Open Source Instruction for Entry Level Scuba

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I can list some.... from the PADI course, Ditch and Don, Buddy Breathing, Tables.

In the recent raging debate on this topic, altitude diving and tide charts were the two most often cited items dropped from OW that one fervid participant hammered on repeatedly. Both are mentioned in OW instruction, but only to the point of saying a diver may need to know about them. The person arguing abou the diminishing of standards said that all divers should know the details about both.

Interesting, all of those were in my PADI course a year and half (2 yrs???) ago. We didn't practice the buddy breathing a lot, but we did it, we definitely did a ditch and don and we even did 1 altitude calculation though I must admit we didn't do any tide charts that I recall. We did tables and eRDP for my class though, again, not much with the tables. I don't see a huge difference as long as you understand how the tables work...

Maybe that's what I'm missing, the fact that things have been removed but may be still taught by some instructors.


My chief pet peeve of skills that have been deleted for safety sake, is livesaving training for divemasters. Not diver to diver, but swimmer to swimmer. The first time that an instructor gets to evaluate a student is during the swim test, and if they fail the swim test or have heart attack? I can't recall lifeguard training every being a pre-req which would have actually made more sense.

I was under the impression Rescue was a requirement for DM. Rescue requires Emergency First Responder training, so I'm not sure what agency you're saying doesn't require lifesaving training for divemasters. Am I incorrect in this belief?
 
FJ, your instructor may have required you to do those skills/tables, but PADI did not.
 
Interesting, all of those were in my PADI course a year and half (2 yrs???) ago. We didn't practice the buddy breathing a lot, but we did it, we definitely did a ditch and don and we even did 1 altitude calculation though I must admit we didn't do any tide charts that I recall. We did tables and eRDP for my class though, again, not much with the tables. I don't see a huge difference as long as you understand how the tables work...

Maybe that's what I'm missing, the fact that things have been removed but may be still taught by some instructors.




I was under the impression Rescue was a requirement for DM. Rescue requires Emergency First Responder training, so I'm not sure what agency you're saying doesn't require lifesaving training for divemasters. Am I incorrect in this belief?

Diver rescue is different than swimmer to swimmer rescue. The emergency first responder training is not the same first responder training for EMT's. They simply poached the name and not the skill component of an actual state licensed first responder program. I know I am a paramedic / firefighter and have been for decades, and have taught those programs for state certification. The scuba agency deleted complete first aid, CPR and lifesaving program for a shorter version of their own program without the swimming lifesaving component. Divemaster used to have a minimal attempt at fitness, that is all but forgotten.
 
Nonsense. If the person doesn't have any health problems, then they can sign. If they do, then they need to get their PCP to sign off. Of course, their PCP doesn't actually have to know anything about diving.

Personal responsibility. Big Brother can go sit on the corner, because I don't want him in my house.

I respect your opinion of keeping big brother out of sports. When you buddy up with someone else, you get a medical for the same reasons as pilots, USCG captains and truck drivers get medicals, you may endanger somebodies life. You also get a medical for the same reason as school kids need medicals to participate in sports, it makes good sense and it saves lives.
 
To be a DM you need to be a rescue diver, which requiers EFR, in other words, there IS lifesaving requirements for DMs..

It is diver to diver, which is not the same as swimmer to swimmer.
 
17 pages of negatives:shocked2: ... Nice work.

I think an open-source diving course-ware would be a great resource for all divers.
Sure there are a heap of issues to overcome. That does not make it a bad idea.

Only one caution, AUSI documents are not really open source licensed by my reading. The AUSI 'open source' license appears to prevent modification and ties usage for certification to registration with AUSI. Understandable, but not really in the spirit of open source as I understand it. Make sure you read it: Ausi Open License

For more published, not open source, material I found:
owd esa filetype:pdf - Google Search

The obvious public domain open sources are ANSI, NOAA, DCIEM, US NAVY and many other sources from around the world, such as Jeppeson, Dennis Gravers Book and on and on. Start with ANSI standards and you have your bases covered, and it has standards up to instructor.
 
It is diver to diver, which is not the same as swimmer to swimmer.
It includes surface rescues.. Unless its not done properly..

Besides, let them sink and get them to shore when they cant fight you works both with and without dive gear :p
 
It includes surface rescues.. Unless its not done properly..

Besides, let them sink and get them to shore when they cant fight you works both with and without dive gear :p

By surface rescue, I hope you mean rescue on surface streets, the ones that contain the classrooms that do not teach a swimmer (no dive gear) rescuing other swimmers at the surface and then putting them in charge of swimmers during a swim test.

Mike Nelson of Sea Hunt used to show us just about every episode an example of the rescue technique you mention. It usually started with the underwater knife fight, the cutting of the divers exhaust hose (on the left of the two hose reg) the diver immediately going limp, (out of shame of low quality dive gear) Mike Nelson dragging them up to the surface, the diver revives without intervention to full consciousness and remorse, they patch their differences with a few words, become buddies and next episode, another underwater knife fight.
 
Yeah, kinda like that :wink:

But seriously, a properly taught rescue diver course will include rescue of a person on the (water) surface. And no, not the guy who was walking on it..
 
I respect your opinion of keeping big brother out of sports. When you buddy up with someone else, you get a medical for the same reasons as pilots, USCG captains and truck drivers get medicals, you may endanger somebodies life. You also get a medical for the same reason as school kids need medicals to participate in sports, it makes good sense and it saves lives.

You're stating your opinion as if it were fact. It's not.

I'd say that the primary reason for all the physicals that you mention has nothing to do with "saving lives". It's the limiting of liability; the ability to say "it's not OUR fault! Look at this pile of paperwork!!!".
 

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