Big news from Victoria where a dive operator has been fined following the death of an “nexperienced scuba diver”. 

A judge has fined a Victorian diving company $200,000 after it was found guilty of failing to ensure the safety of an inexperienced scuba diver who drowned during a trip off Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

The now-defunct operator, Melbourne Diving Services, was fined under OH&S legislation for failing to ensure that people other than employees were cared for, and were cricised strongly by Judge Lance Pilgrim in the Victorian County Court.  Judge Pilgrim believed that the diver’s death could’ve been avoided if procedures had been stronger and warning signs had been recognised.

The diver in this case had apparently been certified in a tropical location (I beleive the Great Barrier Reef), and had not dived in the cooler and less clear Victorian Waters. 

This ruling sets a very interesting precdent where it now becomes the responsibility of the dive operator and its employees (instructors, divemasters, boat crew, etc) to mandate that certified divers must do some form of “bridging course” to dive in conditions not similar to where they were trained.

In the PADI system (in which I am an instructor), it has always been made clear that people are certified to dive in conditions similar to or better than those in which they were trained, and that they should do an “environmental orientation” (called Discover Local Diving in the PADI system) if they want to dive in other locations.  This ruling potentially makes it the operator’s responsibility to ensure this happens.

I will be interested to see what flow on comes from this case.

Diving company fined over diver’s death - Breaking News - National - Breaking News.

BlueBeyond Dive News and Blog | BlueBeyond.com.au | The Surface Interval Show podcast

Posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 1:13 pm | filed under , , , |RSS 2.0 feed | Respond, or Trackback.