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

If ultimately all of the factual information leads to such a thing then it would be very warranted. I think it would take some SERIOUS breaches of protocol to get to that point, and such breeches would definitely launch this right into the realm of criminal negligence. But it would require the type of gross violations I mentioned above.

However, even in that eventuality, I can't stress enough how important it is for every diver out there to not simply lay this off as a bad instructor intentionally misleading his divers into a dangerous situtaion. I think it is dangerous for anyone to take the position that we are not responsible for our knowledge and decisions when undertaking this sport. It could be a very fatal attitude to simply put all the responsibility for safe diving in the hands of one indivdual and ignore a waelth of information and experince readily available to all divers - unfortunately Chad and his friends found this out in brutal and unfair fashion.

And if one IS going to place sole responsibility onto ONE individual, that individual MUST be oneself.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

The diver had 150 dives. Even at 5 dives past OOW I knew 130 feet was the limit and why. I knew I didn't want to become a statistic. I wasn't writing it all off as BS. Just that it was not all the instructors fault. Yes, in this situation he appears materially at fault. However, was the person involved a child? No, he was an adult. Was the person involved unable to read or research on his own? no, he was not. Were the conditions readily conducive to say "This is not safe, I am not doing it" yes. Did he have the experience to say "This is stupid and unsafe and I am not doing it" yes.

We are not sheep blindly following the sheperd, we are supposed to be thinking on our own.

Should triple D be teaching or in a position of responsibility? No. However, we should be stressing that Chad died because he was not diving safely, especially because he had the experience to know better. Had Steve died (the OW noobie) then yes, the instructor was primarily at fault. That these may have been dive master candidates again points to the fact they all knew better.

All you have to do is read the OW manual to know better.

Remember from rescue Diver training...don't put yourself in jepordy during a rescue, because then there may be two victims.

Mike

Have to admit, Mike ... you make some good points.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

However, even in that eventuality, I can't stress enough how important it is for every diver out there to not simply lay this off as a bad instructor intentionally misleading his divers into a dangerous situtaion. I think it is dangerous for anyone to take the position that we are not responsible for our knowledge and decisions when undertaking this sport. It could be a very fatal attitude to simply put all the responsibility for safe diving in the hands of one indivdual and ignore a waelth of information and experince readily available to all divers - unfortunately Chad and his friends found this out in brutal and unfair fashion.

And if one IS going to place sole responsibility onto ONE individual, that individual MUST be oneself.

Again ... a good point and worthwhile to bring into the discussion.

I do see your point of view ... I also believe that this instructor needs to take responsibility for having put them in this position in the first place.

BTW - it was an AOW class, not a DM class.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MikeFerrara]

Does NAUI have a document similar to the PADI "SAfe Diving Pratices Statement of Understanding"?

I would assume that the NAUI liability waivers are similar to those used by other agencies?

Do the NAUI OW and AOW texts discuss course limits and recommended limits for divers at that level?

Putting this in perspective, deep bounce dives by recreational divers aren't all that rare and they aren't against the law like drinking and driving. I don't see where any of these divers could claim ignorance. There might have been a little hero worship going on here but these were all certified divers who should have known better.

My guess is the whole thing won't go very far.

 

[tedtim]

And if one IS going to place sole responsibility onto ONE individual, that individual MUST be oneself.

A very interesting thread to read. It is also a very interesting statement on social behaviour from various perspectives.

It seems to me that there is no clear understanding of what happened. There are the versions offered by those that were there at the time, and then there is the interpretation on SB by those reading this thread. Some have more information than others and cannot share it without violating the TOS. So be it.

I do not believe that the essence here is that there is a sole responsibility. People make decisions based on the information available to them. That comes from a combination of what they had previously learned, what they have gained through experience, their value basis for risk, and the magnitude of the impact of their actions. The balance in the equation is different from one person to another.

The question here does not seem to be whether this was a wise decision. Even had everyone survived there would be a consensus on SB that this was not a wise choice for a course of action. The question here is whether the actions of the individuals involved can lead to legal action. That action may be civil, criminal, or both. Peter has offered his experience regarding the criminal side is so far as whether there may be a cause to lay a criminal charger. Should the case go to criminal court, the ultimate decision will be in the hands of jurors.

I cannot agree that there is a sole responsibility. The responsibility is shared. The question is how would a reasonable person assess the actions of the divers in relation to what they know or should have known, and also what influence, if any did one or all of the divers have on the others.

 

[shark.byte.usa]

Well I read the whole thread so may as well chime in...

Primarily my condolences to the family and friends of Chad; by all accounts he sounded like a great guy.

As for Chad's Instructor/Mentor, I hope he gets what's coming to him either criminally or in a civil suit and is never allowed to Teach again.

To voice my opposing opinion on the "heroic/award nomination" comments, I have to respectfully disagree. Someone previously compared it to running into a burning building to save a life. To use the same metaphor, the difference here is they all sat around and planned the fire, either collectively or blindly following Dave's instructions/planning, started the fire and ran into the burning building. When Steve(?) was in trouble, Chad went back and pushed him out the door ultimately costing him his life. Was that single act Selfless?..Yes, Corageous?...Yes. But I wouldn't be so quick to label him a Hero and go pinning a medal on him for being in a very bad situation and at the very least partially of his own creation. It's very sad but a lot of very bad personal choices culminated to lead to his death.

-Garrett

 

[lamont]

In principle I agree with your sentiments. I would find it particularly chilling if I couldn't simply be responsible for myself and do the dives that I wanted to without some kind of scuba police making certain that I had all the necessary training and wasn't putting myself in any kind of risk. We've got a culture which seems to want to sterilize the risk out of life, and I can't agree with that and I tend to err on the side of personal responsibility.

Still, this was a class dive, and there were very new students on the dive. The fatality was the result of one of the new divers getting into trouble and Chad trying to rescue them. The instructor clearly had a high duty of care in this case and was criminally negligent.

Had Steve died (the OW noobie) then yes, the instructor was primarily at fault. That these may have been dive master candidates again points to the fact they all knew better.

Had the new diver not been on this dive and not involved in the incident at all then I'd be more inclined to agree with you.

But still, if you want to be able to go out and do utterly unsafe and stupid things with your dive buddies then you shouldn't be an instructor. If you place the focus onto Dave instead of Chad or Steve, then Dave made a very bad decision to become a scuba instructor and place himself into a situation where he had a implied standard of care over the divers he was with and then to violate every single training agencies standards and rules. If Dave wanted to do these kinds of dives with his dive buddies then he should never have become an instructor.

 

[lamont]

I wouldn't agree that he is wrong. Even if this were the very first Open Water dives of a brand new diver I would disagree that the responsibilities for diving safely are purely the responsibility on the instructor. Granted there is a greater responsibility for him, however it is also incumbent on the new diver to actually read the materials provided by the AGENCY and beware of those guidelines and pay attention to them. Unless the Instructor completely withheld all the agenmcies materials and told his students there was no such thing, then the diver himself bares some responsibility in ingesting those guidelines and following them. There's no way a student who has read their materials properly would think this was a safe thing to do regardless of what the instructor told them - and at that point they need to evaluate whether this person who is instructing them and telling them to go AGAISNT what hey should already know is the right person to be teaching them. ESPECIALLY if that instructor is doing so.

So what is the responsibility of the instructor? Under what circumstances can an instructor be held to be criminally negligent, because you've got a slippery slope both directions and you are solely focused on the personal responsibility angle. The other side of the slippery slope is that there is no responsibility and everyone must be required to set their own limits. If a BOW instructor decides to take a class on a wreck dive on the Al-Ind-Eska-Sea (180-240 fsw), then they're not liable at all because there's printed material that the students should have been familiar with and they should have thumbed the dive, no matter what the instructor said. Where is the line, or is there none? I doubt that most people would agree that there is no line at all.

And that is on the OW level. The claims are that this was a DM class and that this diver had 150+ dives . . . sorry, but regardless of whether this was the only instructor he ever had.

I'm in the 250+ dive category now, and I'm not very impressed with 150 dives (i'm not terribly impressed with 250+ dives either before anyone mentions that), and definitely not impressed with Chad going for his DM as well. A lot of people seem to think this is evidence that Chad was an experienced diver that should have known better and I actually don't see the connection.

And still this avoids the issue of Chad going back down to assist a new diver who would have died if it weren't for his actions. Since Chad died and not the new diver this somehow removes the criminal aspects of Dave's actions?