Major bends in Rangiroa leads to a $7.8 million settlement

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Interesting set of events and ensuing court case.

A Tragedy of Dive Errors: Undercurrent 04/2015

Personally, I see this as entirely the fault of the 2 stupid divers that were hurt. They were not in the water as students, and the responsibility to know how to use their computers, how to plan the dive, etc...this was all on them.

Bonnier should have known better, but this is irrelevant when it comes to actual responsibility.

This case demonstrates a court system that should be an embarrassment to everyone of us.
It's just another opportunity for big government to say we need to be protected from ourselves....and for the self indulgent masses to go on believing that nothing could ever be their own fault.
 
It wasn't their computers. It was the dive operations computers, set up by the diving supervisor. Setting up one in meters and the other in feet seems absurd.

The fact that you had supposedly experienced divers who didn't have computers would be a big warning flag to me.
 
unbelievable: 2 idiots with a careless operator :(. Tipula pass is known for down currents and not for OW divers . I have bben there, talked to a diver that was security officer for filming crews. His descrpition was in no way comparable to this miserable expedition.
 
"What's more, a dive expert who checked the gear testified that Falk's computer had been calibrated for a 31-percent breathing mix while the actual breathing mix was 32 percent. That would cause the dive computer to register a deeper maximum depth than the depth required by the actual mix used. "

A minor issue, but this "dive expert" is mistaken. Suunto computer instructions explicitly state to round down when entering the O2 percentage. The computer then calculates O2 exposure as the entered percentage + 1.

So if the mix was actually 32% and only 31% was entered, the computer would calculate O2 exposure as if it was 32% and N2 as 69%. Which means the max depth stated by the computer would actually be correct for the mix used.
 
It is interesting, on the list of things that went wrong, a number of those things could have clobbered even very experienced divers. Getting stuck in a strong down current is terrifying, and usually (unless you are a serious veteran) takes you a while to work out what is going wrong. And if you are diving in a place where it takes a plane flight to get to the nearest recompression chamber, there is no help for that.

Interesting though that they knocked them for using nitrox when they were not certified. My read on the incident is that might have been the very thin margin that saved his life. Of all the things that went wrong, oxygen toxicity was not one of them.
 
Personally, I see this as entirely the fault of the 2 stupid divers that were hurt. They were not in the water as students, and the responsibility to know how to use their computers, how to plan the dive, etc...this was all on them.

Bonnier should have known better, but this is irrelevant when it comes to actual responsibility.

This case demonstrates a court system that should be an embarrassment to everyone of us.
It's just another opportunity for big government to say we need to be protected from ourselves....and for the self indulgent masses to go on believing that nothing could ever be their own fault.

"During the police investigation, Bernard said he was unaware Falk and Prickett had gone down after changing out a mask, but that didn't stop him from continuing his dive -- a violation, per French Polynesia law, of his role as divemaster to supervise all divers and make the group surface. Bernard said he thought he was in the presence of experienced divers, and that Prickett had 25 years of experience. Prickett said he was only a standard openwater diver, and his 25 years of experience was as a surfing cameraman. Falk had less than 15 dives, none from a boat, none drift diving, and none with a diving computer. And despite Bernard having set a dive profile for 80 feet, he brought Miyamoto, who only had less than five dives and was only certified to 60 feet max, down to 130 feet.
Bernard admitted he hadn't told the three divers beforehand that they were going to breathe nitrox."


Is it your opinion that licensed dive operators have no responsibility for the safety of the divers they put in the water? That the dive master did not have both the ethical and legal responsibilities to check the certifications of his customers, provide properly calibrated rental equipment, plan a safe dive profile for the area in which he is presumably an expert and he knows his customers are novices and then follow that profile? If so, I will certainly be careful to never dive with you.
And I may need to consider creating an interview protocol for dive masters I dive with in the future to make sure ahead of time that their beliefs are not like yours. While I'm very aware that I am ultimately responsible for my own safety, and I certainly would not have put myself in a position in which I was using equipment I was unfamiliar with and had not been trained on or was knowingly exceeding my level of experience and training, if I am ever caught in a significant down currant or other unforeseeable event, I do want to know that the professionals I am relying on are doing their best to pay attention to their divers and are as well prepared as possible to deal with an emergency.

By the way, the following is a direct quote from danvolker posted in the Accidents and Incidents forum on Aug 12, 2011 :

"One of the things a good captain does, is to acertain the average skills of the divers on each trip, and then figure out what dive sites are most optimal for the group. If he believes a large number on a trip are of poor skill level, he will want to go to a dive site where they can jump in and float on the surface like ducks, and to the slow ascents that new divers will be doing. He will NOT take new divers, or a group that tells him they can not descend fast, to a site where a fast descent is critical"
 
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"During the police investigation, Bernard said he was unaware Falk and Prickett had gone down after changing out a mask, but that didn't stop him from continuing his dive -- a violation, per French Polynesia law, of his role as divemaster to supervise all divers and make the group surface. Bernard said he thought he was in the presence of experienced divers, and that Prickett had 25 years of experience. Prickett said he was only a standard openwater diver, and his 25 years of experience was as a surfing cameraman. Falk had less than 15 dives, none from a boat, none drift diving, and none with a diving computer. And despite Bernard having set a dive profile for 80 feet, he brought Miyamoto, who only had less than five dives and was only certified to 60 feet max, down to 130 feet.
Bernard admitted he hadn't told the three divers beforehand that they were going to breathe nitrox."


Is it your opinion that licensed dive operators have no responsibility for the safety of the divers they put in the water? That the dive master did not have both the ethical and legal responsibilities to check the certifications of his customers, provide properly calibrated rental equipment, plan a safe dive profile for the area in which he is presumably an expert and he knows his customers are novices and then follow that profile? If so, I will certainly be careful to never dive with you.
And I may need to consider creating an interview protocol for dive masters I dive with in the future to make sure ahead of time that their beliefs are not like yours. While I'm very aware that I am ultimately responsible for my own safety, and I certainly would not have put myself in a position in which I was using equipment I was unfamiliar with and had not been trained on or was knowingly exceeding my level of experience and training, if I am ever caught in a significant down currant or other unforeseeable event, I do want to know that the professionals I am relying on are doing their best to pay attention to their divers and are as well prepared as possible to deal with an emergency.

By the way, the following is a direct quote from danvolker posted in the Accidents and Incidents forum on Aug 12, 2011 :

"One of the things a good captain does, is to acertain the average skills of the divers on each trip, and then figure out what dive sites are most optimal for the group. If he believes a large number on a trip are of poor skill level, he will want to go to a dive site where they can jump in and float on the surface like ducks, and to the slow ascents that new divers will be doing. He will NOT take new divers, or a group that tells him they can not descend fast, to a site where a fast descent is critical"
I see two or three separate issues.
First, the divers entered the water as certified divers, meaning they were responsible for executing their own dive plan, and that they knew how to use the equipment they were using--when they were certified, they learned how important all of this was, and that this was their responsibility to know. Any injury that occurs to these divers because they did not follow a correct profile, or because they did not know how to use their gear, is them injuring themselves...not the operator.

Second issue is the failure of the DM to recognize the incompetence of these divers, and to take actions which would have protected them from themselves.

Third possible issue is the boat operator...if the divers had indicated that they were trained deep divers, and that 130 feet was good....the captain is not expected to issue a lie detector....and the reality is, even a diver showing a cert card of a deep dive course, can be illegitimate for the purposes of proving competency on a deep dive. The narcosis level at 130 feet...for "some divers", is severe enough to be life threatening for decision making. And these guys were making bad enough decisions while at the surface.....However, if the divers told the captain they had never been deeper than 60 and 80 feet, respectively, this would seem to me to be yet another issue of negligence, unless the captain dropped them with an instructor or some sort of mentor that could believably keep them safe--which clearly did not happen.

If the dive master had been a good dive master, this accident would not have occurred...but the injury --the DCS, was still caused by the divers themselves.

---------- Post added May 29th, 2015 at 12:43 PM ----------

Here is an analogy....Lets say you are an Acrobatic Pilot....my brother Rick is one, so I hear about these issues often enough...
I will say your Parachute is very much like the Dive Master. What keeps you safe when you are flying, doing stunts, or just putting around, is a combination of your skills, and how well you maintain the plane ( to prevent power loss or other catastrophic failure).

If all else fails....you have a reasonable hope that your parachute will save your life.....and a good parachute, is way better than a lousy parachute :)
So yes, you want a good DM....but....like the pilot, its up to YOU to have the skills and to know the gear will work...the Parachute means you already screwed the pooch badly......ie., expecting that you will be safe, because the DM is with you, is much like flying a plane with no idea about how well maintained the engine is, whether it will lose power or not....and not really being much of a pilot--and not really caring, because you are wearing a parachute---and that is what you think is most important.

***my brothers Acrobatic page :) Rick Volker air shows The spectators at the airshows he competes in, are glad he does not count on his parachute or a DM for safety :)
 
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Originally posted by danvolker
If the dive master had been a good dive master, this accident would not have occurred...but the injury --the DCS, was still caused by the divers themselves.

---------- Post added May 29th, 2015 at 12:43 PM ----------

That is the point I was trying to make.
It is a sad irony that from reading the article it would seem that the more able diver, who may have been able to overcome the issue and do a safe decompression dive had he not given most of his remaining air to his buddy, is the one who is permanently disabled. How do you decide in that kind of crisis to leave your buddy behind and protect yourself?
 

---------- Post added May 29th, 2015 at 12:43 PM ----------

That is the point I was trying to make.
It is a sad irony that from reading the article it would seem that the more able diver, who may have been able to overcome the issue and do a safe decompression dive had he not given most of his remaining air to his buddy, is the one who is permanently disabled. How do you decide in that kind of crisis to leave your buddy behind and protect yourself?
You dont.. You and your buddy are in this together......what you do though, is to pro-actively avoid bad situations ---- as a better diver than your buddy, you dont get into water this deep with your buddy--you know it is too deep for him....On any dive, you begin ascent much sooner than these imbeciles did, you see your buddy is at 1500 psi, and the dive is nearly over--and you have the two of you coming up long before a crisis occurs. The list of mistakes these guys made is too insane to even use to learn from.
It gets worse when they get rewarded by millions of dollars for their absolute stupidity..
A year from now and out of his wheel chair, one of these guys will buy a Ferrari with the money from his settlement --he will drive it at 200 mph on a road safe for 80 mph in that car, and when he wrecks and kills 3 other people, he will say he had no idea the car would go so fast, and someone at Ferrari should have warned him--or had a governor put in it to prevent "accidental" high speed "mistakes" like this.....which of course is all nonsense.
 
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