Mailing List Archive Mailing List Archive
Many people seem to feel that it is the student's responsibility to know if their instructor is taking them on an unsafe dive or training them in an unsafe manner. If either of these situations exist, this philsophy is to place the burden on teh student a) know about it and b) not make the dive or participate in the training. First, obviously, legally this is an indiefensible position and in a court of law an instructor will get eaten alive if his defense is the student should have known and told me I was being unsafe. But lots of things in courts of law are unfair so let's just leave this alone. I just wanted to point out to any instructors out there reading the ideas that a student has a duty or responsibility legally to "watch out" or tell their instructors when they are being unsafe that the concept is crap from a plaintiff lawyer's perspective. Now in real life: Students of trimix classes have very few sources to make themselves knowledgeable of all the dangers out there and what is safe and unsafe. For ex. IF ( a big if) a student was on techdiver or cavers the many opposing opinions posted would certainly confuse him or her. The vast majority do not even know the newsgroups exist prior to being involved. Then let's look at the printed material. Reading the tri-mix book or the deep diving book would give lots of outdated info and would present dives no longer made today. Deep air etc. Although this would confuse them too since lots of agencies stillr equire air below 130 feet. Reading Deep Tech or Immersed would surely confuse them more as every issue presents different viewpoints assuming they could even get the mags. If you are going to place this duty on a student you need to inform them. So give them a release that clearly and specifically notifies them that you EXPECT them to know what dives and training are safe and unsafe. But even if you gave them a copy of the S & P for whatever agency you are using none of them state whether the use of dive coms is or is not allowed during tri-mix training. Give them lots of printed material to read BEFORE they take the class. for example give them the Baker's dozen, JJ's article on hogarthian and breathing the long hose etc. Now they are really confused because none of this stuff jives with the S & P stuff you gave them. This post could go on and on listing reasons it is absurd to require your students to know what is safe and unsafe diving and training before they even take the class. If you are taking a chemistry class in college and the professor says mix y and z and you blow up; are you at fault for not knowing chemistry BEFORE you've even taken the class? The agencies have to have standards and instructors that teach safe training and diving and students should be able to rely on this. I hate PI suits as much as anyone and the lack of personal responsibility in our society, but to say a student such as Jane should ahve known adn informed her instructor that he was praciting unsafe diving isn't personal repsonisibilty, it's an instructor trying to get off the hook. A student has a reasonable expectation that someone who presents themselves as an instructor, is accredited by an international training agency, etc. will teach as safe as possible diving and will inform the student of known potential risks - which all the agencies use releases for. But NO release informs the student they have the burden to judge their instructor's capabilites when they the student have no prior knowledge or experience in tri-mix diving. If you are an instructor out there expecting or relying on your students to monitor and regulate your behavior then you better tell them that AND give them the info to judge you by, and EVEN THEN I don't think a jury of 12 tri-mix isntructors will absolve you for reponsibility for things that were allegedly taking place when Jane died. And I can guarantee yo a jury of 12 non-diving "citizen-joes" will not. susan -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
Navigate by Author:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Subject Search Index]
[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]
[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]