The Aftermath
“You can expect the attorney representing Jackie Anne’s family to make a big deal over the regulator,” your attorney tells you at one of your pre-trial meetings. “It’s going to be up to us,” he continued, “to prove that, in fact, your rental regulators were maintained in accordance with prevailing industry standards. You do keep regulator maintenance records, don’t you?”
Among the popular-culture images most of us have etched in our memories is Clint Eastwood staring down the barrel of a .44 magnum and asking, “Do you feel lucky?”
If you are not maintaining a careful record of the service you do to both your rental life-support equipment and that which customers bring to you for care, you’re putting yourself in the same position as that unwitting punk: Gambling that Dirty Harry’s .44 has chambered on an expended round.
Fortunately, maintaining up-to-date service records has never been easier. It’s a feature built into many dive store POS (Point of Sale) software systems. And, even if you do not have such a system at your disposal, it’s not all that difficult to come up with a manual system of recording service information.
As a minimum, you need to have a separate record for each regulator system, BC, alternate-air-source inflator and scuba cylinder. The record for each item should be able to list:
- Each date a service procedure was performed.
- The nature of the service performed on that date.
- The parts replaced.
- Who performed the service.
- If you recommended a more thorough servicing of a customer’s equipment that the customer was willing to have you perform, note this as well.
Many stores treat each regulator component (i.e., first stage, primary second stage, alternate air source second stage, etc.) as a separate item, as these sometimes get switched around between regulator systems.
Okay, you knew all of this — right? Your record system is complete, up to date and the equal of anyone else’s. In fact, it is ready to go into court right now, and prove to a judge and jury that, when little Jackie Anne disappeared into the abyss, whatever the cause was, it couldn’t have been the regulator you rented her, could it?
Or maybe, just maybe, you need to re-think your record-keeping procedures…just a little bit. Or show this article to maintenance personnel who’ve been somewhat resistant to keeping service records the way you want (after all, it’s their ass on the line, too).
‘Just food for thought.
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