death at kirkfeild today

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

WHAT????!!!!! lung over expansion injuries are MORE likely to occur in shallow water.
 
obviously you can't read, like I said it is "UNLIKELY" from the depth of the quarry, for the course he was taking he would need to have atleast his Rescue which means having a fair amount of dives in already, straight shot to the surface from 20-30ft which is where they were most likely at is not something a Rescue diver would do anymore, and if he was that weak of a diver then we go back to the instructor!! why was he taking the course??
 
First, Rescue can be taken with less than 20 dives through some agencies. I've seen instructors shoot to the surface. So that argument isn't very good.

Second, as has been already mentioned, you are more likely to suffer from a lung over expansion injury the more shallow you are.

Third, apparently something happened to make him bolt to the surface if he suffered from a lung over expansion injury.
 
Rescue is not a requirement for SDI's Solo course. 100 previous dives is the requirement, plus the redundant equipment.
 
As is sadly so often the case, whatever happened to put this diver on the surface, unconscious, occurred without witnesses, so we may never know what it was.

Blood in the sputum has little to no diagnostic value. You can get pink, frothy sputum from chokes, or immersion pulmonary edema; on the other hand, you can be dead from AGE with no blood sputum, and you can easily experience a pneumothorax without any sputum or blood at all. A sinus squeeze can be rapidly extremely painful (I know this from personal experience) and if the pain caused someone to bolt, the barotrauma could easily end up with blood in the secretions. It is not at all valid to make a diagnosis of overexpansion injury, based on bloody mucus.

I do have a problem with a student actively involved in a class being lost by the instructor, although I have been in conditions where it would have been far to easy for this to happen. I have also taken classes where the instructor was not in the water during the dives, and therefore would have been utterly unable to intervene in any mishap. But if the instructor IS in the water, I think he has a very strong obligation to remain in visual contact with his students, and in a position where he can exert control.
 
If the instructor is in the water and not in sight of his/her students then they instructor is not in control of the situation. I have seen instructors "oversee or supervise" divers in the water from the shore. Always strikes me as kinda stupid. Yes you can see where they are going by their bubbles - or can you- what if there are multiple classes in the water? The one post stated that the diver was doing a solo course for self sufficiency not solo diving. Well what was it? If it was not for solo diving don't call it a solo course. That seems like CYA (cover your ass for those not up on such things) statement.

Yet the diver was not being observed by the instructor. Huh? Is that one of those that goes like this - "Here Bob, I'm going to toss this drift net into the water. You swim into it and get yourself out. I'll know you did it right if you surface!"

This diver obviously had some kind of problem and no one was there to help in any way. I'd not like to take a class run like that.
 
But if the instructor IS in the water, I think he has a very strong obligation to remain in visual contact with his students, and in a position where he can exert control.

I take exception to this. With Certified Divers. If I am in the water with you as a certified diver, and the task calls for navigation for example, as certified divers I expect you to complete the task without direct supervision the whole entire time. It's called taking the training wheels off. If you don't think you can take your eyes off certified divers to do a task, then maybe you shouldn't be conducting the course with them. I am on scuba, underwater, and I expect you to navigate properly to return to me. A DM on the surface can "direct traffic" if they surface if they get confused. Not being able to take your eyes off certified divers is silly. Give them the confidence and skills to be independant divers, after all they certified. This was a certified diver no?
 
But if the instructor IS in the water, I think he has a very strong obligation to remain in visual contact with his students, and in a position where he can exert control.

I take exception to this. With Certified Divers. If I am in the water with you as a certified diver, and the task calls for navigation for example, as certified divers I expect you to complete the task without direct supervision the whole entire time. It's called taking the training wheels off. If you don't think you can take your eyes off certified divers to do a task, then maybe you shouldn't be conducting the course with them. I am on scuba, underwater, and I expect you to navigate properly to return to me. A DM on the surface can "direct traffic" if they surface if they get confused. Not being able to take your eyes off certified divers is silly. Give them the confidence and skills to be independant divers, after all they certified. This was a certified diver no?

I do not think you can exclusively say that this should or should not be the case. A lot depends on the course and what you are asking of the student. In your example, sure, that particular task is proabably not something that you need to be in complete direct supervision the whole time. But if I were teaching a student to do a gas switch or a valve drill the first time, I think I'd need to be in direct supervision the whole time. Both scenarios have certified divers, but different degrees of risk involved.
 
But if the instructor IS in the water, I think he has a very strong obligation to remain in visual contact with his students, and in a position where he can exert control.

I take exception to this. With Certified Divers. If I am in the water with you as a certified diver, and the task calls for navigation for example, as certified divers I expect you to complete the task without direct supervision the whole entire time. It's called taking the training wheels off. If you don't think you can take your eyes off certified divers to do a task, then maybe you shouldn't be conducting the course with them. I am on scuba, underwater, and I expect you to navigate properly to return to me. A DM on the surface can "direct traffic" if they surface if they get confused. Not being able to take your eyes off certified divers is silly. Give them the confidence and skills to be independant divers, after all they certified. This was a certified diver no?

This was a solo course. Direct supervision is mandatory for the skills that are being done. Also, you can be in the water with students directly supervising them without them having the sense of training wheels. I do it all the time in my cave courses. My students don't always know where I am until I'm in their faces starting them on a drill.
 
Yes, when I read the objection to my statement that the instructor needed to be in direct control, I chuckled . . . many of my instructors have NEVER been seen by me in a class, unless they wanted to be. But I will testify that they were, in fact, in direct control. Many embarrassing moments proved that!
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

Back
Top Bottom