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After 20 years of wreck diving from Nova Scotia to the Caribbean I have seen just about everything that a newbi or an experienced diver can do to screw up a dive. Also, in my profession as a Manufacturing Engineer in an aerospace company (8500 employees) I am well aware of how hard it is to train people who just will not listen towhat you have to say. Now, here are two scenarios, how would you handle them without getting yourself sued? #1 A diver is on a boat off of New Jersey, he/she is a little sea sick and overheated, you see that the equipment is not what YOU would consider to be adequate to the dive and you see that they are setting it up wrong. You decide to butt in and after a quiet talk with him/her at the back of the boat about decompression when you are not physically on par and what equipment they should really have, they are going to do the dive anyway. By the way the capt. knows what your opinions are but he is a Fishing Charter capt making a few bucks on the side doing dive charters during the week. What are the options: Let them go and hope, cut their hose so that they have to stay on the boat, or decide to buddy with them to keep them out of trouble? #2 You see a diver ready to jump off the boat you notice that they have any number of the following no fins, no weight, air turned off, no reg's on the tanks, no mask, etc. When you say to this diver - Do you want any help with your gear? The reply is I'm an instructor, please don't touch my gear. What do you do? Let them jump off and then say "Most instructors use - fins, masks, etc. or forcefully stop them and list the things that they are missing? By the way, I have seen both of the above many times on different boats. The second scenario is just funny, the first can get you into a lot of legal trouble. If you have an advanced CERT and you take an action to "Instruct" the diver you are now going to be responsible in a court of law for the results. You may beat the lawsuit but it may cost you $10,000-$20,000 in legal fees. I have a friend whois a tri-mix diver and a personal injury lawyer, he will tell you "I'll sue every one, it's just an another name on a piece of paper to me". And if the dive was set up through a dive club that is not incorporated, he may just sue all of the members of the club as well. What do you do? This is the real world that we operate in -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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