Ken Kurtis
Contributor
I wrote this for the Reef Seekers August newsletter and post it here for any general comments or discussion. This general issue has bothered me for quite some time and - full disclosure - yes, the tipping point was the reaction to the recent Catalina accident and yes, the boat owner is someone I consider a friend. But the general thought still holds.
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POINTING FINGERS AFTER A DIVER’S DEATH
I get it that we live in a judgmental society. I get it that as humans, we have a need to understand what the mechanics are when things go wrong and that means we tend to quickly point fingers of blame, but many times point at things that are really blameless.
It seems that any time a diver dies, among the first things people want to know is, “What boat were they on?” My question back is usually, “What difference does it make if the accident happened underwater?” To me, pointing the finger of blame at the mode of transportation makes about as much sense as saying, “They took the 405 in their Ford to get there so the 405 and Ford are responsible for their death.” There’s simply no connection.
I’ve studied literally hundreds of diver death over the years, both through DAN annual reports and individual accidents here in SoCal. I can’t recall a single one where (at least in my professional opinion) the boat was the cause of the accident. Just because a commercial dive boat takes someone somewhere and then an accident happens, it doesn’t make the boat the cause of the accident.
In a non-peer-reviewed study I did years ago of DAN reports, I conclude that 69% of the time, diving deaths are due to diver error, with out of air being a huge factor. So please explain to me what a boat on the surface waiting for divers to return has to do with someone not watching their gauge 50 feet below and sucking their tank dry. I simply don’t see the connection.
The other side of this that regular divers don’t see is that it’s a numbers game. Every boat captain I know feels that some day, it could be their turn to get the careless diver who does something wrong and then it all goes to hell in a handbasket. We know that we average about 5 deaths annually in L.A. County. We know that 3 or 4 of them are going to happen from a boat. We know that 2 or 3 of them will be a commercial dive charter (as opposed to a privately-owned boat). And the point is that the more charters you run, the more likely it is that it will be “your turn” some day.
Here’s an extreme way to look at it. Suppose there was only one charter dive boat in L.A. and that everyone who did a commercial boat dive would then have to dive on that boat. It would stand to reason that, if the death number stayed the same, that boat would account for every one of them. Would that make it a dangerous boat? No. It would simply be the way the numbers played out.
No there are certainly possibilities of boats doing things wrong, the most obvious of which would be running over a diver. In that case, absolutely blame the boat and name it since it would seem like they weren’t pay attention. A few years ago I was asked to be a defense expert in such a case where a boat in Florida ran over and killed a diver. The lawyer who was soliciting me said, “We did a toxicology test on the dead diver and it turns out he was on cocaine at the time of his death.” I replied, “So you’re telling me that the defense you want me to support is that your guy was hopped up on drugs so our guy has a right to run him over? I don’t think so.”
So it’s not that boats or captains or instructors or buddies are always blameless. But that’s usually the case. And it would be nice for once to see the dive community ask questions – they certainly deserve to be answered publicly – but to save the blame game for until all the facts are in and there’s a clearer picture about what actually happened.
End of rant.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
POINTING FINGERS AFTER A DIVER’S DEATH
I get it that we live in a judgmental society. I get it that as humans, we have a need to understand what the mechanics are when things go wrong and that means we tend to quickly point fingers of blame, but many times point at things that are really blameless.
It seems that any time a diver dies, among the first things people want to know is, “What boat were they on?” My question back is usually, “What difference does it make if the accident happened underwater?” To me, pointing the finger of blame at the mode of transportation makes about as much sense as saying, “They took the 405 in their Ford to get there so the 405 and Ford are responsible for their death.” There’s simply no connection.
I’ve studied literally hundreds of diver death over the years, both through DAN annual reports and individual accidents here in SoCal. I can’t recall a single one where (at least in my professional opinion) the boat was the cause of the accident. Just because a commercial dive boat takes someone somewhere and then an accident happens, it doesn’t make the boat the cause of the accident.
In a non-peer-reviewed study I did years ago of DAN reports, I conclude that 69% of the time, diving deaths are due to diver error, with out of air being a huge factor. So please explain to me what a boat on the surface waiting for divers to return has to do with someone not watching their gauge 50 feet below and sucking their tank dry. I simply don’t see the connection.
The other side of this that regular divers don’t see is that it’s a numbers game. Every boat captain I know feels that some day, it could be their turn to get the careless diver who does something wrong and then it all goes to hell in a handbasket. We know that we average about 5 deaths annually in L.A. County. We know that 3 or 4 of them are going to happen from a boat. We know that 2 or 3 of them will be a commercial dive charter (as opposed to a privately-owned boat). And the point is that the more charters you run, the more likely it is that it will be “your turn” some day.
Here’s an extreme way to look at it. Suppose there was only one charter dive boat in L.A. and that everyone who did a commercial boat dive would then have to dive on that boat. It would stand to reason that, if the death number stayed the same, that boat would account for every one of them. Would that make it a dangerous boat? No. It would simply be the way the numbers played out.
No there are certainly possibilities of boats doing things wrong, the most obvious of which would be running over a diver. In that case, absolutely blame the boat and name it since it would seem like they weren’t pay attention. A few years ago I was asked to be a defense expert in such a case where a boat in Florida ran over and killed a diver. The lawyer who was soliciting me said, “We did a toxicology test on the dead diver and it turns out he was on cocaine at the time of his death.” I replied, “So you’re telling me that the defense you want me to support is that your guy was hopped up on drugs so our guy has a right to run him over? I don’t think so.”
So it’s not that boats or captains or instructors or buddies are always blameless. But that’s usually the case. And it would be nice for once to see the dive community ask questions – they certainly deserve to be answered publicly – but to save the blame game for until all the facts are in and there’s a clearer picture about what actually happened.
End of rant.
