A controversial concept, but maybe a good one.

[bamafan]

Look, blaming the instructor for the bunny brained ideas of a student is stupid. An instructor sees a diver for the duration of their class, and has a set of standards that the student has to meet. Years later, the student may go bat crap crazy and ignore everything he was taught. Or have some testicular swelling that causes him to go far beyond his training and abilities. Or move to the frozen north and only cave dive every other year. That is not the fault of the instructor, or as important, the certifying agency.

And Krazi - the proper snack for this type of trolling is a banana.

If this is true then the deaths should be evenly distributed then shouldn't they? Just like flipping a coin. Sure you will have streaks where you just get heads but over time it should even out on a percentage basis. I really don't think that this is what the data would show.

[kensuf]

If this is true then the deaths should be evenly distributed then shouldn't they? Just like flipping a coin. Sure you will have streaks where you just get heads but over time it should even out on a percentage basis. I really don't think that this is what the data would show.

I had a student that took full trimix with me in 1997. He didn't pass the class initially, and he had to come back and take it again before he passed.

He died in 2011 or 2010 from complications due to DCS after a dive in a deep cave.

Is this my fault?

[bamafan]

I do think there is an issue with students instructor shopping. I know of a few students who some instructors refused to take any further than ow sidemount or cavern so they went and found another instructor. Two of these are now dead.

[bamafan]

I had a student that took full trimix with me in 1997. He didn't pass the class initially, and he had to come back and take it again before he passed.

He died in 2011 or 2010 from complications due to DCS after a dive in a deep cave.

Is this my fault?

I don't know but statistically it should even out over time if there isn't an issue with a certain agency or instructor. Sure the more complicated dives your students do the more deaths one will have. It is a hard thing to measure. I look at GUE and I would guess they train as many or more cave divers per year than say the CDS. Do you think their incident rate is the same? Are the CDS divers doing more extreme dives? I can't answer this and don't believe anyone else can either but I think the data should be analyzed.

[kensuf]

Without any other knowledge about a student, an instructor can only evaluate what they see. A student that displayed an unsafe attitude in a course with one instructor may decide to follow all of the rules and act appropriately while enrolled in a course with a different instructor.

Here's an example:

Student jokes about playing tic-tac-toe by carving into the walls during a cavern course with Instructor A. Instructor A admonishes the student about conservation and tells the student he is not mature enough to continue training to become a cave diver.

Student shops around and finds Instructor B and enrolls in a cave course with B. During the course, student acts mature and reasonable and demonstrates the normal conventional maturity towards cave conservation. Instructor B certifies the student, and a week after the student uses his cave diving skills to go and harvest clay in a popular cave so that he can sell pottery made from cave clay.

Would Instructor B be considered responsible for this?

[kensuf]

BTW, if anyone starts selling cave clay pottery because they think that's a brilliant idea after reading my above comment, I'd like a new coffee mug.

[bamafan]

Without any other knowledge about a student, an instructor can only evaluate what they see. A student that displayed an unsafe attitude in a course with one instructor may decide to follow all of the rules and act appropriately while enrolled in a course with a different instructor.

Here's an example:

Student jokes about playing tic-tac-toe by carving into the walls during a cavern course with Instructor A. Instructor A admonishes the student about conservation and tells the student he is not mature enough to continue training to become a cave diver.

Student shops around and finds Instructor B and enrolls in a cave course with B. During the course, student acts mature and reasonable and demonstrates the normal conventional maturity towards cave conservation. Instructor B certifies the student, and a week after the student uses his cave diving skills to go and harvest clay in a popular cave so that he can sell pottery made from cave clay.

Would Instructor B be considered responsible for this?

Well in one of the deaths instructor A contacted instructor B and said I had issues in ow with your student. I have heard that your student is regularly disregarding safe gas practices and that the student has even done this in a class. Instructor B agrees and says well I think I can change him and I am afraid he will just cave dive anyway. It is a slippery slope and I could make an argument for either side. Sadly I think it has more to do with $$$ for a lot of agencies and instructors. It is a conversation definitely worth having. Lets face it cave diving is a small sport / hobby. None of us have to do it. Like anything that is done for entertainment when money is tight people cut back on hobbies. The current model of cave training is ripe for abuse. Ethics sometimes take a backseat to money and from what I have witnessed in cave diving this happens way to often. You can certainly disagree with Peter's proposal but I think everyone agrees there are issues. What would you propose to help fix these issues?

[Dsix36]

I know you guys are all thankful that I don't post much anymore. And I'll try to keep it that way. But a discussion with a cave instructor this morning led to a great idea we think he had. Of course, proposal of said idea would probably bring a bunch of criticism. I don't really care about criticism, so I said I'd post it.

What if cave society and prospective new cave divers had a list of instructors that not only had their length of cave instruction but also listed the number of graduated students who have died in cave diving. Say you've been teaching cave diving for less than 6 years but have already had 3+ students die while cave diving. Maybe it shows a trend in either poor instruction or an inability to weed out a poor state of mind in a diver.

Worst case, it allows people thinking about entering the sport to evaluate whether they want a guy known for student deaths to be their instructor.

Whatcha think?

I actually like the idea.

Sent from my E500A using Tapatalk

[victorzamora]

I have yet to had a single student die or fail for that matter. Never mind that I’m not an instructor, I still have a perfect record.

My brother went to a university with no football team. He proudly wears his sweater AND t-shirt both proclaiming they've been undefeated in football since the university was founded.

So: Keep up the good work!

[JohnAd]

If this is true then the deaths should be evenly distributed then shouldn't they? Just like flipping a coin. Sure you will have streaks where you just get heads but over time it should even out on a percentage basis. I really don't think that this is what the data would show.

Deaths will only be distributed evenly over a group if there are enough deaths and enough time for them to even out. Flip a coin 1,000 times, and the heads and tails should be darn close to even. Flip a coin 3 times and you could easily get 3 heads and no tails. With the numbers we are talking about, a couple of deaths could be damning, even if both were caused by heart attacks.