By reading the actual lawsuit, the drysuit was used, and it was sold without the inflator hose. There is a picture in the lawsuit that shows a clear view of the victim at the surface with the valve visible with no hose attached. In fact, the suit also names the person who sold her the drysuit as a defendant, too. This is tragic on so many levels!
@@DivingDeveloper and to use a dry suit you need further training, they can be extremely dangerous if you don’t know the first thing about them. TH-camr do your homework instead of shooting blanks. Your blatant misinformation about what happened is disgraceful to Linnea’s memory. Also you said if it was your course you would let her dive without a drysuit course by what you alluded tobin the first minute of the video. People like you is the problem with the industry, clown 🤡
Mistake #1: You don't accept a student for a high attitude dive in a freezing lake who has less than ten lifetime dives and hasn't dove in a year and a half (consider a pool refresher as a required prerequisite). #2: You don't accept a student for a training course (AOW) wearing a drysuit and who doesn't have drysuit certification. It all got far far worse from there. Negligent homicide.
@@AlanMichaelJackson Yes, a first time high altitude, drysuit, cold water, night dive for a student with less than ten lifetime dives. There are no words that capture the insanity.
I've read that she rented a ScubaPro Glide BCD which has dump-able weight pockets, but no one at Gull Dive showed her how to do that so she could practice releasing the weights.
@@michaelatherton5761 - Absolutely. When I purchased my first drysuit back around 1990; which was used, after I had new neck and wrist seals installed and found and repaired a couple of small leaks, I practiced several times in the deep end of an Olympic sized swimming pool at my university. I don't think there was a certification for using a drysuit back in the early 1990's, but I spoke to a couple of scuba instructors before I purchased the drysuit and they clued me in to various potential problems, like getting too much air in the area of your feet and learning to use the drysuit dump valve by simple body movements while ascending to maintain neutral buoyancy. Plus, the store that sold me that drysuit; it was going out of business, gave me a video made by the manufacturer of my drysuit and photocopied for me the users manual of a new drysuit of the same company. That's what real dive professionals do. Even then, it took several dives before I felt really comfortable diving dry. Plus, I changed other things, like no longer using a weight belt and instead going with weights in a BCD which could be easily dumped and one pound ankle weights. I had close to 200 dives when I purchased that drysuit. It blew my mind when I read that poor girl had no training, not even a simple discussion about the differences between using a drysuit and a wetsuit, and no one warned her about drysuit squeeze. I think the only reason the instructor and people at the dive center aren't facing criminal charges of negligent homicide is because the district attorney in that jurisdiction thinks that girl's death was an accident. That person has no clue of the extreme negligence in this case and, or may also think it would be difficult to explain this to a jury that doesn't know a thing about scuba diving.
I'm a fairly new scuba diver, and I live in Missoula, Montana. This is by far the worst scuba story I have ever heard. I didn't know her, but she was the nicest girl when we did talk. The negligence from the instructors is sickening. Can't imagine what Linnea went through, and how the Mills family must feel. The instructors and Gull Dive should be sued into oblivion.
Hi Mark. Thank you for reporting on this incident. I read about it yesterday; as I was out for a walk today I was thinking, "Simply Scuba should talk about this." One thing that you hint at but that I wish you and everyone everywhere would highlight is DO NOT BLINDLY TRUST AUTHORITY FIGURES. Of course, if an instructor tells you not do to something, don't do it. But we each also should be educating ourselves. Use the instructor more as training-wheels, as a backup from making stupid mistakes, rather than as a god that will protect you. People get hurt all the time in all sorts of endeavors, not just Scuba, from listening to people who seem like they should know but who really don't. If an instructor tells you something is dangerous but you don't think it is -- listen to the instructor. If you feel something isn't right but the instructor says it's fine -- TRUST AND RELY ON YOURSELF. PS to any commenters: I am not in any way saying this was the young woman's fault. She is not at fault at all. She did what many, probably most, reasonable and rational and careful people would do. This is (from what we know so far) 100% the fault of the two instructors.
There's a thing in Human Factors call 'Normalisation of Deviance' where minor slips in following procedures or rules become the norm, generally because it makes life easier and nothing has ever gone wrong. One wonders how many accumulated deviations were at work in this business to make it acceptable, despite already having had a fatality, to take inexperienced people into the water unbriefed, with inadequate supervision, the wrong kit wrongly configured, in failing light and cold water at an unsuitable dive site. Not being licensed to be there may also have insurance implications, but that's a side issue against the loss of this poor girl's life. It doesn't matter if this business claimed to follow PADI, SSI or whatever, it sounds like they were so far away from any recognised standard it no longer mattered.
"Normalization of Deviance" Thank you for the term. It describes exactly, a sloppy operation regardless of the particular reasons. I cannot picture diving those temperatures without hot water. If at all. A terrible, senseless tragedy.
It wasn't a surface drysuit, it was a diving drysuit, but it didn't use the standard QD inflator that most use these days. Instead it had a CEJN connector, and the person who sold the drysuit to her didn't include the hose. Thus when they got to the dive site the rented reg set couldn't connect to her inflator valve. Bob was also a student, he had completed the confined water portion of the course, but was in the lake for the open water portion.
@@moonshroom13 Oh she knew, IIRC she said it was fine since they weren't going deep. And theoretically she is right, I believe their planned depth was shallow enough that if you are willing to accept the squeeze it could be fine. There are sites where due to contour I won't inflate my suit until I get down to like 60ft/20m as all the gas would go to my feet.
In 1990 my wife and I were certified by Danny’s dive shop in Baldwin, NY. Our checkout dives were in May in the Long Island Sound. Water was in the 50’s and viz was near zero. The dive master left my fiancé at the bottom alone in 40 ft of water. She was able to surface but that could have been a bad accident. Over the years I have encountered many divers and dive masters who should not be in the water. The best advice I ever received was from my instructor, Bob Wright. He said your certification card is not a license to dive, It is a license to learn. I read every book I can on diving and practice with my equipment on land, in pools and in shallow water near home. The instructors or dive masters who were with the girl who died should go to jail for manslaughter. They should be banned from diving anywhere.
Awful how that instructor neglected your wife. Another example of why, as you say, we all have to take the responsibility to educate ourselves. Don't rely only on the instructor, or any authority figure in any situation for that matter.
That SCUBA shop needs to be shut down. The owner of the shop and the instructor who put that child in the water with lead wights in her pockets needs to go to jail.
I was reading the legal documents on this, lengthy read but clearly this dive center was not following the rules of any of the regulating bodies in the proper manner. Really unfortunate that someone lost their life as a result of a negligent dive center.
I posted this on another TH-cam site that covered the incident. My two pence worth. ** I'm a British Sub-Aqua Club Advanced Diver (that's way beyond PADI Advanced Open Water!) and Open Water Instructor. I'm also certified as a PADI MSDT (Master SCUBA Diver Trainer). I have 1000's of dives & have trained lots of students through both organisations. In the UK, of necessity, we KNOW dry suit diving. Assuming that this is an accurate depiction of the events, it is a distressing watch. The immediate red flag for the Dive Centre should have been the student arriving on the beach with a dry suit that had no inflator hose. (my understanding that is was a Diving Dry Suit, but she did not have the inflator hose). It said three things right off the bat. 1. The student had not been trained in the use of dry suits. 2. The student had NEVER dived with that suit before. 3. The Dive site responsible Instructor had not quizzed or briefed the young woman with regard to dry suit diving. She should not have been allowed to enter the water. That in my view was an instance of gross negligence. All that weight (apparently non-detachable) added to the young girl, if true, was simply criminal. This was a PADI Dive centre, a huge number of PADI standards were obviously broken. The Dive centre people appear to had been responsible for massive negligent failures and incompetence. I have no doubt that PADI will have a very Teflon shoulders, as they will be able to point to multiple standards violations. There is no substitute for having the right gear and having it set up correctly. AND Training, training, practice, practice, practice. Throughout my career, I have never taken a student on an open water dive with a dry suit, without fully preparing them in advance. That includes in water familiarisation in a safe environment ( a swimming pool ). There are videos of a young girl's first open water dry suit sessions, with me in a fresh water quarry (Stoney Cove), on my channel.
This seems like a bad joke... How can one become a scuba instructor and let a student use 20kg of lead? The most I've ever used was 10kg while sidemounting in a drysuit with my two S80s under 50 bar at the end of the dive! How can a certified instructor allow a student to dive with a drysuit not intended for scuba (no inflation valve)? That's not even debatable, if the facts are true. It's not even a mistake made while diving, it is a negation of common sense. PADI should reconsider some aspects of its training, I feel like nowadays the trend is in deresponsabilizing the divers, only teaching them the bare minimum. I've seen too much people with three times more dive time than me not knowing how to use a SMB! And I can't even compare my skills to by buddies using CCRs... Not everyone can be a good diver, and sometimes I feel like some organisations forget that. Rest in peace.
I can understand your thinking. However the instructor is not responsable for knowing your own gear that you use after OWD and would naturaly expect you to know how to use it during any dive. That includes your drysuit, smb, computer, camera, sidemoung configeration or long hose out of air rules. Its the divers responsability to inform the instructor or guide or thier buddy before hand. . The fact that he gave her so much weight and had no hose shows that he has no experiance with drysuits. Sadly, neither does he need to become an instructor or teach AOWD
@@stephens2r338 Well, depending on the country you live in, that could engage your responsibility. Where I live, if we dive out of a scuba club, the most experienced of the group is held accountable for an accident, even if he didn't cause it. In my opinion, this case goes beyond. I find it unacceptable that a scuba instructor could miss something that huge. Drysuits with no inflator valve are not made by scuba brands, that should be a clue. I'm not an instructor, but I always check my buddy's gear before the dive, mostly because I'd prefer not to have to rescue someone because of faulty gear. Drysuit diving should be mandatory for instructors, just to give them a feel of the problems that can cause: air in the legs, mostly. To think that I'd be more careful than a scuba instructor just doesn't compute with me...
@@eddieguyvh4765 Thanks for your comment. I've been an instructor for over 15 years teaching mainly in Norway. Here you must use a drysuit except for maybe a few summer months and you don't go deeper than 12m. The drysuit courses are my most popular due to people learning to dive in warmer climates and then coming back home. It's also the one that never gets certified . You take your OW here always in a drysuit but you never pay Padi extra to get the qualification. Her drysuit did have the connections. However l think she borrowed her regs from the shop and it didn't have the hose fitted. All our school regs have the drysuit hose fitted. When we get divers from overseas they always ask what's the extra hose is for and what should they do with it? It's actually the oposit but same issue as her instructor had. Never used it so doesn't now what it's for and there for just dismisses it. Maybe he had heard that drysuit divers need more weight which is true. A little information can be dangerous too . The shop should of sold her the course when she bought the suit. If she bought it privately then that's when it started to go wrong. I agree that it might be useful for all divers to learn to use drysuits, that's why there's a separate course. However if there's no need why would you. You dont learn to cave dive if there's no caves around even if it might improve your wreck diving as well. Plus if you work as an instructor in warm water where you don't need a suit then diving in a drysuit could mean that you over heat and become dangerous.
Weights in pockets??? I’ve never even heard of this. My (NAUI) instruction was always this: when the shi* hits the fan, DROP YOUR WEIGHT BELT! You might get the bends - or worse, but you will survive. You will live. But, what the ?? her weights were in pockets? That, among a whole long list of things seems crazy negligent. A $12 million lawsuit will come your way when you’re as reckless as this shop seems to have been.
Weights in the pockets yea that a thing that started in the 90's with BCD's it took the lead from your hips to to you BCD for better control, I don't personally like it, but in warm water might make some sense.
Weights in pockets, no. Weights in integrated weight systems, yes. The only reason to have weights in your pockets is for when you're checking your trim before adding them to your belt or integrated weight system. Or if you just need to add that extra one or two kilos for one dive. I hate diving with belts, sp all my weights are in my bcd. But it's all in my integrated weight system that I can just pull off and drop if I ever need to.
Sorry, I've met countess PADI divers who did their certs in like 3 days on some tropical islands etc. I got certified in 85, the lectures took one solid week, all dives in the open water and also in tidal rivers and the beach entries and that was 10 days of diving practicals (including boat dives), not including the written exam (it was a NAUI course), over the years, of all the divers I've dived with the PADI were the worst trained IMHO for basic open water. Many times my regular dive buddies would refuse to go on a group dive if people were PADI certified. And the only time a screw up with ropes getting caught and a PADI dive master having to be cut out of ropes around his ist stage by me because of some stupid failed experiment of his, OMG, nope. Since way back then I want to know the insides out of someones training and experience before even thinking about diving with someone new. Diving is a fantastic thing to be able to do and totally safe if egos are left topside and people are serious about it. We were all beginners once and I have no problems with beginners but to take a beginner down to a ledge/drop off with weights inside a BCD etc and so much weight for a freshwater dive, something is amiss. I mean when I trained, we were told never to do this sort of thing-it's common sense too. OK Ok, there are great PADI divers for sure and this was just a series of FU's that unfortunately ed to someones's death.
I could not agree with you more. Although I hold my certs through PADI..LOL. My Rescue Diver course was over 7 days of classroom time plus our instructor was above and beyond during the open water and the testing that came after it. If it was not done, you didn't get credit. My Divemaster was over 3 weeks of course/pool and then OW with an additional 10 dives added to it. Tell me how you progress from those 2 critical certifications (which you have to have to be an Instructor) to a 1 week or 3 day tropical Instructor course. You don't. It's that simple unless you are skipping a ton of stuff and reiteration of all that you've learned previously. Heck I've seen some dive shops offer OW to Instructor paths that take less than a month to complete. UH NOPE. The GROSS negligence that led to this poor girl's preventable death is not new. I've been diving with shops like this...sadly they do exist. They promise the moon as long as your check clears. It's disgusting. I turned one of them in to PADI for review of their practices....which were barely safe to say the least. TRUST YOUR GUT. If it doesn't feel safe to you---don't do it. I've called off dives, I've surfaced after getting in the water, and I've had dives cancelled because my buddy didn't feel safe. Perfectly fine to do so in any situation. If at any time you do NOT feel right, call it off, get to where you feel safe, never let any other diver or the excitement of the trip or the fear of disappointing anyone put you into a position where you may die. That goes for everything, not just diving.
Funny how your path to diving mirrors my own. Naui cert in 86 all other courses through divemaster was Padi. If I've learned anything over the past 35 years of diving is to be self reliant. I run with a wings BCD. Twin 95 cuft steel on my back. Up to 3 sling tanks with various deco gases. I do a ton of decompression diving actually I prefer deco over multiple dives at the same depths. I would agree a nube might be an issue, I don't mind it persay but it is an issue. But then again I'm not taking a nube to 180ft either
@@markgiltner7358 Being self reliant is he thing for sure and then the buddy is just for company LOL Supposedly she was only diving in Oz some time before, presumably only in saltwater for sure unless cave diving and that's def not n the crds as she would have been experienced already. To then embark upon freshwater diving at altitude.
One question this brought to my mind is what do cert agencies do to assure their affiliate shops are in conformance with their standards and methods? Do they ever do reviews or have shop certifications/renewals or something to that effect? Or can you just slap a Padi label on your shop and call it good?
Of you want to be a PADI dive center you have to apply to the standards (rules) of the organisation. Therefore you wil be checked by the local PADI representatief. You have ro teach according to the rules PADI gave you. In this case, the dive center violates the standards in about everything they do. Ps, I'm PADI masterinstructor.
(I am not a lawyer or a PADI instructor). PADI has an army of defense lawyers who will come to the schools aid in any lawsuit, if and only if the school, the instructors and dive masters adhere by PADI methods and standards. It sounds like this instructor did not follow PADI standards. I think the school and the instructor are in a lot of trouble.
I did a fair amount of dry suit diving in Lake Superior and can’t imagine putting weights inside the suit. Our big concern was getting upside down due to air not purged in the suit. Most BCD’s have a maximum weight limit, Mine is 30 pounds. I don’t think PADI will be held responsible either for the reasons you gave in the video. The dive shop likely doesn’t have anywhere near $12 million in insurance coverage so the family may be chasing an empty bag.
Correction, her drysuit did have an inflator valve, It was that the connector type was a CEJN. Incompatible with the standard DIN type hoses, on the reg set. So the results are the same. She just bought that used suit shortly before, without ever looking at it. It was also way too big for her.
Everything about that story is so sad and shockingly wrong! Criminal charges should be made against the instructor in charge of that event! When I'm diving abroad I know dive operators like to set kit up for you and happy for you to just sit there and relax.. personally I check all my kit if I use it or triple check if its theres!
Lawyers in USA go after "deep pockets", and in this case that would be PADI. Will be interesting if PADI is held liable and has to pay any monetary compensation. if so, it could shake up the dive industry.
It makes me very sad and very angry to hear this story. I feel this should be prosecuted as manslaughter. The non-functional drysuit, far to much weight, inexperienced students in deep water, in the dark, with horribly inadequate oversight, unqualified instructors... It seems obvious she is absolutely blameless; she trusted the instructors, and with the limited experience she had, she couldn't be expected to know how wrong all this was. She couldn't have reasonably known the weight was excessive, and what the effects of non-functional drysuit would be. @@elmo319 16kg? I dive in a trilaminate drysuit with undergarments (not sure how that compares to a neoprene drysuit), with only about 3.5kg. Granted, I do use steel double-12 tanks which are a few kg negative when empty. This sounds a bit dangerous to me; the neoprene drysuit compresses with increasing depth, and at some point, you won't be able to swim to the surface if somehow both your drysuit inflator and BCD fail.
She also wasn't trained in the usage of such dry suit (which was missing critical piece of the dry suit, the low-pressure inflator hose) thus making it sheer negligence by the instructor (Snow) who was recently certified as instructor and Gold Dive. Right now, I have lost all trust with PADI.
This is totally the fault of the instructors and not p.a.d.i. A surface dry suit, hidden weights, fading light, should have dived where the maximum depth possible was 18m, not on a drop off. What a catalogue of disasters. My condolences to the family of the diver. 😥
Literally everyone that wasn't a student was sued including the person that sold the student the drysuit. It wasn't a surface dry suit, it was a diving drysuit, but it had proprietary connector for the inflator, and they didn't have a hose for it. The correct response from the instructor should've been canceling the dive for that student.
@@Teampegleg interesting info on the dry suit . 100% agree the dive shouldn't have happened, but I think the responsibility lies with the instructors only, should have their teaching status removed immediately.
@@vincentsubmarinismo774 Well the case against PADI is two fold. First that this particular dive center had fairly recent fatal accident, and PADI did nothing to investigate it. Second that the standards are not routinely enforced and allowed instructors to teach specialties that they aren't certified for as long as it is part of an AOW course. Which is the case for Snow, she isn't a drysuit instructor. I read the entire "factual" section of the lawsuit from the Plaintiff, Mill's father, and it should be noted that these are the facts from the plantiff's perspective, it is pretty damning for Gull Scuba, and Snow. And they make a compelling case against PADI. I don't think they have a strong case against Listen, who was considered to be a dive master in training. And they have no case whatsoever against the man who sold the drysuits IMO.
I agree with this question. If they had followed the standards and done everything by the rules, than PADI is guilty. But the dive center ignored the rules. The weight, the air on the drysuit, the experience of the instructors. Of is all wrong...
Why would u use all that weight . The most weight my son has used was 24 lbs and that was way too much weight.he is now down to12 lbs and that took 3 yrs to achieve.
You have a few facts wrong. The Dry suit had an Inflator valve but no host is connected to the first There were Not too Instructors the second one only had a junior diver certification and was probably underage Another contributing factor as they entered the water for this. Dive six minutes before sundown
The way Patty might be liable here as they have not Properly supervised one of their dive centers just a year earlier. They rented gear to an uncertified diver. The regulator malfunctioned and the diver drowned. This shows Gross negligence and the dive shop should have lost their patty certification for this
Her dry suit was designed for diving…she did not have an inflator hose for her suit. No brief. No torch. No dry suit training. No dry suit inflator hose. Altitude dive. They strapped an anchor to her. This is 100% insanity. I think PADI does have some culpability. It’s a buy a 5 star agency. Have you ever seen a 3 Star PADI dive shop? PADI just wants the fees in their bank account. How often does PADI audit their 5 Star dive shops?
I am somewhat at a loss on this one, given the amount of lead she had was a factor but in some of the photos I've seen she's upright so her BCD was sufficient to keep her upright. So she couldn't kick her way up, or bobs equipment wasn't sufficient to lift both of them. Lack of experience and a shit show if an instructor and dive center contributed greatly to her death
This dive center is the poster Boy for criminal. Negligent homicide, I am shocked but they were never brought up on charges after this being their second fatality
The family should get all 12 million. 1 instructor needs to read instructions manual for instructor never leave a student. 2 asking a student to take the rap for instructor red flag.3 instructor not going over a student divers set up on a new cert. 4 instructor not certified to teach dry suit. What the crap is going on here.
PADI is unlikely to be liable, it sounds like standards were violated. If you are uncomfortable with something talk to the instructor (I’m an instructor), we’re not psychic. I always tell my students if there’s something they don’t understand, or are uncomfortable with come talk to me. I always make myself available if someone has a question or concern. You don’t need to ask it in the class, in front of other students. If I think my message wasn’t clear to a couple of students, then maybe it wasn’t clear to a couple more. I will make sure I address the question until I’m convinced the students understand. According to standards the students must demonstrate mastery of the skill or topic (no 80% is good enough). You have a duty to your students.
actually, there is no padi way. there are specific standards, and the max ratios are set as to depend on the instructor's judgement on whether he/she is capable of managing 1 to 8 divers max on its own. its all very well clearly written in the manual. it is the operation's and instructor's fault. There are too many sloppy operations from all agencies. People need to take pride on their job and understand that working in an environment where other people's lives are at risk, instructors need to be more strict and follow the standards and even set rules fot the customers. in scuba diving the customers are not always right especially when it comes to safety. As instructors we need to be patient, and not try to jump into the water in a hurry even more so if you have divers trying new gear that need adjustment of any kind.
Have no answer as to why $12M, but my guess as to why PADI is a co-defendant is because if the dive store insurance is only $1M, PADI via their insurer will be looked at for the remaining $11M.
Agreed, any dive program is only as good as the instructors teaching it; and here the instructor was tragically deficient. That being said, the PADI program itself is well designed and does an excellent job when properly taught. So I would agree, there was a failure in the quality control oversight by PADI that needs to be addressed. Second, on the instructor preparation issue, in my opinion a better solution might be fore any new instructor to be required to serve as an assistant instructor for a significant number of dives to insure proper skills and precautions; sort of a “two step” instructor training and licensing structure. In my own PADI training, the dive school I trained at always had one instructor with each student to insure that he or she was always attentive to any issues or crisis that student might encounter and I took that to be a mark of genuine professionalism.
J sound by the way. Like gentrification. Or gif. But it also was not just lead they put rocks in her pockets and my uncles struggle could have been remedied if she actually had the removable weight belt. AMA
The guy could have saved her LIFE IN 3 SECONDS: Pull the WRIST SEAL or Pull the NECK SEAL It is IMPOSSIBLE to use a drysuit without the inflator hose -- are these diver instructors idiots???
The owners of the shop must be messed up hiring instructors that isn't qualified. And how can you as an instructor say yes to a job knowing your not qualified to teach. I'm an instructor myself and can put 100 bucks on that the instructors were trained in a dive factory and haven't got a single clue about what they are supposed to do and lacks a huge amount of understanding of safety. The dive centre is still on Facebook and there is pictures of them from that dive. It's hunting to see and Linnea looks so happy. And how dare the instructors blame the father of that young boy also participating in the dive, saying it was his fault when he was the only one trying to rescue her!? They belong in prison!
They absolutely ARE LIABLE. Are you KIDDING US ??? An instructor absolutely and without a shadow of a doubt is liable for even one of the bmajoe screwups committed here, much less the 10 or more that actually were and cost this girl her life. If you think for a minute that a signed waiver will get an instructor off of weighting an inexperienced diver down that costs them their life, then you need to check again. That's why instructors carry liability.
I hypothesize it was "Instructor Spite" that killed this girl. The girl Linnea was probably in too deep being relatively new to the sport and relatively new to the World Experience (she is 18 years old, may not even know the difference between right and left hand threads yet for example, what I mean by "new" or "green", lacking life experiences), while not having complete understanding of diving equipment and managing diving equipment during emergencies. It's the difference of being handed a pile of lead weight to put on your person versus being filled up with lead weights by someone else. While loading yourself up with lead weights in pockets, a more experienced diver would make a mental note of how to eject the weights in an emergency or figure out that they cannot eject them in an emergency; now compare this to standing there being loaded up with weight by someone or some handing you weights instructing you to put into their pockets with ZERO consideration or thoughts because it's all a robotic process going through the motions taking instructions from something else, like a computer she may have been with all her trust in the instructors as a new person should. This is clearly shown in the investigation that her dry suit did not have a functional inflation device. Linnea did not have complete understanding and knowledge to connect the dots of having lead weights that are not removable while underwater and a suit that does not have an inflator to counteract the lead weights that are not removable. I believe Linnea was a novice diver still and may have been assisted quite a bit throughout her diving career, so that is why I suggest "Instructor Spite" because they were not use to working with totally Green divers, helpless in their knowledge, and lack the aptitude and resources to own and manage their own equipment to high standards. Not exactly related I don't think Linnea was being cocky, but consider this: I personally deal with 'arrogant-incompetent' young people by intentionally not giving them help or advice and letting them fail. I would never let it get to the point of causing injury or harm to someone physically. The mentally unwell dive instructor here may have had a similar twisted attitude to the point of gross negligence and manslaughter, she really taught Linnea a lesson here huh?
Its the girl's own fault for not knowing how to release the weights and operate her suit. Sad but true. Also should be noted that the lawsuit is prepared by the plaintiff only - the grieving family. No proof that any of the statements they make are actually true.
Shes a student using rented gear. Is it fair to say you should be able to trust your teacher to tell you what you need to know in order to survive? The instructor did not do this. The teacher also over-weighted her to an extreme amount (between three to four times the standard amount of weight). The BCD she was equipped with did not have the ability to compensate for this much weight (only up to 1/2 the weight she was put down with). She sank to the bottom like a stone once she got in the water. This was entirely based on the instructors actions. Why did the instructor put a lethal amount of weight on her? No ditch belt? No, I'm sorry...this instructor made so many mistakes here that you cant just point to one mess up.
@@billbrooke4355 What did you think of my comment, that she should of started her dry suit training in a swimming pool, or like you said shallow water. 60 feet is way too deep for a beginner.
@@billbrooke4355 hi bill. I'm reading the lawsuit now, and I found this right at the beginning. Liston, Snow and Gull Dive failed to disclose to Linnea that the “advanced class” they were “starting” “next Sunday” was actually a PADI Dry Suit Diver course that was already in progress, and the other students in the class had previously undergone an orientation to dry suit diving in a local swimming pool. So the other students already had started in a swimming pool! I also found on another TH-cam video, that her regulator had come out of her mouth. I've only used wet suits, but I don't understand why dry suits restrict your movement under higher pressure, or further down. Another question I would have for you, is don't divers use a weight belt when diving with a dry suit?
@@billbrooke4355 yes I know about wetsuit compression and using a buoyancy compensator. I didn't know about drysuit squeeze, before I started reading about this death. So I can see that could be very dangerous. Her regulator was out her mouth before she died, because the other guy was trying to buddy breath with her. Yes she was in a drysuit course. So far I haven't read that she had a weight belt. I will investigate more. Thanks for telling me about the other video. So more from the lawsuit. The instructor's told her she didn't need a way to add air to her drysuit: Defendants, Snow and Liston simply advised Linnea that she could enter the water without an operational dry suit and use her BCD as her sole means of buoyancy control. Also, she did not have a weight belt: In addition, the Gull Dive Defendants did not provide Linnea with a weight belt. Instead, they simply placed lead weights into zippered pockets on Linnea’s BCD and in the thigh pockets on Linnea’s dry suit.
Sorry , but a such a tragic course of events , is obviously down to human failure , and can´t possibly be due to the Agency whose Standards weren´t being applied properly
Exactly the kind of response that is as idiotic as saying “you wouldn’t have died of a car crash if you would have had a drivers license from another state”. Get real, there are fatalities in all agencies. Humans are far from perfect.
*1:26** - It wasn't a surface drysuit* . It just simply didn't have a low-pressure inflator hose attached...
By reading the actual lawsuit, the drysuit was used, and it was sold without the inflator hose. There is a picture in the lawsuit that shows a clear view of the victim at the surface with the valve visible with no hose attached. In fact, the suit also names the person who sold her the drysuit as a defendant, too. This is tragic on so many levels!
@@beldavius Yes indeed, it is completely tragic. The first stage didn’t have a hose for a drysuit so there was no way to connect it in any case :(
@@DivingDeveloper and to use a dry suit you need further training, they can be extremely dangerous if you don’t know the first thing about them. TH-camr do your homework instead of shooting blanks. Your blatant misinformation about what happened is disgraceful to Linnea’s memory. Also you said if it was your course you would let her dive without a drysuit course by what you alluded tobin the first minute of the video. People like you is the problem with the industry, clown 🤡
No criminal charges? this sounds like some people should be put in prison for a few years
Mistake #1: You don't accept a student for a high attitude dive in a freezing lake who has less than ten lifetime dives and hasn't dove in a year and a half (consider a pool refresher as a required prerequisite). #2: You don't accept a student for a training course (AOW) wearing a drysuit and who doesn't have drysuit certification. It all got far far worse from there. Negligent homicide.
And 6 mins before the sun goes down. With no phone within 30 mins of the diving site.
@@AlanMichaelJackson Yes, a first time high altitude, drysuit, cold water, night dive for a student with less than ten lifetime dives. There are no words that capture the insanity.
I've read that she rented a ScubaPro Glide BCD which has dump-able weight pockets, but no one at Gull Dive showed her how to do that so she could practice releasing the weights.
@@Kwolfx Would seem to be a good skill to practice in a pool. 😲
@@michaelatherton5761 - Absolutely. When I purchased my first drysuit back around 1990; which was used, after I had new neck and wrist seals installed and found and repaired a couple of small leaks, I practiced several times in the deep end of an Olympic sized swimming pool at my university.
I don't think there was a certification for using a drysuit back in the early 1990's, but I spoke to a couple of scuba instructors before I purchased the drysuit and they clued me in to various potential problems, like getting too much air in the area of your feet and learning to use the drysuit dump valve by simple body movements while ascending to maintain neutral buoyancy. Plus, the store that sold me that drysuit; it was going out of business, gave me a video made by the manufacturer of my drysuit and photocopied for me the users manual of a new drysuit of the same company. That's what real dive professionals do.
Even then, it took several dives before I felt really comfortable diving dry. Plus, I changed other things, like no longer using a weight belt and instead going with weights in a BCD which could be easily dumped and one pound ankle weights.
I had close to 200 dives when I purchased that drysuit. It blew my mind when I read that poor girl had no training, not even a simple discussion about the differences between using a drysuit and a wetsuit, and no one warned her about drysuit squeeze.
I think the only reason the instructor and people at the dive center aren't facing criminal charges of negligent homicide is because the district attorney in that jurisdiction thinks that girl's death was an accident. That person has no clue of the extreme negligence in this case and, or may also think it would be difficult to explain this to a jury that doesn't know a thing about scuba diving.
I'm a fairly new scuba diver, and I live in Missoula, Montana. This is by far the worst scuba story I have ever heard. I didn't know her, but she was the nicest girl when we did talk. The negligence from the instructors is sickening. Can't imagine what Linnea went through, and how the Mills family must feel. The instructors and Gull Dive should be sued into oblivion.
Hi Mark. Thank you for reporting on this incident. I read about it yesterday; as I was out for a walk today I was thinking, "Simply Scuba should talk about this."
One thing that you hint at but that I wish you and everyone everywhere would highlight is DO NOT BLINDLY TRUST AUTHORITY FIGURES.
Of course, if an instructor tells you not do to something, don't do it. But we each also should be educating ourselves. Use the instructor more as training-wheels, as a backup from making stupid mistakes, rather than as a god that will protect you. People get hurt all the time in all sorts of endeavors, not just Scuba, from listening to people who seem like they should know but who really don't.
If an instructor tells you something is dangerous but you don't think it is -- listen to the instructor.
If you feel something isn't right but the instructor says it's fine -- TRUST AND RELY ON YOURSELF.
PS to any commenters: I am not in any way saying this was the young woman's fault. She is not at fault at all. She did what many, probably most, reasonable and rational and careful people would do. This is (from what we know so far) 100% the fault of the two instructors.
I'm not even a scuba duver, byt putting non-ejecting weights on your person to sink you into the water seems blatantly stupid.
There's a thing in Human Factors call 'Normalisation of Deviance' where minor slips in following procedures or rules become the norm, generally because it makes life easier and nothing has ever gone wrong. One wonders how many accumulated deviations were at work in this business to make it acceptable, despite already having had a fatality, to take inexperienced people into the water unbriefed, with inadequate supervision, the wrong kit wrongly configured, in failing light and cold water at an unsuitable dive site. Not being licensed to be there may also have insurance implications, but that's a side issue against the loss of this poor girl's life. It doesn't matter if this business claimed to follow PADI, SSI or whatever, it sounds like they were so far away from any recognised standard it no longer mattered.
"Normalization of Deviance" Thank you for the term. It describes exactly, a sloppy operation regardless of the particular reasons. I cannot picture diving those temperatures without hot water. If at all.
A terrible, senseless tragedy.
Spot on
It wasn't a surface drysuit, it was a diving drysuit, but it didn't use the standard QD inflator that most use these days. Instead it had a CEJN connector, and the person who sold the drysuit to her didn't include the hose. Thus when they got to the dive site the rented reg set couldn't connect to her inflator valve.
Bob was also a student, he had completed the confined water portion of the course, but was in the lake for the open water portion.
Yeah that's right, it wasn't a kayaking dry suit at all.
that`s shocking, so called instructors didn`t pick up on that before they got in the water....wtf!...Buddy check?!!!
@@moonshroom13 Oh she knew, IIRC she said it was fine since they weren't going deep. And theoretically she is right, I believe their planned depth was shallow enough that if you are willing to accept the squeeze it could be fine. There are sites where due to contour I won't inflate my suit until I get down to like 60ft/20m as all the gas would go to my feet.
OMG, a mafia witness with concrete on his feet would have had a better chance of survival than that student!
Poor girl :(
In 1990 my wife and I were certified by Danny’s dive shop in Baldwin, NY. Our checkout dives were in May in the Long Island Sound. Water was in the 50’s and viz was near zero. The dive master left my fiancé at the bottom alone in 40 ft of water. She was able to surface but that could have been a bad accident. Over the years I have encountered many divers and dive masters who should not be in the water. The best advice I ever received was from my instructor, Bob Wright. He said your certification card is not a license to dive, It is a license to learn. I read every book I can on diving and practice with my equipment on land, in pools and in shallow water near home. The instructors or dive masters who were with the girl who died should go to jail for manslaughter. They should be banned from diving anywhere.
Awful how that instructor neglected your wife. Another example of why, as you say, we all have to take the responsibility to educate ourselves. Don't rely only on the instructor, or any authority figure in any situation for that matter.
That SCUBA shop needs to be shut down. The owner of the shop and the instructor who put that child in the water with lead wights in her pockets needs to go to jail.
@@JW-el5cy Who hired the instructor?
I’ve never heard of worse negligence.
I was reading the legal documents on this, lengthy read but clearly this dive center was not following the rules of any of the regulating bodies in the proper manner. Really unfortunate that someone lost their life as a result of a negligent dive center.
Nothing unfortunate about this - pure negligence.
Amazing is that none of these guy have had criminal charges
I posted this on another TH-cam site that covered the incident. My two pence worth.
**
I'm a British Sub-Aqua Club Advanced Diver (that's way beyond PADI Advanced Open Water!) and Open Water Instructor. I'm also certified as a PADI MSDT (Master SCUBA Diver Trainer). I have 1000's of dives & have trained lots of students through both organisations.
In the UK, of necessity, we KNOW dry suit diving.
Assuming that this is an accurate depiction of the events, it is a distressing watch.
The immediate red flag for the Dive Centre should have been the student arriving on the beach with a dry suit that had no inflator hose. (my understanding that is was a Diving Dry Suit, but she did not have the inflator hose).
It said three things right off the bat.
1. The student had not been trained in the use of dry suits.
2. The student had NEVER dived with that suit before.
3. The Dive site responsible Instructor had not quizzed or briefed the young woman with regard to dry suit diving.
She should not have been allowed to enter the water.
That in my view was an instance of gross negligence.
All that weight (apparently non-detachable) added to the young girl, if true, was simply criminal.
This was a PADI Dive centre, a huge number of PADI standards were obviously broken.
The Dive centre people appear to had been responsible for massive negligent failures and incompetence.
I have no doubt that PADI will have a very Teflon shoulders, as they will be able to point to multiple standards violations.
There is no substitute for having the right gear and having it set up correctly.
AND
Training, training, practice, practice, practice.
Throughout my career, I have never taken a student on an open water dive with a dry suit, without fully preparing them in advance. That includes in water familiarisation in a safe environment ( a swimming pool ).
There are videos of a young girl's first open water dry suit sessions, with me in a fresh water quarry (Stoney Cove), on my channel.
This seems like a bad joke... How can one become a scuba instructor and let a student use 20kg of lead? The most I've ever used was 10kg while sidemounting in a drysuit with my two S80s under 50 bar at the end of the dive! How can a certified instructor allow a student to dive with a drysuit not intended for scuba (no inflation valve)?
That's not even debatable, if the facts are true. It's not even a mistake made while diving, it is a negation of common sense.
PADI should reconsider some aspects of its training, I feel like nowadays the trend is in deresponsabilizing the divers, only teaching them the bare minimum. I've seen too much people with three times more dive time than me not knowing how to use a SMB! And I can't even compare my skills to by buddies using CCRs... Not everyone can be a good diver, and sometimes I feel like some organisations forget that.
Rest in peace.
I can understand your thinking. However the instructor is not responsable for knowing your own gear that you use after OWD and would naturaly expect you to know how to use it during any dive. That includes your drysuit, smb, computer, camera, sidemoung configeration or long hose out of air rules. Its the divers responsability to inform the instructor or guide or thier buddy before hand. . The fact that he gave her so much weight and had no hose shows that he has no experiance with drysuits. Sadly, neither does he need to become an instructor or teach AOWD
@@stephens2r338 Well, depending on the country you live in, that could engage your responsibility. Where I live, if we dive out of a scuba club, the most experienced of the group is held accountable for an accident, even if he didn't cause it. In my opinion, this case goes beyond. I find it unacceptable that a scuba instructor could miss something that huge. Drysuits with no inflator valve are not made by scuba brands, that should be a clue.
I'm not an instructor, but I always check my buddy's gear before the dive, mostly because I'd prefer not to have to rescue someone because of faulty gear.
Drysuit diving should be mandatory for instructors, just to give them a feel of the problems that can cause: air in the legs, mostly.
To think that I'd be more careful than a scuba instructor just doesn't compute with me...
@@eddieguyvh4765 Thanks for your comment. I've been an instructor for over 15 years teaching mainly in Norway. Here you must use a drysuit except for maybe a few summer months and you don't go deeper than 12m. The drysuit courses are my most popular due to people learning to dive in warmer climates and then coming back home. It's also the one that never gets certified . You take your OW here always in a drysuit but you never pay Padi extra to get the qualification.
Her drysuit did have the connections. However l think she borrowed her regs from the shop and it didn't have the hose fitted. All our school regs have the drysuit hose fitted. When we get divers from overseas they always ask what's the extra hose is for and what should they do with it? It's actually the oposit but same issue as her instructor had. Never used it so doesn't now what it's for and there for just dismisses it. Maybe he had heard that drysuit divers need more weight which is true. A little information can be dangerous too . The shop should of sold her the course when she bought the suit. If she bought it privately then that's when it started to go wrong.
I agree that it might be useful for all divers to learn to use drysuits, that's why there's a separate course. However if there's no need why would you. You dont learn to cave dive if there's no caves around even if it might improve your wreck diving as well. Plus if you work as an instructor in warm water where you don't need a suit then diving in a drysuit could mean that you over heat and become dangerous.
Something is off, I’m 30m deep and my instructor is nowhere to be seen. I’m in a suit with no ability to add air with to much non dump weights
Weights in pockets??? I’ve never even heard of this.
My (NAUI) instruction was always this: when the shi* hits the fan, DROP YOUR WEIGHT BELT! You might get the bends - or worse, but you will survive. You will live. But, what the ?? her weights were in pockets? That, among a whole long list of things seems crazy negligent. A $12 million lawsuit will come your way when you’re as reckless as this shop seems to have been.
Weights in the pockets yea that a thing that started in the 90's with BCD's it took the lead from your hips to to you BCD for better control, I don't personally like it, but in warm water might make some sense.
@@markgiltner7358 Really? Okay. I always used a wetsuit, so I have zero experience with Drysuits at all, but that seems unsafe. Thanks
Weights in pockets, no. Weights in integrated weight systems, yes. The only reason to have weights in your pockets is for when you're checking your trim before adding them to your belt or integrated weight system. Or if you just need to add that extra one or two kilos for one dive. I hate diving with belts, sp all my weights are in my bcd. But it's all in my integrated weight system that I can just pull off and drop if I ever need to.
Sorry, I've met countess PADI divers who did their certs in like 3 days on some tropical islands etc. I got certified in 85, the lectures took one solid week, all dives in the open water and also in tidal rivers and the beach entries and that was 10 days of diving practicals (including boat dives), not including the written exam (it was a NAUI course), over the years, of all the divers I've dived with the PADI were the worst trained IMHO for basic open water. Many times my regular dive buddies would refuse to go on a group dive if people were PADI certified. And the only time a screw up with ropes getting caught and a PADI dive master having to be cut out of ropes around his ist stage by me because of some stupid failed experiment of his, OMG, nope. Since way back then I want to know the insides out of someones training and experience before even thinking about diving with someone new. Diving is a fantastic thing to be able to do and totally safe if egos are left topside and people are serious about it. We were all beginners once and I have no problems with beginners but to take a beginner down to a ledge/drop off with weights inside a BCD etc and so much weight for a freshwater dive, something is amiss. I mean when I trained, we were told never to do this sort of thing-it's common sense too. OK Ok, there are great PADI divers for sure and this was just a series of FU's that unfortunately ed to someones's death.
I could not agree with you more. Although I hold my certs through PADI..LOL. My Rescue Diver course was over 7 days of classroom time plus our instructor was above and beyond during the open water and the testing that came after it. If it was not done, you didn't get credit. My Divemaster was over 3 weeks of course/pool and then OW with an additional 10 dives added to it. Tell me how you progress from those 2 critical certifications (which you have to have to be an Instructor) to a 1 week or 3 day tropical Instructor course. You don't. It's that simple unless you are skipping a ton of stuff and reiteration of all that you've learned previously. Heck I've seen some dive shops offer OW to Instructor paths that take less than a month to complete. UH NOPE.
The GROSS negligence that led to this poor girl's preventable death is not new. I've been diving with shops like this...sadly they do exist. They promise the moon as long as your check clears. It's disgusting. I turned one of them in to PADI for review of their practices....which were barely safe to say the least.
TRUST YOUR GUT. If it doesn't feel safe to you---don't do it. I've called off dives, I've surfaced after getting in the water, and I've had dives cancelled because my buddy didn't feel safe. Perfectly fine to do so in any situation. If at any time you do NOT feel right, call it off, get to where you feel safe, never let any other diver or the excitement of the trip or the fear of disappointing anyone put you into a position where you may die. That goes for everything, not just diving.
Funny how your path to diving mirrors my own.
Naui cert in 86 all other courses through divemaster was Padi.
If I've learned anything over the past 35 years of diving is to be self reliant.
I run with a wings BCD.
Twin 95 cuft steel on my back.
Up to 3 sling tanks with various deco gases.
I do a ton of decompression diving actually I prefer deco over multiple dives at the same depths.
I would agree a nube might be an issue, I don't mind it persay but it is an issue. But then again I'm not taking a nube to 180ft either
@@markgiltner7358 Being self reliant is he thing for sure and then the buddy is just for company LOL Supposedly she was only diving in Oz some time before, presumably only in saltwater for sure unless cave diving and that's def not n the crds as she would have been experienced already. To then embark upon freshwater diving at altitude.
@@markgiltner7358 BTW back then (LOL) I think the PADI was better, just My op.though.
@@BushCampingTools
There's nothing wrong with any of the certifing agency's out there, it's the half ass instructors that make for mediocre divers.
One question this brought to my mind is what do cert agencies do to assure their affiliate shops are in conformance with their standards and methods? Do they ever do reviews or have shop certifications/renewals or something to that effect? Or can you just slap a Padi label on your shop and call it good?
Of you want to be a PADI dive center you have to apply to the standards (rules) of the organisation. Therefore you wil be checked by the local PADI representatief.
You have ro teach according to the rules PADI gave you. In this case, the dive center violates the standards in about everything they do.
Ps, I'm PADI masterinstructor.
@@birdyandotherstuff6857 okay. Good to know that there is some auditing of dive centers by PADI.
(I am not a lawyer or a PADI instructor). PADI has an army of defense lawyers who will come to the schools aid in any lawsuit, if and only if the school, the instructors and dive masters adhere by PADI methods and standards. It sounds like this instructor did not follow PADI standards. I think the school and the instructor are in a lot of trouble.
I did a fair amount of dry suit diving in Lake Superior and can’t imagine putting weights inside the suit. Our big concern was getting upside down due to air not purged in the suit. Most BCD’s have a maximum weight limit, Mine is 30 pounds. I don’t think PADI will be held responsible either for the reasons you gave in the video. The dive shop likely doesn’t have anywhere near $12 million in insurance coverage so the family may be chasing an empty bag.
Thanks for publishing this video. 👍✅
Thank you for that very insightful accident report.
I am sick to my stomach...
Correction, her drysuit did have an inflator valve, It was that the connector type was a CEJN. Incompatible with the standard DIN type hoses, on the reg set. So the results are the same. She just bought that used suit shortly before, without ever looking at it. It was also way too big for her.
Everything about that story is so sad and shockingly wrong! Criminal charges should be made against the instructor in charge of that event! When I'm diving abroad I know dive operators like to set kit up for you and happy for you to just sit there and relax.. personally I check all my kit if I use it or triple check if its theres!
Lawyers in USA go after "deep pockets", and in this case that would be PADI.
Will be interesting if PADI is held liable and has to pay any monetary compensation.
if so, it could shake up the dive industry.
This is so sad and shocking.
Wow 44 pounds of weight!! Definitely red flags the instructor is guilty, plus dry suit need to be trained to use..PADI probably not at fault.
@@jonnieinbangkok she was of normal build
It makes me very sad and very angry to hear this story. I feel this should be prosecuted as manslaughter. The non-functional drysuit, far to much weight, inexperienced students in deep water, in the dark, with horribly inadequate oversight, unqualified instructors...
It seems obvious she is absolutely blameless; she trusted the instructors, and with the limited experience she had, she couldn't be expected to know how wrong all this was. She couldn't have reasonably known the weight was excessive, and what the effects of non-functional drysuit would be.
@@elmo319 16kg? I dive in a trilaminate drysuit with undergarments (not sure how that compares to a neoprene drysuit), with only about 3.5kg. Granted, I do use steel double-12 tanks which are a few kg negative when empty. This sounds a bit dangerous to me; the neoprene drysuit compresses with increasing depth, and at some point, you won't be able to swim to the surface if somehow both your drysuit inflator and BCD fail.
I am a big fat boy with 7mm and I only use 10kg..
This was doomed from the start.
I agree. If they wanted to kill the woman, they could not do a better job...
Sad news. Thoughts go out to her family
She also wasn't trained in the usage of such dry suit (which was missing critical piece of the dry suit, the low-pressure inflator hose) thus making it sheer negligence by the instructor (Snow) who was recently certified as instructor and Gold Dive. Right now, I have lost all trust with PADI.
This is totally the fault of the instructors and not p.a.d.i.
A surface dry suit, hidden weights, fading light, should have dived where the maximum depth possible was 18m, not on a drop off.
What a catalogue of disasters.
My condolences to the family of the diver. 😥
Literally everyone that wasn't a student was sued including the person that sold the student the drysuit.
It wasn't a surface dry suit, it was a diving drysuit, but it had proprietary connector for the inflator, and they didn't have a hose for it. The correct response from the instructor should've been canceling the dive for that student.
@@Teampegleg interesting info on the dry suit . 100% agree the dive shouldn't have happened, but I think the responsibility lies with the instructors only, should have their teaching status removed immediately.
@@vincentsubmarinismo774 Well the case against PADI is two fold. First that this particular dive center had fairly recent fatal accident, and PADI did nothing to investigate it. Second that the standards are not routinely enforced and allowed instructors to teach specialties that they aren't certified for as long as it is part of an AOW course. Which is the case for Snow, she isn't a drysuit instructor.
I read the entire "factual" section of the lawsuit from the Plaintiff, Mill's father, and it should be noted that these are the facts from the plantiff's perspective, it is pretty damning for Gull Scuba, and Snow. And they make a compelling case against PADI. I don't think they have a strong case against Listen, who was considered to be a dive master in training. And they have no case whatsoever against the man who sold the drysuits IMO.
@@Teampegleg will be interesting how this pans out, but ultimately a tragedy that can't be undone.
I agree with this question. If they had followed the standards and done everything by the rules, than PADI is guilty.
But the dive center ignored the rules. The weight, the air on the drysuit, the experience of the instructors. Of is all wrong...
Why would u use all that weight . The most weight my son has used was 24 lbs and that was way too much weight.he is now down to12 lbs and that took 3 yrs to achieve.
Buy a drysuit on your first dry suit dive?
How about RENT a shop suit until you get used to it, and comfortable.
I think padi should bring back staff instructors to be secret students again and make sure instructors and dive centres are abiding by the rules.
U hve to b trained to use a dry suit properly. This school should've been shut down.
You have a few facts wrong. The Dry suit had an Inflator valve but no host is connected to the first There were Not too Instructors the second one only had a junior diver certification and was probably underage Another contributing factor as they entered the water for this. Dive six minutes before sundown
without the inflator hose, the deeper you go the tighter the suit gets...does it squeeze so tight you can't breath? I wonder why she lost her reg...
One more thing before someone says I’m judging I am a diver. I hold a master scuba diver cert. working on dive master and tech diver.
The way Patty might be liable here as they have not Properly supervised one of their dive centers just a year earlier. They rented gear to an uncertified diver. The regulator malfunctioned and the diver drowned. This shows Gross negligence and the dive shop should have lost their patty certification for this
Her dry suit was designed for diving…she did not have an inflator hose for her suit. No brief. No torch. No dry suit training. No dry suit inflator hose. Altitude dive. They strapped an anchor to her. This is 100% insanity.
I think PADI does have some culpability. It’s a buy a 5 star agency. Have you ever seen a 3 Star PADI dive shop? PADI just wants the fees in their bank account. How often does PADI audit their 5 Star dive shops?
so sad...
I am somewhat at a loss on this one, given the amount of lead she had was a factor but in some of the photos I've seen she's upright so her BCD was sufficient to keep her upright. So she couldn't kick her way up, or bobs equipment wasn't sufficient to lift both of them.
Lack of experience and a shit show if an instructor and dive center contributed greatly to her death
This dive center is the poster Boy for criminal. Negligent homicide, I am shocked but they were never brought up on charges after this being their second fatality
The family should get all 12 million. 1 instructor needs to read instructions manual for instructor never leave a student. 2 asking a student to take the rap for instructor red flag.3 instructor not going over a student divers set up on a new cert. 4 instructor not certified to teach dry suit. What the crap is going on here.
PADI is unlikely to be liable, it sounds like standards were violated.
If you are uncomfortable with something talk to the instructor (I’m an instructor), we’re not psychic.
I always tell my students if there’s something they don’t understand, or are uncomfortable with come talk to me. I always make myself available if someone has a question or concern. You don’t need to ask it in the class, in front of other students.
If I think my message wasn’t clear to a couple of students, then maybe it wasn’t clear to a couple more. I will make sure I address the question until I’m convinced the students understand.
According to standards the students must demonstrate mastery of the skill or topic (no 80% is good enough). You have a duty to your students.
actually, there is no padi way. there are specific standards, and the max ratios are set as to depend on the instructor's judgement on whether he/she is capable of managing 1 to 8 divers max on its own. its all very well clearly written in the manual. it is the operation's and instructor's
fault. There are too many sloppy operations from all agencies. People need to take pride on their job and understand that working in an environment where other people's lives are at risk, instructors need to be more strict and follow the standards and even set rules fot the customers. in scuba diving the customers are not always right especially when it comes to safety. As instructors we need to be patient, and not try to jump into the water in a hurry even more so if you have divers trying new gear that need adjustment of any kind.
If the dive company had liability insurance, Im guessing it is a 1 million dollar policy . How did they come up with the 12 million dollar figure.
Have no answer as to why $12M, but my guess as to why PADI is a co-defendant is because if the dive store insurance is only $1M, PADI via their insurer will be looked at for the remaining $11M.
Agreed, any dive program is only as good as the instructors teaching it; and here the instructor was tragically deficient. That being said, the PADI program itself is well designed and does an excellent job when properly taught. So I would agree, there was a failure in the quality control oversight by PADI that needs to be addressed. Second, on the instructor preparation issue, in my opinion a better solution might be fore any new instructor to be required to serve as an assistant instructor for a significant number of dives to insure proper skills and precautions; sort of a “two step” instructor training and licensing structure. In my own PADI training, the dive school I trained at always had one instructor with each student to insure that he or she was always attentive to any issues or crisis that student might encounter and I took that to be a mark of genuine professionalism.
J sound by the way. Like gentrification. Or gif. But it also was not just lead they put rocks in her pockets and my uncles struggle could have been remedied if she actually had the removable weight belt.
AMA
Robert gentry is my uncle. EG is my cousin.
Wow this is a very sad story. I hope they rake those instructors over the coals.
Fuck that’s all bad. I don’t use a dry suit but wtf 20kg that’s a lot.
Wow sounds like a train wreck. So sad.
The guy could have saved her LIFE IN 3 SECONDS: Pull the WRIST SEAL or Pull the NECK SEAL
It is IMPOSSIBLE to use a drysuit without the inflator hose -- are these diver instructors idiots???
I believe 22 more pounds of weight were added…making 40 some pounds..
hmmm.....you can be Bloody Slow And Careful or Put Another Dollar In......terrible disaster, highlights the faults massive commercialism...
What ever happened to this case, is it still in litigation? Basically they killed her, imho
Crucify that shop
The owners of the shop must be messed up hiring instructors that isn't qualified. And how can you as an instructor say yes to a job knowing your not qualified to teach. I'm an instructor myself and can put 100 bucks on that the instructors were trained in a dive factory and haven't got a single clue about what they are supposed to do and lacks a huge amount of understanding of safety. The dive centre is still on Facebook and there is pictures of them from that dive. It's hunting to see and Linnea looks so happy. And how dare the instructors blame the father of that young boy also participating in the dive, saying it was his fault when he was the only one trying to rescue her!? They belong in prison!
So many mistakes🙄
So many incorrect statements in this video and you then say do you homework, such a half hearted attempt on reporting someone's loss of life.
They absolutely ARE LIABLE. Are you KIDDING US ??? An instructor absolutely and without a shadow of a doubt is liable for even one of the bmajoe screwups committed here, much less the 10 or more that actually were and cost this girl her life.
If you think for a minute that a signed waiver will get an instructor off of weighting an inexperienced diver down that costs them their life, then you need to check again. That's why instructors carry liability.
How can this dude get so many facts completely wrong?
Cya padi the instructor at fault
I hypothesize it was "Instructor Spite" that killed this girl. The girl Linnea was probably in too deep being relatively new to the sport and relatively new to the World Experience (she is 18 years old, may not even know the difference between right and left hand threads yet for example, what I mean by "new" or "green", lacking life experiences), while not having complete understanding of diving equipment and managing diving equipment during emergencies. It's the difference of being handed a pile of lead weight to put on your person versus being filled up with lead weights by someone else. While loading yourself up with lead weights in pockets, a more experienced diver would make a mental note of how to eject the weights in an emergency or figure out that they cannot eject them in an emergency; now compare this to standing there being loaded up with weight by someone or some handing you weights instructing you to put into their pockets with ZERO consideration or thoughts because it's all a robotic process going through the motions taking instructions from something else, like a computer she may have been with all her trust in the instructors as a new person should. This is clearly shown in the investigation that her dry suit did not have a functional inflation device.
Linnea did not have complete understanding and knowledge to connect the dots of having lead weights that are not removable while underwater and a suit that does not have an inflator to counteract the lead weights that are not removable.
I believe Linnea was a novice diver still and may have been assisted quite a bit throughout her diving career, so that is why I suggest "Instructor Spite" because they were not use to working with totally Green divers, helpless in their knowledge, and lack the aptitude and resources to own and manage their own equipment to high standards.
Not exactly related I don't think Linnea was being cocky, but consider this: I personally deal with 'arrogant-incompetent' young people by intentionally not giving them help or advice and letting them fail. I would never let it get to the point of causing injury or harm to someone physically. The mentally unwell dive instructor here may have had a similar twisted attitude to the point of gross negligence and manslaughter, she really taught Linnea a lesson here huh?
Its the girl's own fault for not knowing how to release the weights and operate her suit. Sad but true.
Also should be noted that the lawsuit is prepared by the plaintiff only - the grieving family. No proof that any of the statements they make are actually true.
Shes a student using rented gear. Is it fair to say you should be able to trust your teacher to tell you what you need to know in order to survive? The instructor did not do this.
The teacher also over-weighted her to an extreme amount (between three to four times the standard amount of weight). The BCD she was equipped with did not have the ability to compensate for this much weight (only up to 1/2 the weight she was put down with). She sank to the bottom like a stone once she got in the water. This was entirely based on the instructors actions. Why did the instructor put a lethal amount of weight on her? No ditch belt? No, I'm sorry...this instructor made so many mistakes here that you cant just point to one mess up.
She should of started her dry suit training in a swimming pool, like I started my scuba training.
@@billbrooke4355 What did you think of my comment, that she should of started her dry suit training in a swimming pool, or like you said shallow water. 60 feet is way too deep for a beginner.
@@billbrooke4355 hi bill. I'm reading the lawsuit now, and I found this right at the beginning.
Liston, Snow and Gull Dive failed to disclose to Linnea that the “advanced
class” they were “starting” “next Sunday” was actually a PADI Dry Suit Diver
course that was already in progress, and the other students in the class had
previously undergone an orientation to dry suit diving in a local swimming
pool.
So the other students already had started in a swimming pool!
I also found on another TH-cam video, that her regulator had come out of her mouth. I've only used wet suits, but I don't understand why dry suits restrict your movement under higher pressure, or further down.
Another question I would have for you, is don't divers use a weight belt when diving with a dry suit?
@@billbrooke4355 yes I know about wetsuit compression and using a buoyancy compensator. I didn't know about drysuit squeeze, before I started reading about this death. So I can see that could be very dangerous. Her regulator was out her mouth before she died, because the other guy was trying to buddy breath with her. Yes she was in a drysuit course. So far I haven't read that she had a weight belt. I will investigate more. Thanks for telling me about the other video.
So more from the lawsuit. The instructor's told her she didn't need a way to add air to her drysuit:
Defendants, Snow
and Liston simply advised Linnea that she could enter the water without an
operational dry suit and use her BCD as her sole means of buoyancy control.
Also, she did not have a weight belt:
In addition, the Gull Dive Defendants did not provide Linnea with a weight
belt. Instead, they simply placed lead weights into zippered pockets on
Linnea’s BCD and in the thigh pockets on Linnea’s dry suit.
If those were sdi instructors this wouldnt happen. This is awful.
Sorry , but a such a tragic course of events , is obviously down to human failure , and can´t possibly be due to the Agency whose Standards weren´t being applied properly
@@lennygermany1507 sorry but its the other way around and watch the full video the guy explained everything.
Exactly the kind of response that is as idiotic as saying “you wouldn’t have died of a car crash if you would have had a drivers license from another state”. Get real, there are fatalities in all agencies. Humans are far from perfect.
@@djole_belic you mean the same guy who made a mistake in saying it was a surface drysuit?
@@dominiquegingras7334 glup si..