Question re Death This Week in SoCal ...

[pwfletcher]

A diver drowned on Friday diving the Channel Islands. It was only his 14th dive and he was diving solo from a regular dive boat. Without getting into the discussion of the dangers/merits of solo diving, I have two questions for the forum:

1. Should the diving boat be held legally liable for allowing a diver with only 14 dives under his belt to leave their boat solo?

2. Regardless of legal liability, if it was your boat, would you allow a diver with only 14 dives under his belt to leave your boat solo?

An interesting discussion is developing on the newspaper site. I, for one, am a strong believer personal responsibility and would not want some boat captain telling me that I could not jump in solo if that was what I wanted to do. However, a guy with only 14 dives??? If it were my boat, I think that I would rather risk losing a customer than incur the significantly increased risk of a newbie fatality due to obvious inexperience. What do you guys and gals think?

Here is the link:
Man drowns scuba diving off Anacapa Island : Local News : Ventura County Star

 

[Gombessa]

I think it would be fruitless to require boats to do buddy confirmations. That doesn't seem to be the way SoCal boats operate (most get to a site, open the gates, and a huge gaggle of divers jump off one after another). Also, it's incredibly easy to defeat (I'll ask these guys if I can tag along with them, but then I'll just take off on my own), to the point of being useless. Creating liability for the dive boat in this situation makes no sense.

 

[merxlin]

A dive buddy is no guarantee of being safe. YOU are the only one responsible for what happens when you dive.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

1. Should the diving boat be held legally liable for allowing a diver with only 14 dives under his belt to leave their boat solo?

No.

2. Regardless of legal liability, if it was your boat, would you allow a diver with only 14 dives under his belt to leave your boat solo?

Probably not. It would entirely depend on the diver, but with today's watered-down level of basic OW training.... I don't think so (This is not meant as "agency-bashing" or "instructor-bashing", just a statement of how things are today. No offense is intended or should be taken).

Thirty years ago: Yes, I would probably let the diver go solo that soon after finishing basic OW. I began soloing at around dive 10-12 post OW in 1976, and it would be presumptuous for me to assume I was "ready" but another similarly-trained diver was not.

Best wishes.

Edit: I just followed the newspaper link. The diver was 65, and was found in shallow water. It is unclear (based on the report) whether he had a heart attack. So diving solo may have had nothing to do with this accident.

Also from the article : "Koenig was by himself but among a group diving off the recreational dive boat Spectre out of Ventura Harbor, Stevens said." So, I'm not clear if he was actually solo, or just not "buddied-up" but still tagging along with the group during the dive?

 

[masterof0]

The problem is who makes the decision as to what is an ample number of dives when someone is ready to go solo. Is number really important or is it the skills?

Regardless, the boat should not be held accountable. As adults, we have been given the liberty to make our own decisions. So when things don't go as we plan, we should not be at liberty to divert responsibility and blame someone else. Also, without knowing all the details, how do we know that a buddy would have made any difference in the outcome. Ultimately a diver is responsibe for their own well being, not the boat owner, captain, or crew. We have become too much of a sue happy society and want to place blame everywhere other than where it belongs when incidents like this happen.

 

[gcbryan]

No. How would the boat owner know how many dives a diver has? He is basically running a water taxi. Why should he have more responsibility than the diver?

Have health issues been ruled out in this case?

 

[farsidefan1]

How sad for him and his family. I was surprised by one of the comments saying the boat operator should be sued I'd like to know what that guy does for a living (I have a guess). I'm pretty sick of how responsibility gets taken off the shoulders of the individual where it should naturally rest by attys looking our for our best interests ( yeah,right). The open water certification should have taught the diver what he didn't know and he/she is responsible from there to improve his/her skills and dive within those boundaries. Boat captains and dive masters can't be mind readers - baby sitters to some degree, perhaps but if a guy takes off on his own he is on his own. If you want a baby sitter pony up the bucks for an individually guided dive. Otherwise, well you might end up having your demise discussed here.

 

[TimAZ]

1. No, the dive boat should be held liable no more than Avis would be for renting to a newly licensed driver. This is of course so long as the boat did not misrepresent the nature of the dive.

2 Probably not. Still, the dive op should communicate policies regarding solo-diving, experience, etc. prior to taking money to keep this from being an issue on the boat.

 

[bobshreve]

It's not very clear whether he was solo or not and the article also implies that the diver might have had heart trouble. The comments on the article are interesting: several say the dive boat and crew are very good.

While I agree that 14 dives aren't very many, I'm not sure the crew would have known how many dives this guy had. I've never been asked how many dives I've had, just what my certification is.

Regards,
Bob

 

[Gen San Chris]

I do not think that anyone should be held responsible as the diver had the right to choose what he wanted to do! Very unfortunatly, whatever happened, he died, such a shame at any age!