Tourist dies scuba diving in Phi Phi

[stevenl]

RIP.

It took six weeks of professional instruction in the USA to pass my scuba certification. Class room theory, swimming pool orientation of gear and practice in 8 feet of water.

a extremely difficult beach dive walking with full gear through large breaking waves, cold water, limited visibly, kelp and a strong surge.

we had to swim out until we were in 30 feet of water, descend to the bottom, flood our masks and demonstrate we could clear ours masks by breathing in with our regulators and exhale with our noses to clear the mask. then we had to remove our BC and tanks completely to demonstrate we could take off our gear in a emergency.

the next day was a boat dive at Anacapa island to 50 feet, then ascend without your regulator to demonstrate proper emergency ascent.

the instructor were ex Marines, I was 22 years old and it was really hard doing the mask clear test.

the buddy system was in place from the moment we were in any water.

You and I have similar experiences... I went through a program just what you described back in the mid 80's when I was certified. I was in the Navy in San Diego then, and I took the class on base through the Rec department. The instructor was literally a Seal Team instructor from Coronado... His name was Ralph Stogsdall and he could have been the <deleted> drill instructor from central casting. He drilled the hell out of us, and I have been thankful many times.

Back then, the sport diving industry was very well self regulated. Today, things have changed. Even in the US things are not as they were. There a a lot of "certified" divers out there today that I wouldn't dive with.

I think the entire concept of these one day, try it out, resort dives just demonstrates that it's NOT just a Thailand issue. It goes all the way up to the certifying bodies and equipment manufacturers that set the policy and create these instant "just add water" certifications... Back in my day (I always swore I'd never use that expression :-) you couldn't even buy some gear, or get a tank filled, without showing your certification. Today, they will drop any fool over the side with a bubble helmet on and absolutely zero training, and in many cases the "diver" may not even be a competent swimmer, and nobody bats an eye.

it is no wonder that there are as many deaths as there are given the way the training and safety measures of the whole industry have weakened. Then, when you take those lax standards and training requirements into a place like Thailand where there is little emphasis on training and the enforcement of rules and procedures is practically non existent, why would you expect anything else?

I think that rather than just shouting "Thailand isn't safe" (which we all know by the way, and I'm not contesting....), I think divers should call out the certifying bodies to step up their role in championing safety for sport diving and setting reasonable requirements that prevent this kind of senseless death. The certifying organizations resort dive "standards" that allow untrained people to dive in open water are foolish and irresponsible. Maybe it is time for someone to test whether or not it also makes them negligent. You can be sure the rules would change quickly then....

RIP to the victim.

"it is no wonder that there are as many deaths"

Are there? Looking forward to your statistics.

@Steveni

For starters, If you read my post you will see that I never claimed any specific amount of accidents or deaths... Neither did I make any statement about whether that accident rate was increasing or decreasing... Go ahead and re-read my post... I'll wait...

So, yes... there are as many deaths as there are... That is what I said... I can't imagine how you could disagree with a statement that there are as many as there are.... But you can try if want to....

Googling dive accident statistics would be a great distraction from the actual point of my post... which was expressing my opinion that the current "standards" of the dive certification bodies are inadequate to screen customers for health / fitness, competence in the water, and to deliver a reasonable degree of training and supervision to keep them safe in an open water situation. In my opinion, the very idea that a person could be dropped over the side of a boat in open water (on a sea walk or a discover dive) without having spent time in a classroom and a swimming pool and being able to demonstrate a basic level of skills and competence / confidence in the water is unconscionable.

Further, I have friends who completed a full Open Water certification in Thailand. The training they received was not very rigorous... and while I accept that not everyone will obtain the degree of training that I had, I assert that the training they DID receive was inadequate. Among many reasons for this opinion is the fact that they were allowed to complete it in stages... over various trips to Thailand over a period of about 6-8 months. Each trip they would spend a couple of hours of theory on one trip and few hours in the pool on another... with various supervised dives allowed while they were still completing the training. The shops will do whatever they have to in order to keep the money flowing. The safety of the diver has become secondary... Sorry, but that is the reality and PADI, NAUI, and SSI are not telling them otherwise....

The overall size of the sport diving industry has grown significantly over the last 30 years... in part due to lower training requirements and various kinds of resort dives that have made it more accessible to more people... I'm sure it would take some work to really understand the nuances about the accident data once you found it. On the whole, diving is not an excessively dangerous activity when done by reasonably healthy people who have been decently trained, have good swimming skills, and who exercise good judgement while they are doing it. But accidents DO happen, usually due to some combination of poor health / fitness, poor / inadequate training, bad decision making, a lack of good swimming skills, and occasionally, but very rarely, due to equipment malfunctions.

My point was not to debate whether the overall accident rate of the industry has increased or decreased, but rather how many of these incidents are happening with people who are new divers / first time divers / resort divers that would never have been in the water in the first place if they had to meet the more stringent requirements, complete adequate training prior to being in the open water, and were able to demonstrate their fitness and competence in the water.

Of course the accident rate has increased since the number of scuba divers has increased. I feel though that the increase is not proportional, relatively far less accidents now than there used to be.

So I don't think your statements like "many deaths" "(translated) not stringent enough requirements these days" are correct. You claim 'many deaths' and refuse to substantiate that. Your choice, but that makes your statement pure rhetoric. Which is a pity, because you make some good points as well.

[gk10002000]

Do people think a 62 year old cannot pass a medical for SCUBA diving

What medical????

And by what doctor?

[sunnyjim5]

Do people think a 62 year old cannot pass a medical for SCUBA diving

What medical????

And by what doctor?

Here are the PADI medical declaration/guidelines for physicians.

It will be noted that there are age and 'medical conditions' which require a doctors confirmation of a persons 'fitness' to partake in scuba diving.

https://www.padi.com/english/common/courses/forms/pdf/10063-ver2-0.pdf

Any 'dive' school which fails to follow these guidelines should be avoided.

[rjcampbe]

Of course the accident rate has increased since the number of scuba divers has increased. I feel though that the increase is not proportional, relatively far less accidents now than there used to be.

So I don't think your statements like "many deaths" "(translated) not stringent enough requirements these days" are correct. You claim 'many deaths' and refuse to substantiate that. Your choice, but that makes your statement pure rhetoric. Which is a pity, because you make some good points as well.

You are missing my point entirely...

First, let me clarify some terms since your reply is inconsistent with what I said and meant.... The raw NUMBER of incidents that occur should logically increase as the number of people diving increases... OF COURSE. That is NOT what is meant by the accident RATE, which would be some statistical means to rationally compare the number of accidents THEN to the number of accidents NOW given that the size of the population of divers has changed.

However, for the third time... My assertion is NOT that the overall rate of diving accidents has increased... In fact, I have not said a word about whether or not the rates have increased or decreased as a whole.

My point is that there are now accidents occurring that would NOT have occurred in the past BECAUSE the RULES that govern whether or not those "divers" were in the water in the first place have changed.

To put it plainly, nobody died in a Discover Scuba session on holiday in 1985 when I got certified because there was no such thing available from the certifying bodies. If you wanted to try out scuba, you did it in a SWIMMING POOL under controlled conditions.

Likewise, there were no deaths of people Sea Walking on holiday, because there was no such thing and the industry at the time would not have endorsed such a thing because they would not have deemed the person to have sufficient training to be safe.

I have categorized all of this as my OPINION from the start.

[Dogmatix]

How did a 62 yo Chinaman pass a PADI diver medical ? Or was this just a one off resort dive with minimal training and health checks ? Can believe the instructor would leave a novice behind and surface while surfacing with another.

Doesn't sound very good for British diving instructor Geoff Brannigan. Took down a 62 year old rookie and then abandoned him under water. I wonder if he had a work permit as a diving instructor that specified his place of work as the ocean, Most of the foreign diving instructors only have the address of their shop or office in their WPs which means that they are only permitted to teach theory in the shop and do desk work.

Unless he has a wad of cash to donate for the BiB annual police ball, I would suggest he gets himself back to the UK as soon as he can and opens a diving shop in Blackpool or somewhere. There may be Chinese tourists there now too but UK regulations would make negligence like this much harder.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Dogmatix

[stevenl]

How did a 62 yo Chinaman pass a PADI diver medical ? Or was this just a one off resort dive with minimal training and health checks ? Can believe the instructor would leave a novice behind and surface while surfacing with another.

Doesn't sound very good for British diving instructor Geoff Brannigan. Took down a 62 year old rookie and then abandoned him under water. I wonder if he had a work permit as a diving instructor that specified his place of work as the ocean, Most of the foreign diving instructors only have the address of their shop or office in their WPs which means that they are only permitted to teach theory in the shop and do desk work.

Unless he has a wad of cash to donate for the BiB annual police ball, I would suggest he gets himself back to the UK as soon as he can and opens a diving shop in Blackpool or somewhere. There may be Chinese tourists there now too but UK regulations would make negligence like this much harder.

He did not have a work permit, see the OP.

Your assertion regarding allowed working places is not correct.

[fxe1200]

Chinese national Minghua Jiang, 62, was recovered unconscious at about noon while scuba diving for the first time .

Shouldn't the first scuba dive be a practice dive in swimming pool?

Yes. It is common practice to have the first dives in a pool. In Germany they use public swimming baths, which normally has a depth of three to four meters.

[cmth]

Not that this has anything to do with the issues here, but I did want to point out that medicals (no matter who they are for and who they are done by) mean absolutely nothing. All medicals require a certain amount of "self reporting". I know of people from all fields of work that take and pass medicals with no problems even though their health is not as it seems. I am definitely not saying that it's right but it happens. Sometimes even the people in charge know about it, they just don't want to "officially" know it. There are many Pilots, Instructors, Military Personnel, Commercial Drivers, Professional Athletes, etc. The list goes on and on, that are not fit for their job. Here is an easy example of what they may do. Someone has high blood pressure and they take medicine for it. When they go for their medical exam they check no on the high blood pressure box. The doctor conducting the medical doesn't see high blood pressure so there is nothing to note. If no one want's to dig for information, that is the end of it. Just expand this to every possible "disqualifying" medical condition and you have the truth of how things are working. Even someone in perfect health can have a massive heart attack, stroke, or aneurysm without warning. While there are many things that could help improve the safety of any job, sport, etc. A medical exam is probably the least effective.

[Old Croc]

My first scuba dive was near Bali on a tourist boat offering try-dives. Training consisted of a talk by the dive master as the boat steamed to it's destination. I missed most of the talk because I made a late decision to do the dive.

However, before this I had spent a large part of my life in the water, and frequently snorkeled to greater depths than that first dive. I had also used hooka gear previously. I did have some concerns for the safety of some of the tourists doing the dive on that day.

In my opinion, a tourist without my sort of background, should not be doing their first dive in the open sea, especially from a long tail boat and with a dodgy, fly by night instructor.

When I eventually decided to get certified, I had to undergo a medical with a specific doctor who specialised in testing would- be scuba divers. He even had a small closed cabinet, in which I had to sit for a set time, to test if I suffered from claustrophobia.

[Khon Kaen Dave]

Sorry,but is that copper actually picking his nose,in that shot??? And the other copper in the foreground really looks super intelligent.