Who Be Da’ Turkey?
The diver’s regulator had been serviced by a technician at a store belonging to a friend of mine in Seattle. I was tempted to call him up and rib him about the creative way in which his repair personnel were trying to kill customers.
Upon reflection, however, I decided that karma might be better served if I just let things be. After all, it was the kind of mistake almost anyone could make (Lord knows, I’ve made my share of equally inept blunders). And, while my friend’s technician may have done the equivalent of a surgeon leaving instruments sewed up inside a patient’s body; it was my crew that missed this fact two days in a row.
If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is this: Know thy equipment well. Become so familiar with it that, if something is out of place, its presence will stand out like a sore thumb.
In this case, had the diver been more familiar with his own equipment, he would have recognized that there was something attached that clearly did not belong. (As you have seen, you can’t always rely on the dive operator to catch things like this for you — and, bear in mind, our employees were sharper than most.)
This story is funny. It could have been otherwise. Poorly performing regulators have been a contributing factor to numerous diving fatalities. The diver in this story could very easily have died.
Had that happened, neither the dive operation I ran nor the dive store in Seattle would have had much of a leg to stand on in a court of law — even though one could argue that the regulator owner shared a large part of the blame.
‘More food for thought.
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