Try Scuba Accident..what happens next?

[Zef]

Is the number of incidents compared to the number of visitors to Koh Tao enough to refute that it isn't systematic problem?

If the number of visitors is truly enough to refute that there is not a "systematic problem", then why are you so worried about what Ian Yarwood has posted? Obviously his attempt to draw attention to what he and some might consider a problem is not having a material impact on tourism and diving on and around the island? I don't see any concern from the ministry of tourism about Yarwood's posts or articles either, so all must be good on Koh Tao???

And one does not refute things like flat earth, you can't argue with belief...if one chooses to believe the earth is flat despite all evidence to the contrary, any attempt to convince them otherwise is just futile...beliefs are not necessarily fact or science based....religeon is a great example of this....lots of people choose to believe in god, and that their god is the one true god and they will not be convinced otherwise and they will rationalize any smidgen of evidence to justify their beliefs....its not an issue until those folks try to impress their belief on someone with a competing belief or no belief at all.

Yarwood is expressing an opinion. You may not like his opinion, but he not forcing you or anyone else to agree with his opinion. He has pointed to certain incidents to support his opinion and all you have done is complained about what he has expressed. How about presenting some facts to develop a counter point such as the number of tourists that arrive at Koh Tao each week, month, year compared to the actual number of incidents involving tourists resulting in their injury and/or death? How many of them are divers? How about discussing any safety standards imposed by the Thai government or the dive industry in Koh Tao that is designed to increase the safety of the myriad of divers of all ability that choose Koh Tao as their destination? How about something other than complaining about someone's opinion that does not sit warm fuzzy and comfortably with your sense of how things are in that corner of the world.

Whether or not there is a "Sytematic" problem in Koh Toa, there is apparently not a lot of favorable or unfavorable information/news coming from the island...the fact that someone is taking the time to provide any information is a good thing. Just because it does not paint the picture you want to share with the world does not make it wrong or bad, it urges the opportunity for you to paint your own picture of world.

Here are 2 of the many things I have learned in my life so far:

1. The only response to a flood of lies/misinformation is a flood of truth. But the flood of truth must be much greater in quantity and duration than the flood of lies/misinformation to have an impact...Lies only have the burden to create doubt, Truth has the much tougher burden of dispelling that doubt.

2. A captain I worked for during my career in the Navy once said: "The first to the chalkboard wins." What he meant by this is that when developing a plan or expressing an idea the first person/team/etc that presents is typically the plan or idea that will be adopted. People will only tune-in for so long, so if your idea is not the first don't be surprised that someone else's has been adopted. In the case of Koh Tao...neither you nor Koh Tao are doing anything to get ahead of the issues that occur on and around the island. There is no flood of good press. There is just concern about tourism...

...and to that point there are plenty of places in the world other than Koh Tao that are beautiful, have good diving, and will gladly take a diver's money. If Koh Tao is not interested in providing reasons for people to go there, then there either is not a problem or they as a government/institution/etc just don't care.

Again, provide some facts/statistics, spin your story, because continuing to complain is like shouting at the wind.

-Z

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Yes...this is unusual. We did get a statement from the "responsible" instructor. A statement mostly about how much pain he was in. A statement about how much he liked the victim. A statement about how awful it was that he was being so unfairly attacked in the media. But not much of an explanation about how he lost track of the victim. Maybe she followed some other group of divers passing by. The other students...no statements from them, but the instructor implies that they didn't know what happened to the victim. How, exactly, was she able to swim off without anyone noticing?

Sorry. This doesn't pass my smell test. Something is rotten and it ain't in Denmark.

I can't speak to the emotional state I would be in if someone for whom I was responsible died under my watch. Obviously he hasn't spoken to an attorney as in that case, he never would have said anything. The person who has the most information is deceased. The person with the second most information is the instructor. Hopefully he will collect himself and share how he lost track of the deceased in detail. This is a tragedy, and the deceased is gone forever. But I do sincerely hope that some lessons can be found.

My Course Director lost a student in Guam (we are talking about 200 feet of viz and water temperatures in the high 80's/above 30 C. His group crossed another and one of his participants wound up on another boat as this person got confused and followed the wrong group.

Did something like that happen here? But then the deceased realized she was with the wrong group and tried to get back to the other and panic? We'll never know those details unfortunately. I hope the hammer comes down on the industry with these DSD/Try Scuba experiences so that these programs consist of an instructor with two participants max and no one else, not even someone the likes of Steve Martin, Steve Bogaerts, Jill Heinerth, or John Chatterton.

 

[oncor23]

I can't speak to the emotional state I would be in if someone for whom I was responsible died under my watch. Obviously he hasn't spoken to an attorney as in that case, he never would have said anything. The person who has the most information is deceased. The person with the second most information is the instructor. Hopefully he will collect himself and share how he lost track of the deceased in detail. This is a tragedy, and the deceased is gone forever. But I do sincerely hope that some lessons can be found.

My Course Director lost a student in Guam (we are talking about 200 feet of viz and water temperatures in the high 80's/above 30 C. His group crossed another and one of his participants wound up on another boat as this person got confused and followed the wrong group.

Did something like that happen here? But then the deceased realized she was with the wrong group and tried to get back to the other and panic? We'll never know those details unfortunately. I hope the hammer comes down on the industry with these DSD/Try Scuba experiences so that these programs consist of an instructor with two participants max and no one else, not even someone the likes of Steve Martin, Steve Bogaerts, Jill Heinerth, or John Chatterton.

I'm not an instructor. And I've never taken a DSD course. I do have several diving certifications that came after doing open water dives with my instructors. Do I believe they had their eye on me every second I was in the water? Of course not. But they did get to watch me in the pool over the course of about 8-10 pool sessions...so, no doubt they felt somewhat more comfortable with me as a student. That said, it strikes me as very important that the instructor and any of his/her helpers know where his/her DSD or OW students are at any given moment. It should be clear to both the student and the instructor that the point of their dive is not sight seeing, but skill development and deployment...and maintaining contact is a vital skill. For an instructor to lose sight of a student, particularly at the OW level, constitutes failure. Losing a DSD student is even worse. If I'm wrong here, I'm sure many will point that out.

I expect that part of the job of an instructor is determining how many students he/she can handle in the water...and that the number may vary depending on the individual students. Taking more students out than the instructor, and whatever assistants, can handle is asking for trouble. Most of the time, they get away with it. When they don't, we read about it here. And here I'm also assuming the instructor is fully engaged in attempting to watch his/her students every moment possible on the dive. How many instructors can do that? Certainly, the good ones can and do. Where things can really go south is if the instructor gets distracted by whatever and stops watching all the students. Maybe the instructor is too intent on one student. Maybe a shark swam by. My point is this: it takes a fair amount of inattention to lose a student...or the instructor had more students than he/she could handle. If you can't keep your students corralled, it's time to end the dive. Maybe the students need a lecture about staying close to you while you deal with whatever issue comes up. If the students can't do that, the instructor should abort the dive.

I'm not suggesting anything I've said here is news to good instructors. Actually, I'll bet they can inform me where I've gone off the rails with my assumptions. And yet, here we have a case where the instructor lost the student. I'm not in mood to accept the explanation that stuff happens...at least, not when that stuff is something the instructor had some control over. If you lost a student and there's no environmental reason you can point to where conditions suddenly changed, then you either had too many students to keep track of or you didn't watch the ones you had well enough, and you didn't instruct them well enough about staying close.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I expect that part of the job of an instructor is determining how many students he/she can handle in the water...and that the number may vary depending on the individual students. Taking more students out than the instructor, and whatever assistants, can handle is asking for trouble. Most of the time, they get away with it. When they don't, we read about it here. And here I'm also assuming the instructor is fully engaged in attempting to watch his/her students every moment possible on the dive. How many instructors can do that? Certainly, the good ones can and do. Where things can really go south is if the instructor gets distracted by whatever and stops watching all the students. Maybe the instructor is too intent on one student. Maybe a shark swam by. My point is this: it takes a fair amount of inattention to lose a student...or the instructor had more students than he/she could handle. If you can't keep your students corralled, it's time to end the dive. Maybe the students need a lecture about staying close to you while you deal with whatever issue comes up. If the students can't do that, the instructor should abort the dive.

I think the reality (I say think as I've never worked in the tropics, but the sense I get from friends who have) is that many shops will require you to run every program at max thresholds. The only exception is if they don't have enough customers.

If you push back and demand to go with fewer customers, you will be replaced before you know it, and you'll have to pay for your own ticket home. The pay for instructors is often so low, they don't have much of a choice. So they go with max ratios and hope for the best.

Usually nothing happens. But unfortunately, sometimes it does resulting in an avoidable loss of life. But the industry, in my view, is willing to trade profits for a number of deaths as long as that number remains below a threshold where governments do not get involved. I think the only way agencies that have a 1:4 ratio for DSD/Try scuba to reduce it to 1:2 is a lawsuit where the lawyer for the plaintiff stacks the expert witnesses with instructors who are willing to testify that it just isn't possible to ensure everyone's safety at that ratio. Only 1:2 can that be achieved (my opinion).

 

[SapphireMind]

I don't know the history of the island or any of the politics with that, but from the story as presented and from what I understand of those "try scuba" courses, he basically should have had eyes on her at all times, no more than an arm's breadth away. Whether it is the instructor who is neglecting his job or a shop that is trying to push instructors to take too many students I think remains to be seen.

Edited because I missed the reply before mine. Wow. I didn't realize the ratios were that high. Unfortunately I agree with you, it will take either a lawsuit or governments getting involved. For people who haven't had classes and pool training, they need to be closely watched. Someone posted a video once of a diver panicking, pulling out her reg and the DM forcing the reg back in and getting her to the surface alive. The look on her face was haunting, and if something goes awry with those divers who have very little knowledge, you don't want a group all relying on one person. Panic can sometimes spread.

 

[divinh]

If the number of visitors is truly enough to refute that there is not a "systematic problem", then why are you so worried about what Ian Yarwood has posted? Obviously his attempt to draw attention to what he and some might consider a problem is not having a material impact on tourism and diving on and around the island? I don't see any concern from the ministry of tourism about Yarwood's posts or articles either, so all must be good on Koh Tao???

See post #52 in this thread:

Koh Tao is... Death Island!

-----

How do you feel about vaccines? Vaccines can't be 100% safe for everyone, so should the few bad incidents be amplified so that people stop vaccinating? The anti-vax people are just drawing attention, right? Why should anyone be concerned? It's not like their message has caused any outbreaks of measles or anything like that, right?

Drawing awareness is fine, as long as it gives context and scope of scale.

And one does not refute things like flat earth, you can't argue with belief...if one chooses to believe the earth is flat despite all evidence to the contrary, any attempt to convince them otherwise is just futile...beliefs are not necessarily fact or science based....religeon is a great example of this....lots of people choose to believe in god, and that their god is the one true god and they will not be convinced otherwise and they will rationalize any smidgen of evidence to justify their beliefs....its not an issue until those folks try to impress their belief on someone with a competing belief or no belief at all.

Is there a conspiracy to suppress accident reports in Koh Tao and/or Thailand?

Yarwood is expressing an opinion. You may not like his opinion, but he not forcing you or anyone else to agree with his opinion. He has pointed to certain incidents to support his opinion and all you have done is complained about what he has expressed. How about presenting some facts to develop a counter point such as the number of tourists that arrive at Koh Tao each week, month, year compared to the actual number of incidents involving tourists resulting in their injury and/or death? How many of them are divers? How about discussing any safety standards imposed by the Thai government or the dive industry in Koh Tao that is designed to increase the safety of the myriad of divers of all ability that choose Koh Tao as their destination? How about something other than complaining about someone's opinion that does not sit warm fuzzy and comfortably with your sense of how things are in that corner of the world.

Refer to post #52 above. Sorry I had assumed that you read Accidents & Incidents.

Here are 2 of the many things I have learned in my life so far:

1. The only response to a flood of lies/misinformation is a flood of truth. But the flood of truth must be much greater in quantity and duration than the flood of lies/misinformation to have an impact...Lies only have the burden to create doubt, Truth has the much tougher burden of dispelling that doubt.

2. A captain I worked for during my career in the Navy once said: "The first to the chalkboard wins." What he meant by this is that when developing a plan or expressing an idea the first person/team/etc that presents is typically the plan or idea that will be adopted. People will only tune-in for so long, so if your idea is not the first don't be surprised that someone else's has been adopted. In the case of Koh Tao...neither you nor Koh Tao are doing anything to get ahead of the issues that occur on and around the island. There is no flood of good press. There is just concern about tourism...

...and to that point there are plenty of places in the world other than Koh Tao that are beautiful, have good diving, and will gladly take a diver's money. If Koh Tao is not interested in providing reasons for people to go there, then there either is not a problem or they as a government/institution/etc just don't care.

Again, provide some facts/statistics, spin your story, because continuing to complain is like shouting at the wind.

Refer to post #52 above and perhaps read the whole thread.

 

[divinh]

My Course Director lost a student in Guam (we are talking about 200 feet of viz and water temperatures in the high 80's/above 30 C. His group crossed another and one of his participants wound up on another boat as this person got confused and followed the wrong group.

Did something like that happen here? But then the deceased realized she was with the wrong group and tried to get back to the other and panic? We'll never know those details unfortunately. I hope the hammer comes down on the industry with these DSD/Try Scuba experiences so that these programs consist of an instructor with two participants max and no one else, not even someone the likes of Steve Martin, Steve Bogaerts, Jill Heinerth, or John Chatterton.

Do you view your Course Director as negligent and cannot be trusted anymore?

 

[Zef]

Do you view your Course Director as negligent and cannot be trusted anymore?

The fact that statistics are posted and discussed in another thread does remove the burden from your shoulders to make a cogent and supported argument as you lob accusations towards another contributor. You may thi k you have taken a step forward but in reality you have taken 2 backwards. At every opportunity for you to make your case you waste it on challenging the notion of why you should and other senseless drivel. I can only recommend that you figure out a way to get over yourself and get over your contempt for Ian Yarwood and move on and enjoy the wealth of tourism on your island while it lasts, because folks like you are doing it more of a disservice than all the Ian Yarwoods could possible do.

Good luck.
-Z

 

[divinh]

I'm not an instructor. And I've never taken a DSD course. I do have several diving certifications that came after doing open water dives with my instructors. Do I believe they had their eye on me every second I was in the water? Of course not. But they did get to watch me in the pool over the course of about 8-10 pool sessions...so, no doubt they felt somewhat more comfortable with me as a student. That said, it strikes me as very important that the instructor and any of his/her helpers know where his/her DSD or OW students are at any given moment. It should be clear to both the student and the instructor that the point of their dive is not sight seeing, but skill development and deployment...and maintaining contact is a vital skill. For an instructor to lose sight of a student, particularly at the OW level, constitutes failure. Losing a DSD student is even worse. If I'm wrong here, I'm sure many will point that out.

I've seen three types of DSD's: instructor holding divers by the tank valve and dragging the DSD divers around, instructor hand holding the DSD divers, and instructor guiding the DSD divers around, like with certified divers. This is all dependent on how well the instructor has assessed the DSD divers' comfort in the water. I have seen DSD divers that are as good as certified divers because they've gotten some instruction somewhere/sometime but do not have the certification.

In this particular incident, the DSD divers were on their second dive and it does not sound like they were hand held, which leads to the conclusion that they were somewhat comfortable in the water.

I expect that part of the job of an instructor is determining how many students he/she can handle in the water...and that the number may vary depending on the individual students. Taking more students out than the instructor, and whatever assistants, can handle is asking for trouble. Most of the time, they get away with it. When they don't, we read about it here. And here I'm also assuming the instructor is fully engaged in attempting to watch his/her students every moment possible on the dive. How many instructors can do that? Certainly, the good ones can and do. Where things can really go south is if the instructor gets distracted by whatever and stops watching all the students. Maybe the instructor is too intent on one student. Maybe a shark swam by. My point is this: it takes a fair amount of inattention to lose a student...or the instructor had more students than he/she could handle. If you can't keep your students corralled, it's time to end the dive. Maybe the students need a lecture about staying close to you while you deal with whatever issue comes up. If the students can't do that, the instructor should abort the dive.

I'm not suggesting anything I've said here is news to good instructors. Actually, I'll bet they can inform me where I've gone off the rails with my assumptions. And yet, here we have a case where the instructor lost the student. I'm not in mood to accept the explanation that stuff happens...at least, not when that stuff is something the instructor had some control over. If you lost a student and there's no environmental reason you can point to where conditions suddenly changed, then you either had too many students to keep track of or you didn't watch the ones you had well enough, and you didn't instruct them well enough about staying close.

I mostly go on diving trips on my own, which means I get assigned instabuddies. I take my buddy duties seriously. We're supposed to look out for each other. I try to assess my buddy's experience by asking some general questions. Once in the water, some of these buddies just swim off in some random direction, away from the guide. If something were to happen, is it my fault? Is it the guide's fault? Should diving be more restrictive for safety... one guide and one diver?

For this incident, we don't have all the information, like what did other divers around the area notice? Especially the two other DSD divers. How did three people lose track of one person?

For environmental conditions, bays in Koh Tao may start fairly empty if the boat arrives early, but an hour later, there could be several boats and many more divers in the water. Everyone looks very similar underwater. It's very easy to get caught up in the wrong dive group. I've witnessed it (see an earlier post). Perhaps instructors should keep extra watch when this occurs and perhaps this particular instructor made a huge fatal mistake by being too comfortable with his DSD divers.

 

[divinh]

I don't know the history of the island or any of the politics with that, but from the story as presented and from what I understand of those "try scuba" courses, he basically should have had eyes on her at all times, no more than an arm's breadth away. Whether it is the instructor who is neglecting his job or a shop that is trying to push instructors to take too many students I think remains to be seen.

Edited because I missed the reply before mine. Wow. I didn't realize the ratios were that high. Unfortunately I agree with you, it will take either a lawsuit or governments getting involved. For people who haven't had classes and pool training, they need to be closely watched. Someone posted a video once of a diver panicking, pulling out her reg and the DM forcing the reg back in and getting her to the surface alive. The look on her face was haunting, and if something goes awry with those divers who have very little knowledge, you don't want a group all relying on one person. Panic can sometimes spread.

I personally think 1:2 ratio is good for DSD's and quite frankly, I don't even understand how DSD's could be appealing, except for a bucket list check. It seems so restrictive and not the true experience of diving.