Fatality off of Point Lobos, California

[DandyDon]

Honusmiles is discussing "how it ought to be" but DandyDon is posting "how it is." I'd love it if every diver was a skilled, attentive buddy with rescue training that practices his/her training regularly. But, having had varied and diverse buddies I have become pessimistic and expect the worst.

Yep, but you know - in the back of my head I think I keep a mental note on how I'd explain myself if my buddy got himself hurt or killed. I do ask buddies to cooperate with good buddy protocols as I try to do the same, I make it clear that anyone can grab my alternate reg or pony reg without asking, I ask to let me remove a bud's weights on the boat for practice, and I do want to do my best to help others. If I'd been the survivor in this case and got that phone call, I don't think I would have discussed it. I'd refer the caller to the investigator or my lawyer.

Ideally, yes. Unfortunately, sometimes one diver can't save himself AND his buddy, so he must make the heart wrenching decision to not become a second victim.

They do make that clear in Rescue class.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Even better, put Rescue training back into OW training where it belongs.

I think this hits it 100% on the head.

Too often nowadays, I hear instructors (usually newly-minited ones) saying, "Well, we'll cover that in the ______ class." But what happens when they don't take the _____ class? In fact, most industry stats that I see say that roughly 80% of the divers never do anything beyond OW training. So instead of the knowledge gaps created by the desire to do it faster and quicker getting filled in down the road, they remain gaps. We should be giving our students the tools to not only survive but to cope with what might be thrown their way. And if you're comfortable with your students going out with a card that has your name/endorsement on it without them knowing such things as simple assist/rescue techniques, navigation, gas management . . . then maybe you should re-examine why you're willing to teach people in a substandard manner. And I've said many times in these forums, in 32 years of teaching, I've never had a student come up to me at the end of the class and complain, "You really taught me TOO much."

The old NAUI standard was "Would I let this person dive with my loved ones?" If the answers is yes, issue the card. If the answer is no, more training is required.

Jim's right to say that this doesn't take much extra effort nor require extra cert dives. Pool "rescues" where everyone can observe what's going on can actually be perceived as fun by the class. Ocean drills that include tows, gear ditching, in-water mouth-to-mouth, etc. can also be valuable. I don't teach many basic classes these days but when I do, I include rescue techniques in lecture, pool, and ocean. And I always say, "You may never need any of this in real life but if you do, you'll be glad we went through this."

I also teach my students that, at least at the start of every dive day (if not every dive) &/or with a new buddy on that same day, they review rescue protocols and what they'll do if something goes wrong. That way it's fresh in their minds. One of the other problems I see is that people, with or without rescue training, don't think anything's going to go wrong. I'm willing to bet that if you surveyed 100 newly-minted divers at the end of their first day of no-instructor-surpervising diving, and asked them if they gave any thought to the notion that something could have happened that could have resulted in the death of them or their buddy, 99% of them will say that thought never crossed their minds. La-de-da diving.

That's because we (instructors) don't put it there. It doesn't mean you have to preach doom and gloom. But it does mean you need to teach them to realistically assess the risks and dangers of ANY dive, and be prepared to deal with the things that could go wrong. I guarantee you that the amount of time it takes to do all of this is not only less time, but also not as onerous, as detailing for a Coroner's Investigator what happened during a dive that turned fatal.

- Ken

---------- Post Merged at 06:21 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 06:18 PM ----------

Yep, but you know - in the back of my head I think I keep a mental note on how I'd explain myself if my buddy got himself hurt or killed.

I don't want to sound like I'm trying to beat you up on this Don but the thought I go in with when I'm diving (either with a buddy, a group, or supervising a boatload) is:
"Nobody dies on my watch."

Unrealistic perhaps, but I'm not going to start the dive thinking how I'll alibi my way out of a bad outcome.

- Ken

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I will say it again. The person or persons who decided it was a good idea to take rescue skills out of the basic open water class has some blood on their hands. If it were someone I cared about I'd have someone looking into that decision.

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[DandyDon]

I don't want to sound like I'm trying to beat you up on this Don but the thought I go in with when I'm diving (either with a budy, a group, or supervising a boatload) is, "Nobody dies on my watch."

Unrealistic perhaps, but I'm not going to start the dive thinking how I'll alibi my way out of a bad outcome.

- Ken

I'm sure you are much more capable of saving divers than I am with my best efforts.

I'll damned sure do my best, and if ever still lose one, I'll come out of the water knowing I did - and hope it sounds good when y'all dissect it.

 

[Crush]

The old NAUI standard was "Would I let this person dive with my loved ones?"

Sounds great. How many new OW students would you trust with your kid?

 

[Ayisha]

I will say it again. The person or persons who decided it was a good idea to take rescue skills out of the basic open water class has some blood on their hands. If it were someone I cared about I'd have someone looking into that decision.

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I agree with you. Further to that, it seems that even half the rescue portion has been taken out of the Rescue course. When I did the Rescue course (which was only 10 years ago), in addition to the class and pool portion, there were two solid days of o/w. We did two at least 6 hour days of various rescue scenarios and techniques, and it was the most valuable course I ever took, teaching us not only how to rescue others, but to self-rescue as well as be more aware of our environment and how to prevent incidents.

Now, at least around here, people have been doing only one day of o/w for the Rescue course and I can't imagine where the course was cut to fit into one day. Like I said, our course was a full 2 days jam-packed with skills. Are people even coming out of the Rescue course not feeling like capable Rescue divers? Of course, skills fade over time if they're not practiced, but are they still learning and practicing what they need to learn in the first place?

 

[Ken Kurtis]

How many new OW students would you trust with your kid?

First of all . . . are you trying to tell me I have a kid I don't know about???? I'd always thought I'd remained childless all these years.

Second of all . . . in all seriousness, all of them. (And no fair coming back with "If you REALLY had a kid you won't say that.") But that's the perfect example. If you wouldn't let them dive with YOUR kid, why would you let them dive with someone else's (since we are ALL someone's child)?Why on earth would you ever certify someone as being competent to dive who, in your heart-of-hearts, you think isn't?

The better example for me would be, "Would you let them dive with your sister?" (For the record, I didn't train her, she's not that great a diver, and she freely admits she got substandard training.) And the answer is - and I like my sister a lot - is that I would have let ANY of my students dive with my sister after they had completed my class.

- Ken

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Sounds great. How many new OW students would you trust with your kid?

I'm with Ken. I'd allow my son to dive with any student out of my OW class. SDI has the same standard just worded a little different and so does SEI. If an instructor would not allow.their loved one to dive with a student they just certified without a pro in the water why the heck would they even give them a card. Unless it was out of greed, laziness, or a just don't care attitude. From a risk management standpoint it is the ultimate in stupidity to.certify a diver that can't take care of themselves or a buddy. That instructor is putting a "hey you, sue me" sign around their own neck.

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[alibi 2]

How it can happen is that many open.water divers are not taught how to.assist a buddy in trouble. What you had here was an incident where two very simple and BASIC rescue skills - unconscious diver from depth and supporting a diver at the surface and helping them get positive may have resulted in a completely different and positive outcome. Yet there are some who have the mistaken belief that these are beyond the skill of the new diver.
This is not the first time that attitude has contributed to a death. And unless there is a change in standards it won't be the last. Some agencies have these skills in the OW class and they are definitely not beyond the ability of the new diver.
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You are so right..We teach Naui/padi/tdi/hsa. We teach almost exclusively Naui. OW students are taught basic rescue skills in the class to get certified. They have to be able to skin dive to 10' and bring up a unconscious skin diver. They also are taught how to bring a unconscious scuba dive up from 15' (in the pool and ocean). They then have to make the diver and themselves positive by inflating BC's and removing weight belts. They then access the diver and begin rescue breathing while swimming the unconscious diver to safety, they also have to remove both the unconscious divers and their own gear while continuing to keep the count and rescue breath and swim to safety. We feel having these skills produce a much more confident and self reliant basic diver. Students as young as 10yrs old have been successful in performing these rescue skills. However it is a lot more work for an Instructor, Naui still requires Hours of training, OW must have 12 hrs of classroom and 12 hours of pool skills..

It has caused us concern that some instructors are giving their students only one pool session before they go to the ocean (this is probally do to the increased cost to pool time rentals). When we teach a rescue class that has mix students (some with padi OW and some naui OW) The Naui student are far beyond the padi in their skills. Some of the class is review for the naui while the padi students are learning the skills for the first time.

Still the facts are that a lot of dead divers are found on the bottom still wearing their weight belts, even though all OW classes teach to dump the weight belt in an emergency and how to do it. Once panic sets in people get frozen with fear. There have even been reports of drowning on the bottom when the person was at a depth where they could have just stood up. Running out of air is the fault of the diver not watching his/her air supply this "accident" is totally preventable. We teach our OW students that they must be back on the surface with a min. of 500PSI or they will not pass the course. We check their gauges when they come up and if they have less than the 500 they don't pass ,,period..It is that serious..they are taught to begin their accent with 800 psi to allow for their 3min safety stop and have the 500 on the surface.. All divers are encouraged to continue diving and continue their dive education. Unfortunately, diving is not like riding a bike, if you don't continue diving you loose your skills. After the OW course I don't know of any agency that requires a refresher. We are also told that our certification allows us to dive in the conditions in which we were trained, however there is nothing that stops a diver who is certified in a fresh water lake or in the warm water resort areas from renting gear and going for a dive in the cold saltwater, kelp forests of Calif.

 

[TSandM]

You know, we talk a lot about how classes aren't turning out students who are capable, but I had an experience the other day that gave me food for thought. We dove with a student we certified this summer, but he hadn't been in the water for more than five weeks since class. He was also diving different grear from what he used in class. He didn't do very well, with a lot of buoyancy problems, and I certainly would not have expected that he would have been much help had one of us had a problem. He did much better in his fourth certification dive, though.

We can control how much practice we give people with skills during their classes, but without recent practice, everything they learn will get rusty, and the things they did least or talked about least will be the first to go.