Posted by Ken Kurtis on January 20, 2003 at 00:30:40:
In Reply to: Cases please.... posted by HD on January 19, 2003 at 19:46:11:
HD asked (and in a non-judgmental way it seems): "How many times do you have this occurring please? Are you able to supply any cases, or a case, where someone ran out of air, dove again the same day, then died on a subsequent dive from running out of air?"
I don't recall the specifics and I'm not going to try to find them. All I can tell you is that my recollection was that there were a few (3, 4, 5 - I'm not sure - these come mainly gfrom DAN reports over a 15-year period) where something bad happened, no one intervened, and then something worse happened.
Certainly not saying it happens all the time. But, again looking at this from the viewpoint of how we'll be second-guessed in court (and remmbering that hindsight is always 20/20), I think there's valid reason to say to someone who just ran out of air, "Look, you just made the #1 colossal careless diver error. Looks like you're not at the top of your game today so let's have you sit out the rest of the day today so you can assure yourself of dives tomorrow."
What's interesting to me in this discussion so far (and I also mean this in a non-judgmental way) is that I've yet to hear anyone suggest that it's okay to run out of air. The position some seem to be taking is that while it's not okay, if you can come up with some excuse/reason/justification/promise-not-to-do-it-again, then everything's hunky-dory.
And if something should subsequently go wrong, that's exactly the type of flawed logic, so I'm told, that a jury will pounce on to find you liable.
Ken Kurtis
NAUI Instr. #5936
Co-owner, Reef Seekers Dive Co.
Beverly Hills, CA