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To: TechDiver <techdiver@opal.com>
Subject: Re: Education beyond certific...
From: Richard Pyle <deepreef@bi*.bi*.Ha*.Or*>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 13:57:21 +22305714 (HST)
I apologize if this get's sent twice to everyone:

On Sun, 16 Apr 1995 devon@ol*.ch* wrote:

> I'm enjoying my new home in Switzerland where there is no certification
> and if you die it's your own damn fault.

This provides me with a golden opportunity to get something off my chest
that's been bugging me for a while.  What can't the U.S. be like this? I
mean seriously...is it only lawyers that have screwed up things?  Or is it
that our society has evolved to the point where people sincerely cannot
accept responsibility for their own actions?

I've been listening to the audio tapes from the tek95 meetings lately. 
One of the sessions dealt with legal issues and underscored the importance
of "community standards" in determining outcomes of lawsuits. These are
not necessarily written standards, but more like accepted conventtions
within the community (in this case, the community of technical divers). 
If so, then the solution seems crystal clear to me.

As far as I can see, the "technical diving" thing is still young enough that
community standards are still ambiguous.  So it's not too late to define 
these standards.  I suggest we create the "community standard" that we all 
want! I think the "standard" can be summed up in two sentences:

"WHATEVER happens to you when you willingly go underwater is 
COMPLETELY and ENTIRELY your own responsibility! If you cannot
accept this responsibility, stay out of the water!"

If a regulator fails in the middle of a dive, the diver cannot blame the
manufacturer because the diver willingly accepted the risk of a regulator
failure the moment they dipped below the surface.  If a charter boat
captain does something really stupid and a diver gets hurt or killed, the
diver has nobody to blame because he or she accepted that risk when he or
she hired that boat captain. Give me any example where a diver gets hurt,
and I will explain why it is ultimately the diver's fault.

On day *one* of ANY technical diving course (I want to say any diving
course at all, but we'll limit it to technical-type diving courses for
this discussion), the instructor would say to the students: 

"In diving, we have a credo that is: 'WHATEVER happens to you when you
willingly go underwater is COMPLETELY and ENTIRELY your own
responsibility! If you cannot accept this responsibility, stay out of the
water!' If any of you do not understand this, I will explain it to you now.
If any of you are not willing to accept this, then you may withdraw from
this course and receive a full refund. If you are going to willfully engage
in any diving after this course, you MUST understand and accept this
credo."

Instructors would not "certify" people, they would only teach them. The
burden of responsibility would fall on the student to *learn* the
material, not on the instructor to teach the material.  It would be up to
the student to trust whether or not the information he or she received
from the instructor is correct and complete. If the student doubted this,
then he or she should do their own research to verify it.  If the
instructor provided bogus information to the student and the student
believed it and got hurt, it would be the student's fault for having not
independently researched it.  All of this could and should be hammered
into the student throughout all courses. The only time an instructor
should be sued is if he or she did not make these points clear to a diver
during the course. 

The Technical Divers' credo should appear everywhere: in magazines and
books, throughout instruction manuals, on T-shirts and bumperstickers, on
pins and caps, in disclaimer statements, in product manuals, on e-mail
signatures...everywhere. Eventually, this would become a "community
standard".  The attitude would be: "These are the rules of the game...if
you cannot accept these rules, than do not play the game. Period."

If this attitude was truely established as a clear "community standard"
within the technical diving community, I would think that fewer lawsuits
against people would win, and thus fewer lawsuits would be filed.
Liability insurance would no longer be necessary, and costs of things
(such as rebreathers) would come down. 

I'm sure I'm being totally naive, but it just seems to be so simple.  Most
of us believe the credo anyway, so if we continue to emphazize it
everywhere, it should eventually be elevated to the level of "community
standard".

I've been thinking about this for a long time.  If anyone wants me to
elaborate further on any of these points, I'd be more than happy to.

O.K., that's my piece.  'nuff said... 

Aloha,
Rich

*******************************************************************
Richard Pyle
deepreef@bi*.bi*.ha*.or*

"WHATEVER happens to you when you willingly go underwater is 
COMPLETELY and ENTIRELY your own responsibility! If you cannot
accept this responsibility, stay out of the water!"
*******************************************************************

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