Accident at Lake Rawlings Sunday 05/27/2012

[tursiops]

I've not read every response to this post, but when I did my open water pool work, and check out dives, there was about 6 of us in the class. The instructor was always in front of us and we had several "assistant instructors" behind us, just to keep tabs and watch us. I assumed this was standard practice. In the pool they would sneak up and give an out of air signal or turn our air off from behind etc. They were just always there and we knew it. So when we were doing check outs in open water we stayed as a group, and had eyes watching from behind while all of us faced our instructor. This was a 6 week class and we all kinda stuck together. Is it normal for just one instructor to do check out dives for a class? I find that very dangerous. I still remember doing mask removal in the gulf and feeling safe because I knew there were divers right behind me watching every move I made. I thought this was standard routine among check out dives until reading this post.

Somebody turned off your air from behind during a pool class, to surprise you? That would break training standards in the two agencies I teach for...

 

[bankyf]

Somebody turned off your air from behind during a pool class, to surprise you? That would break training standards in the two agencies I teach for...

Exactly what I was thinking. I don't remember seeing it specifically in the standards, but I can't imagine that would go over well in court.

 

[ScubaTodd77]

It was never a surprise, and was part of our out of air training. However, we never knew when it was our turn. This was only done in the pool and we were briefed thoroughly prior to the out of air exercises. I find it a little more dangerous that only one instructor would take 6 or more students into open water.

 

[Diveva]

But it does not relieve the instructor of the obligation to include the students in the planning process. And if they had been properly instructed in buddy procedures any plan that called for a single file swim trying to keep up with the instructor would have resulted in serious discussion. Or should if the students have been properly trained. They would know that it is a bad idea, that it should not be done, and a new plan developed and agreed upon. In this case get em in get em done seems to have been the plan.

Exactly,
Unfortunatly, with limited pool time (as little as 8 hours) probably between 3-4 acually underwater doing the 24 required skills, the opertunity to teach true buddy skills, (swim with your buddy, stay with your buddy) isn't available, the first true buddy team training isn't until OWD 1, Planning a dive isn't required until dive 2.

Shortened pool hours, instant gradification, 20 min cert dives, and the get'm in get'm done approch will, as you stated, lead to this sort of fatalitiy being repeated in the future.

 

[blue sky]

It was never a surprise, and was part of our out of air training. However, we never knew when it was our turn. This was only done in the pool and we were briefed thoroughly prior to the out of air exercises. I find it a little more dangerous that only one instructor would take 6 or more students into open water.

I'm curious, what training agency?

 

[Dan G]

It was never a surprise, and was part of our out of air training. However, we never knew when it was our turn. This was only done in the pool and we were briefed thoroughly prior to the out of air exercises. I find it a little more dangerous that only one instructor would take 6 or more students into open water.

Some thoughts I have on this and I am truly looking for more experienced divers than myself and experienced instructors to comment on is this:

It occurs to me that the above training strategy emphasizes the wrong skill. There was a brief discussion of SB last year when Alert Diver wrote about a study that showed that 40% of diver deaths were due to OOA. Many commented that this was surprisingly high and wondered how so many people could have died from a very preventable issue. Turning off a student's air seems to emphasize the idea that OOA can happen at any time and is somewhat random. This is not the case. In non-technical/ recreational/no-deco diving OOA is amazingly preventable. The skill that needs to be taught and practiced are buddy skills and the regular checking and communication of psi/ bar. Would not a better drill/ skill be an instructor occasionally signaling with a noisemaker for all divers to perform a buddy check? Each buddy pair needs to check air and communicate their psi/ bar with the buddy. New divers learn how simple it is to communicate underwater when given the proper skills and divers learn early on that buddy skill are important.

 

[boulderjohn]

You can teach them to check their air regularly by the degree to which you emphasize it during the training. I make a pretty big deal of it myself. Students are in buddy teams throughout the confined water dives, and I tell them to check each other by asking for their remaining pressure frequently while they are not being actively involved in a skill. Other instructors might barely mention it--it is only required once in the CW training in the PADI system. You cannot, of course, guarantee that they will follow through on their dives, particularly when they are diving deep and might be impacted by narcosis.

As I was taught this drill in PADI, it is not supposed to be a surprise; you are supposed to make sure the student is OK with it before starting. The exercise as it is done, though, has limited practicality because, IMO, it has been made obsolete by improvements in equipment. The supposed purpose of the drill is to have students recognize that they are getting dangerously low on air by experiencing the change in the difficulty of breathing before they are OOA. Unfortunately, with modern regulators and the shallow depth of a pool, there is no noticeable change in the difficulty of breathing. You are just suddenly OOA. Consequently, it teaches nothing of value.

In real diving, I have intentionally run stage bottles (AL 80 tanks you carry and breathe down before you switch to the gas on your back) down to just about empty at depths of 150 feet or more. When that happens, I always can feel the regulator start to breathe heavy before it runs out. I have, of course, been watching the gauge, so I already have the next regulator ready to go when that happens, but at that depth I can definitely feel a tank running low--and that is with a pretty good regulator on the tank.

So when I do this drill, I modify it. I first signal the student and then I take the gauge. I do not let the student see it. I then almost shut it off, playing with it until I see the needle start to bounce off the bottom as the student breathes. At that point, I know the student is feeling some resistance in breathing. It is at that point that the student signals OOA, and I turn the air back on, which is a PADI requirement.

 

[hypertech]

So you give the student a false sense of security that they will experience a difference in breathing effort ala you fiddling with their valve before they go ooa?

 

[Wookie]

That's the idea, and when I learned to dive with a Sherwood oasis, WOB went up significantly at about 250 PSI in the cylinder, and I felt this more than a few times. Imagine my surprise the first time I ran out of air with my Atomics. One breath you are breathing, you get one warning breath, and you are out of gas. I agree that with modern equipment, the out of air drill has limited value, and I also agree that the person with the suggestion of randomly pushing a noisemaker during training dives and having all buddies check their and each buddy's gas supply is a great idea.

 

[boulderjohn]

So you give the student a false sense of security that they will experience a difference in breathing effort ala you fiddling with their valve before they go ooa?

Why is that a false sense of security? In many cases that is exactly what will happen, and that is the purpose of the exercise in the first place.

I tell them that the exercise as designed does not do what is intended. I explain why. I tell them that if they are diving and have a true OOA emergency, depending upon the depth and the regulator they are using, there is a good chance there will be a warning conveyed through difficulty in breathing. This will give them time to start doing something about it. This is what it feels like.

I tell them that if they are shallower, they might not get such a warning.

I am not sure I see why that is so very evil.

What are you teaching them when they just feel the air stop?