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This is a serious debate (how rare) on a a serious topic, so it's no wonder if a few feathers are being ruffled. I'm inclined to say the Rich is right; with a caveat. When discussing diving incidents, there are those we are ourselves involved in, and those in which others are involved. Redardless, they fall into two types; those where someone fucked up and those where we don't know what happened. You can *generally* say that even where we don't know what happened, soneone screwed up. What Rich is saying, and about which he is dead right, is that whether you or someone else has filled your tank, checked your kit, given you a medical, cut your tables, whatever; *you* have accepted that siuation before getting into the water. I mean, even if one of George's dives did give him a weenie bend and he delighted in the chance to hop back in a get rid of the bubble, but it moved and left him paraplegic; he's not going to sue Hamilton, or the guys who promote IWR. There are however a couple of areas which are grey; if I go buy a tank, steel 232bar, 12.2l, tested etc, and hop in, but discover that some prat has rigged the test result to go home early and the valve shears off inside the Shuna; if I get out then damn right someone who handled that tank will catch shit. The second and far more significant grey area, is that of trainee divers. No matter how smart, educated, critical, we all are; we were all at some stage *not in possession of enough facts* to decide whether the risk was acceptable. We turned to the experienced divers around us and asked their opinion; and in so doing propogated a recognised level of acceptable risk. *Now* if I decide to do the falls of Lara solo as a shore dive on spring ebb, then I know I need my passport. But at some stage someone had to say, no, counting on the RAF to haul your butt back to the UK is not acceptable, so don't do it. This area has little relevance in this forum since it seems the local rules are that beginners are someone else's problem. On the boating accident; No, incidents like that should *not* happen; divers should be aware as far as possible at all times. Skippers should not be moving large vessels in small areas with divers in the water (use squidgies). So someone screwed up. The relationship between divers and boats is fucking piss-poor IMO; given that we're serious sea users, the lack of general seamanship is appalling. In this case the deceased was an experienced diver and all the reports* blame the boat. Rich's point is that the diver; knowing that the boat handling wasn't what it should have been, should have refused to enter the water. *Good* point and one which in the ideal world would work as well as Rule Number One; but the real world, it doesn't (indeed cannot) happen. (* that I've seen.) Note the fact that a diver may be coerced into diver in less than ideal conditions is what lead to the regulation of professional diving in the UK by the HSE - I'd love everyone to meet their standards, but by god, I wouldn't want to see the bill. So there *is* IMO, a place for blame, and in the US, I guess that means litigation. But not on a diver by a diver unless under the most stringent of circumstances. Interestingly, BSAC personal liability, worth 2 million UKP anywhere in the world, is only worth 1 million in the US, due to the higher expected litigation rate. I don't know what commercial instructors (PADI, NAUI, IANTD, whatever) have to cover in terms of liability, but I believe that one of the reasons club based systems (CMAS, BSAC) did not become established decades ago in the US is that their instructor system is much less financially formalised, and no diver wants to get involved without a solid legal standpoint. Your loss; we have small clubs doing fun diving with the organisation and sense of teamwork that only George discusses regularly here, you have pay-through-the-nose dive shops, and force fins. Litigate against mis-selling of crap kit in places it ain't needed, sue the arse off any skipper who doesn't make the grade, but between divers, apply rule number one where you can, and diplomatic silence when you can't. The only people worse than the feds are the lawyers, surely? Jason
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