Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Interesting situation and ties in to some comments we've had in the latest "Casino Point Fatality" thread about quickie courses producing students who aren't ready or - the other side of it - students who might not make it through a "traditional" course (or would get more hands-on help to overcome their problems) who are making it through quickie courses either due to less oversight/interaction so less awareness of the problems, &/or time constraints that force instructors to see if they can check off the skills on their list which makes students divers as opposed to making students into divers who can perform the skills well.
So with that as preamble and without meaning to cast any aspertions on the quality of teaching in this incident, some question for wavetrain75:
Did you do the pool class with him or was it someone else and you only did the OW? Given the way you worded it, I'm assuming the latter.
That alone should have been enough for the instructional staff to say "I'm sorry but you're not making the dive." Think of it in the worst-case scenario: The guy dies. Your testimony at trial for his wrongful death will be that he said he hadn't slept well and had dreams of drowning, but you figured he'd be OK anyhow. Not too sympathetic a thing for a jury to hear.
The instructional take-away here hopefully is that your DM (and perhaps you as well) need to be a little more willing to not have someone dive. You shouldn't be hoping that everything will be OK but understand and anticipate the problems they might have. And don't ever lose sight of the fact that it's always cheaper to refund the student than it ever will be to pay off the estate. A lot less paperwork too. (In all seriousness, I really do think you dodged a bullet here.)
That should be the red flag for "More pool time".
Regardless of cause (or excuse), another red flag. One of the things we see in fatality accident analysis is that's it's usually not one thing or even maybe two things, but an accumulation of things going wrong that does someone in. The trick is to recognize that #1 thing, stop and fix it, or - if you can't solve the probem - abort the dive. This part of the incident was IMHO your #1.
Did he successfully complete ANY of the required checkout dives the first day? Because if he didn't, and you had him with a DM instead of an Instructor the second day, you've got a Standards problem.
Many questions come to mind:
1. First, were you the pool instructor or was it someone else?
2. You say "pool" singlular. Was there only ONE pool class?
3. What was the total time (in hours) spent underwater in the pool session(s)?
4. If he never felt comfortable/settled in the pool, why was he cleared to go to the checkout open-water dives?
More red flags.
Sometimes you have to abort the class for them. Sometimes they're looking for permission to abort the class and your saying "This isn't for you" is really what they're looking for but they'll never verbalize that to you. The underlying question would be: WHY did this guy want to get certified?
It's obviously a talk you really need to have with him. Maybe you should even show him this thread and the various comments posted by people who don't know him at all and therefore have no ax to grind or vested interest.
If both you and he want to continue with training (and I think it's admirable that you seem to want to) I think the "discussion" from you end is "You're a pool diver until we get you much more comfortable. It may take a while." See if he's still willing/motrivated to continue.
If he is, I would work him on skills, work with him on stress things like swimming with mask off, telling him he has to stay submerged for 30 minutes straight without surfacing while you're having him do various skills, swim around, checkj his gauge, etc., etc. I'd also suggest that, when YOU think he's ready, you have another instructor who knows nothing of him (and ideally isn't affiliated with your shop) run him through his paces in the pool and see if he's ready for OW again or not. A fresh set of eyes (masks) can be very valuable.
So the big question: What was the class format? Quickie or longer? How many lectures (or was it eLearning), how many pools, and what was the OW plan to be? Some people, as others have mentioned, simply aren't cut out to be divers, period. Others need more time than a particular course may allow. No sin in either one.
- Ken
So with that as preamble and without meaning to cast any aspertions on the quality of teaching in this incident, some question for wavetrain75:
Did you do the pool class with him or was it someone else and you only did the OW? Given the way you worded it, I'm assuming the latter.
That alone should have been enough for the instructional staff to say "I'm sorry but you're not making the dive." Think of it in the worst-case scenario: The guy dies. Your testimony at trial for his wrongful death will be that he said he hadn't slept well and had dreams of drowning, but you figured he'd be OK anyhow. Not too sympathetic a thing for a jury to hear.
The instructional take-away here hopefully is that your DM (and perhaps you as well) need to be a little more willing to not have someone dive. You shouldn't be hoping that everything will be OK but understand and anticipate the problems they might have. And don't ever lose sight of the fact that it's always cheaper to refund the student than it ever will be to pay off the estate. A lot less paperwork too. (In all seriousness, I really do think you dodged a bullet here.)
That should be the red flag for "More pool time".
Regardless of cause (or excuse), another red flag. One of the things we see in fatality accident analysis is that's it's usually not one thing or even maybe two things, but an accumulation of things going wrong that does someone in. The trick is to recognize that #1 thing, stop and fix it, or - if you can't solve the probem - abort the dive. This part of the incident was IMHO your #1.
Did he successfully complete ANY of the required checkout dives the first day? Because if he didn't, and you had him with a DM instead of an Instructor the second day, you've got a Standards problem.
Many questions come to mind:
1. First, were you the pool instructor or was it someone else?
2. You say "pool" singlular. Was there only ONE pool class?
3. What was the total time (in hours) spent underwater in the pool session(s)?
4. If he never felt comfortable/settled in the pool, why was he cleared to go to the checkout open-water dives?
More red flags.
Sometimes you have to abort the class for them. Sometimes they're looking for permission to abort the class and your saying "This isn't for you" is really what they're looking for but they'll never verbalize that to you. The underlying question would be: WHY did this guy want to get certified?
It's obviously a talk you really need to have with him. Maybe you should even show him this thread and the various comments posted by people who don't know him at all and therefore have no ax to grind or vested interest.
If both you and he want to continue with training (and I think it's admirable that you seem to want to) I think the "discussion" from you end is "You're a pool diver until we get you much more comfortable. It may take a while." See if he's still willing/motrivated to continue.
If he is, I would work him on skills, work with him on stress things like swimming with mask off, telling him he has to stay submerged for 30 minutes straight without surfacing while you're having him do various skills, swim around, checkj his gauge, etc., etc. I'd also suggest that, when YOU think he's ready, you have another instructor who knows nothing of him (and ideally isn't affiliated with your shop) run him through his paces in the pool and see if he's ready for OW again or not. A fresh set of eyes (masks) can be very valuable.
So the big question: What was the class format? Quickie or longer? How many lectures (or was it eLearning), how many pools, and what was the OW plan to be? Some people, as others have mentioned, simply aren't cut out to be divers, period. Others need more time than a particular course may allow. No sin in either one.
- Ken
