A compassionate instructor
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Coldwater_Canuck
Contributor
You're talking strictly "training" standards though.
When you walk in a dive shop and they ask you for a cert card, is that also not considered part of the agency standards?
No matter how safe or harmless the experience was, it doesn't change the fact that while instructing a class, the dive professional gave dive gear out to an uncertified child (age kind of irrelevant though) who wasn't in the class and who he didn't plan to directly supervise. From an agencies standards point of view, I'm pretty sure that violates something. More concerning, from a legal point of view, it seems like it could easily be cast as negligence if something happened.
The instructor was obviously just trying to do a good thing, but in today's world you do need to think about things like this. Had something gone wrong, the instructor could have been in a ton of trouble.
nilsdiver
Contributor
Which is deep enough to cause an AGE injury.
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If there had been a problem we'd all be saying that he made the wrong decision, clearly, since there was not problem, the instructor made the correct decision. You can play stupid "what if" games forever, but that's all heat and smoke without any fire.
I don't know if the instructor was PADI/SSI/NAUI, etc. But if you're going to quote standards, the instructor wasn't pushing the SSI standards too far. SSI has a subset of the Try Scuba program, called the Try Scuba (shallow end of pool, only). Number 6 of the standards for this program state:
6. [FONT=Optima LT Std,Optima LT Std][FONT=Optima LT Std,Optima LT Std]Minimum Age: [/FONT][/FONT]There is no minimum age or upper age limit for Try Scuba.
Also, the minimum age for Scuba Rangers (and I presume the PADI Seal Team is the same) is 8. Which I believe is the age of the kid mentioned.
6. [FONT=Optima LT Std,Optima LT Std][FONT=Optima LT Std,Optima LT Std]Minimum Age: [/FONT][/FONT]There is no minimum age or upper age limit for Try Scuba.
Also, the minimum age for Scuba Rangers (and I presume the PADI Seal Team is the same) is 8. Which I believe is the age of the kid mentioned.
No one got hurt - so the instructor must have been right ???? There's a new low standard..
The alveoli in your lungs will burst when the internal pressure in them is only 2psi over the external pressure. This is assuming healthy lungs. Old smoker's lungs may burst at even less over pressure.
In fresh water 34feet = 14.7 psi, so 1 foot = 14.7/34 = .43psi/foot. So, 2psi=4.65feet of fresh water. You might not embolize in 4 feet, but you can in 5 feet.
In salt water 1 foot works out to be .445 psi/ft. So, 2psi = 4.5 feet.
I teach this in my OWD and my Dive Control Specialist courses. Though, like the poster, I usually truncate this to just "4 feet."
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Coldwater_Canuck
Contributor
Well I'm not sure that's the right way to evaluate a situation, just by the result. As purely a thought experiment (and in no way am I saying anyone involved was nearly this reckless), is it the correct decision to drink and drive as long as no one gets hurt? Why not make the law: you hurt/kill someone drinking and driving, you go to jail; but simply getting caught driving drunk but not causing any actual harm yet, you're allowed to drive away? Personally, I don't like this law.
I'm assuming though that those programs require professional supervision, not just giving a kid some gear and leaving him alone with his parent to do whatever?
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