New Divers Beware: Sketchy dive shop in Cozumel puts profits over safety

[MMM]

bvana - I respect that you had a horrible experience with your OW certification, however, that does not necessarily mean fault on the other's part (or anyone's part) and your caustic post did not strengthen your claim, it weakened it. You say that you accept responsibility for your part, I suspect it is more to save your own butt now that a more realistic version of the truth has come out rather than apologizing to Deep Blue and Rafael now that the damage has been done.



My instructor took us from shore, on the NORTH SHORE of Oahu in Sharks Cove (this is where they surf - right near the famous Pipeline) - in March - with 7 - 10 foot waves coming in and a surge that went down 35 to 40 feet easily! As we dove along the shoreline I was knocked into sharp volcanic rock and even pushed by the surge into a "cave" (it was realistically about a 2 - 3 foot deep recess/crevice in the rock wall) and couldn't get out because of the surge! I had to grab onto rock and pull my way out - and guess what I did when I got out - I shot to the surface - which of course was WORSE from the waves crashing me into the volcanic rock wall like a rag doll not to mention the shooting to the surface. The instructor pulled me back down and swam while pulling me down to 40+ feet to get us out of the surge. My wetsuit was torn, I was bleeding, I was breathing heavy, and I was panicked! He did manage to calm me down, but we had to abort the dive immediately after because I was out of air.

I wonder why people find it so hard to apologize and especially on the Internet. It goes a long way to making people feel better on both sides of any issue. We actually had to PASS LEGISLATION at home in my old job so that health authorities could apologize to patients or their loved ones without it being considered an admission of guilt. a little "sorry" goes a
long way to patching up a relationship.

and heh. I dived in Oahu. Once. Nothing as dramatic as your experience although I did have another dive knock my mask off. just a boring dive on a cattle boat with a time limit and a million Japanese tourists with cameras. they must have been taking pictures of each other because there were certainly no fish. a large contrast to the Big Island where I had just come from.

 

[robint]

I cannot tell you how many times I have seen students with my husband (their instructor) have a "moment" of sheer terror, and forget everything they have learned in the classroom (or e-learning course). It happens, they are students. It takes a long time for some people to trust the equipment and trust themselves to be safe, no matter what the situation..... THAT IS THE PURPOSE OF ALL THOSE SKILLS YOU DO OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!

I can tell you I was a horrible student... I didn't have equalization problems like the OP, but I had some serious attention problems that made my instructor want to strangle me underwater. She kept asking me to do a skill, but I was busy watching fish with my head on a swivel the whole time. It is funny now... but I was constantly smiling, giggling, flooding my mask by accident, clearing my mask, and then watching the fish again instead of her! When we got out of the water, after dive 2, my instructor told me she didn't have to get me to do any mask skills because I was doing them all on my own.

So back to the OP and their dives from hell.... well, both sides made mistakes IMHO. The instructor should have been with the student and not guiding other divers, but the student was panicked and not thinking clearly. I wish the instructor had grabbed the student, told them to calm down, gone up a bit holding on to them, to see if they could equalize, then decide what to do from there. It would have solved the problem most likely and then this thread would not exist.

The finger pointing will continue, I am sure... but there is plenty of blame to go around here.

robin

 

[Ron Lee]

It has been over twenty years since I did my OW course. Best recollection is that it was classroom twice a week over three weeks. Pool work most or all of those nights. I wonder if doing the pool work (confined water?) all in one day works for everyone. Personally, I do not think that it would have given me the time to think about skills between pool sessions such that things become more natural.

I did not become the awesome diver I am today from the beginning. I had concerns about ear clearing. Breathing through a regulator was not natural.

It took time, more training and experience in a variety of dive situations to get to the point where diving is natural, comfortable and fun.

 

[SCUBAPA75]

So back to the OP and their dives from hell.... well, both sides made mistakes IMHO. The instructor should have been with the student and not guiding other divers, but the student was panicked and not thinking clearly. I wish the instructor had grabbed the student, told them to calm down, gone up a bit holding on to them, to see if they could equalize, then decide what to do from there. It would have solved the problem most likely and then this thread would not exist.

The finger pointing will continue, I am sure... but there is plenty of blame to go around here.

robin

I agree with you. The thing is...bvana was HOLDING ON TO THE INSTRUCTOR almost the entire dive. They were diving arm in arm. Rafael in NO way abandoned him, not even for a second. In fact, its a darn good thing that the student that had taken all of training through Deep Blue (DON) went through both of his dives without a hitch. It would have been difficult for Rafael to have been able to handle TWO disasters. It's ludicrous to think that a new diver having issues would be abandoned or left on his own in ANY way. Especially by a dive operator like Deep Blue.

 

[souljacker]

You got it... How bout Thursday? ;-)

El Moro, Cozumel, say next week?

 

[Thalassamania]

... My personal approach is to empower students to grasp that responsibility ...

While I agree with you that one of the objectives of a class is to, "empower students to grasp that responsibility and apply it whilst diving," I also think that one of the duties of an Instructor is to keep the student from harm (and if that's, "molly-coddling," so be it).

If I aint equalizing by 10-15 feet I'm in trouble. I have to get it done by there or I will lock up for any deeper.

That is key, if one is using valsalva, then one needs to keep a very slight overpressure in the middle ear and Eustachian canals while descending.

Well, I do apologize ...

While there are conflicting descriptions and interpretations of what occurred, the key it reconciling the disparate tales into a coherent and sensible description of events.

I am Deborah Felixson, the owner of Deep Blue in Cozumel. ...
Now it’s a bit more fair to be the judge and jury….
Deborah

Thank you for your post, it is greatly appreciated.

It is unfortunate that people have ears that will not clear, but that is a fact of life. While the details of the stories conflict, the basic problem does not change or go away: a poorly planned and executed dive. Let's look at it for moment. Here we have an instructor with two students, one of whom is focused on a friend whom he is diving (as a buddy, at least in his own mind?). The instructor has a student who is having trouble clearing, but who is loath to complain (which I really don't get). So the most reasonable reconstruction of the facts is that the instructor was all too happy to continue on down and bring the group back together since the injured diver was not complaining very emphatically. The injured diver did not know any better and seemed to feel that staying with the instructor was the best idea. The other (non-injured) student and his "buddy" were annoyed and wanted to get on with their dive. This is an almost exact description of a problem solving dive that we present at ITCs. Acceptable responses on the part of a candidate are, in order of "correctness": to refuse to have the experienced diver along with the class; to have the students dive as a buddy pair and have the experienced diver be the instructor's buddy, in a "tag-along" mode; to "abandon" the non-injured student (signalling them to surface) while tending to the injured student. In order to fail the problem solving dive the candidate would have to make two compounding mistakes: permitting the student to buddy with the experienced diver AND not surfacing the diver with the ear injury. The reality of this situation, whoever, confounds the artificiality of the problem solving dive because we never considered that the student who was having trouble clearing would continue the descent.

At DaveDillehay...the instructor did not have divided duties...he had TWO OW students to check off. I was just tagging along with them and when they surfaced I joined the other group of divers on the same boat that had their OWN Dive Master.

No, the instructor did have divided duties because the two students had different objectives and that was amplified when one had trouble clearing.

If the opening post is accurate, the instructor is fully at fault. The student takes priority, and a problem takes priority over continuing as though nothing is wrong. I'm totally with the OP on this one.

Adam

Correct, the injured student takes priority, though that is (at best, IMHO) the third best solution.

He wasn't coughing up blood for Pete's sake. He had a nosebleed. Textbook reaction to over equalizing, especially on the ascent.

No, that was not a nosebleed, that was blood issuing from the nostril ... which has the same appearance, but can be a radically different thing.

He absolutely did not. In fact the instructor stayed at the surface until he could get down on his own. I know because I was waiting at the meeting point on the sandy bottom for them. The instructor asked him MANY times if he was okay....and got the OK signal back every time.

That is an error on the part of the injured student, however, the pain must have passed due to filling some of the Eustachian tube / Middle ear volume with blood.

As the links to the Diving Medicine forum I posted earlier in the thread confirmed.

In your first post you stated: "He seemed uninterested and said it was "normal". Bleeding is not "normal" in ANY adventure sport." I am glad that you now have some peace-of-mind and can accept that sometimes new divers do experience a little bit of blood from the nose whilst learning equalisation and/or whilst the sinuses adapt to pressure changes. It isn't an 'injury' and no physical harm occurs.

Sorry, I have to disagree. If the bleeding was in the area of the middle ear, "glue ear" with concomitant high frequency hearing loss is a real possibility.

...
Many commentators on this thread have leapt to a conclusion that the students was somehow 'abandoned' by the instructor. I'd suggest that the instructor was supervising correctly if, as the OP stated, he was on hand and in communication with him.

But (as I explained above) failed to plan and conduct the dive in the "best" possible way.

Your overall 'complaint' in this regard thus seems to be that the instructor 'didn't take you back to the surface'. That complaint is unjustified. Not many instructors would abort the dive and return to the surface as anything but a last resort to a persistent inability to equalise, especially on dives 3/4 of the course. At no point are students taught to 'return to the surface' as a method of dealing with the problem. Furthermore, repeated ascents/descents will actually put more cumulative stress on your ears/sinuses.

The student should have been taught that sudden relief after severe ear pain is indicitive of a problem. Perhaps this is not covered in the e-learning program?

...

Also as pointed out by Devon Diver, during the OW dives, the student is to APPLY and DEMONSTRATE on his OWN the skills previously taught in the course. Yes, the instructor is still there to supervise and to be there in case anything goes wrong, but he is not to "hand hold". I was not there so I cannot confirm in fact what did or did not happen, but after hearing both sides and now knowing who the instructor was - the OP's version sounds less and less believable/accurate about the true events.

The versions differ in some minor details (while it may be a technical standards problem, who cares about 60 feet vs 78 feet?).

I am not saying that the OP was "lying" - but it did sound to me immediately as if some of the things he claimed were just way too out there to be true. Now that I know who the instructor was - I can recognize more discrepancies in the OP's post. Rafael IS IN FACT one of the most by the book instructors I have ever known. I have known Rafael for many years and he has ALWAYS been this way and still is...in fact I respect the fact that he stays on top of the standards and follows them religiously.

Then I must suggest that Rafael, "find a new book," and learn a bit more about equalization and how to deal with equalization problems, both during the briefings and once underwater.

In response to Deborah (the owner of Deep Blue) and her post of over 800 words, the two words that I was hoping to see that were absent were "we're sorry". Seriously, all this could have been avoided had any member of her staff had just said "we're sorry you injured your ears". Hell, Gary could have easily sent a follow up email last week expressing some remorse and showing a little concern. "Are you ok? Hope you had a good time" etc. That would NOT have been any admission of guilt just I feel, good customer service. Obviously, my expectations are too high. Even when I was still in CZM I would drop by the office (I had no phone so I couldn't call Deb) and check in to update your staff with my status. For you to proudly say that you didn't charge me for a cancellation, that was big of you. Maybe, your staff should have shown prudence and said "you're not diving with us until your ears clear up" ?!

While I know that this is said (and done) all the time, it does cross a line into practicing medicine.

Instead of reccommending I get Sudafed and nasal spray decongestant. This is just my opinion and have a different perspective of customer service. Since ear injuries make up about 1/3 of diving accidents or injuries I really wish the idea of "equalize often" had been stressed more but I also should have apparently been focused on that much more than I did that day and throughout my training. Another question to you Deb, in the E-Learning course a lot of time was spent on Dive Planning, Dive Tables and the RDP, why was it not mentioned and why was there no dive planning or any hands on review? Is this SOP? Seriously, I'd like to know. This morning I withdrew my complaint from PADI and have requested that my other posts be deleted as well. My apologies to you and R.

In response to scubapa75. I'm sorry my dive affected yours. I could tell you were irritated with my presence as soon as you new I was a newbie. We were discussing our dive background and training. I mentioned the E-Learning course I took, Not "bragging" just discussing. And if the E-Learning is so "pathetic" why does PADI offer it at all? I got 100's on most of the tests and 90% on the final. I felt I had learned the basics pretty well. "the beginning of both dives was me (and DON)...hanging out on the sandy bottom while you took 20 minutes to descend Then you blew through all your air in the next 20 minutes....while you were holding hands with the dive instructor because you were scared." A couple things about that. The idea that my oxygen usuage is any of your business is odd to me. If my dive negatively affected your's who's fault is that? I would be pissed too, but not at the beginner diver. Also, Rafael MADE me hang on to him so I could share his Oxygen. Good for him. "You should stay out of the water and off the island." Who the hell are you to say that you arrogant &*%?!

...

Rashmon?

Actually, I was NOT irritated at all. I CHOSE to dive with you guys when I could have easily been on the other boat and went to the North side, which happens to be my favorite place to dive. I knew it would be a tedious dive. I WANTED to come with you guys. I love diving with new divers. It's fun to watch their reaction when they get into open water for the first time.
What I do NOT appreciate is the slaughter of both a good instructor and a great dive operation because YOU won't take responsibility for your part in the matter. Yeah, stuff happens. Not everyone has a great first OW dive. It takes time to become and experienced diver. But your posts were exaggerated, dishonest, and uncalled for.
What I should have said, was...if you are unable to dive safely and cannot assume responsibility for your own actions and your own diving, PLEASE stay out of the water and off the island. Nobody wants to see another diver injured or killed due to his/her own lack of the necessary skills to dive safely. Tons of other divers have done just what you did with Deep Blue and didn't have ANY issues. I hope you have a fantastic diving future with a company that is more suited to your desires.

I hope you now see the sort of problem that this kind of arrangement can precipitate and will, in the future, let classes be classes. Mixing objectives in never a good idea.

I think this speaks volumes about how much bvana1 learned through his e-learning course.

It would seem the section of equalization and procedures, at least, need revision.

A lot of new divers mix up the terms "air" and "oxygen", let's keep it civil

Yeah, but that's a mistake that no one whose had a course should make.

 

[cvchief]

You got it... How bout Thursday? ;-)

Er, Wednesday, actually.

 

[Gdog]

Dammit.....El Moro.....shrimp on a wire....stop it!!! Im stuck in rainy west coast washington!

 

[nodakdive]

In yet another re-reading of the Deborah Felixson post and the ScubaPA75 posts (who was on the dives in question) I find myself really confused by this thread, in particular, by discussion that has followed those posts.

With all due respect.

1. All three divers were doing a fun dive. These were not certification dives. (some discrepancy here between the Deborah Felixson post and the ScubaPA75 posts.)
2. Bvana1 was briefed before the dive regarding equalization. (among other things)
3. Bvana1 was accompanied by the DM during his entire descent and thereafter.
4. Bvana1 signaled during descent that he was having eq problems, was assisted by the DM to ascend and re-eq, and signaled OK on subsequent descent.
5. Bvana1 did not exceed 60 fsw during either his first or second boat dives. A second DM was provided to ensure that neither he nor the other new cert exceed that depth.
6. Bvana1 says that he was "coughing up blood" (copious amounts?), though he was probably coughing blood due to sinus/ear barotrauma, not LOE or other reasons.
7. Bvana1 chose to do the 2nd dive and was not forced either verbally or under constraint to finish his certification as he was certified before getting on the boat.
8. Bvana1 did not address his concerns with his treatment by the Instructor/DM with the shop at the time, but posted his issues here without forewarning to the dive operator.


Maybe I'm missing something, but this as coherent, concise and sensible a description as I can come up with, taking into account the posts I've mentioned above, and the OP's post.

Why are some suggesting the instructor, who's practices have been substantiated by a well known and well respected 3rd party shop owner who knows the instructor, has failed his student? He wasn't instructing as far as I can tell. He was DM'ing.

I'm not trying to pick any fights, I'm just really confused at this point and can't make sense of the discussion.

Thank you in advance for any good explanation that can be offered,
-Blair

 

[ggunn]

Its unfortunate that anytime there is anything negative posted about any dive op or instructor, the poster is the one called into question and judged.

Judged? No. Called into question? Absolutely. Sometimes a person gets their panties in a wad over a situation where they were in the wrong, and then they go onto public forums and try to extract revenge through slanderous discourse. It's happened, and it's happened in here.

When it looks like someone joins a forum for the sole purpose of posting a slam on a business, it looks suspicious to me. When a poster claims he is "warning" everyone about a business which is generally respected, it looks suspicious to me. When the behavior they are accusing the object of their ire of committing goes beyond how I believe a reasonable person would behave, it looks suspicious to me. When the OP becomes defensive or abusive when anyone questions him on things that don't smell quite right about what he is saying, it looks suspicious to me.