Accident at Lake Rawlings Sunday 05/27/2012

[hypertech]

If it doesnt happen without fiddling with the valve than that isn't what happens. All you are teaching is what happens when you fiddle with the valve.

 

[boulderjohn]

If it doesnt happen without fiddling with the valve than that isn't what happens. All you are teaching is what happens when you fiddle with the valve.

Fiddling with the valve in shallow water recreates the exact same feeling a dive may experience in a low on air situation in deeper open water. I thought I had mentioned that, but apparently I didn't.

 

[ktkt]

I suspect that fiddling with the valve also does a pretty good job of simulating what it feels like when you crack open your tank to check the pressure and carelessly forget to turn the tank on all the way... and then at 30-40 feet start to find it rather hard to breathe. (And yes, once was enough to learn the lesson, thanks! This is easily diagnosed during buddy checks.)

 

[Katch]

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.

I have to respectfully disagree. Murphy’s Law is alive and well. You can check your SPG every minute, but that will not prevent an OOA situation due to a catastrophic equipment failure. What if something blows/freezes up on the 1st stage reg, or the spg itself malfunctions. Equipment can have defects, even when properly maintained. Look at the AL6351 tanks. Back in 1990, nobody would’ve guessed they could fail.

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.

I believe that is a good practice. It will give a diver experience in what it feels like to have a tank run out of air. But again, a catastrophic failure may result in an immediate air stoppage (maybe in mid breath!).

I say go one step further, and also let the student know what it feels like to have an immediate stoppage of air. My instructor did practice a similar scenario. He explained what he was going to do. We were fairly shallow (5-10 ft), and an assistant stayed within arms reach ready to hand me his primary if I panicked and couldn’t get to his octo.

I’ve only been diving a couple years, so I’m far from an expert. This is only my opinion, and I apologize for not staying on topic.


Only my $0.02

Steve

 

[wkw198]

whilst the discussion of OOA drills is interesting, i am more interested to learn about whether reasons for expulsions from PADI are ever made public. does the instructor in question have any form of appeal open to him to possibly get re-instated at a later date ? would he be likely to ever be allowed to become an instructor for another agency (or was he already certified for another agency?) after having an expulsion on his padi record?
as i understand he is co-owner of the training business, a padi expulsion cannot be a good thing for encouraging new 1st-time customers to the business so i presume if the padi decision is final then the owners would have to make plans to sell the business on to new owners in order for it to remain a going concern (for the benefit of all the other staff that are associated with it at least).
has it been confirmed that none of the rest of the group (including the buddy) initiated a rescue for 30 minutes after the diver first became separated ? i am still staggered that this can happen in an open water training situation. fair enough things can happen after the diver is "certified" and overestimates their own abilities, but in the critical first four dives of the training course they should be under such tight supervision as to go missing for a maximum of one minute at the most, any more than that is inexplicable to me in this situation. as soon as the buddy realised his wife was missing, protocol says he would/should have alerted the rest of the group. even if he could not communicate directly with the instructor, the message could have been passed along the line of students that he was trying to get the attention of the instructor and help was urgently needed at the rear of the line. and certainly at the beginning of the safety stop or ascent of a shotline, the instructor must have noticed that he was short one diver. at that point the buddy needs to be questioned as to how long ago he lost contact with his partner and the rescue initiated immediately based on the response. i'm sure these things will end up in court so i understand if not too much can be stated as fact at this point but i'm just amazed that its even possible to get into this situation during the OWD. i did my own OWD in a quarry that also does not always have the best visibility but at no time did i feel we were swimming in any area or doing any skill where there was any sort of risk that i couldn't cope with based on what i had already done in confined water pool sessions. i am naturally a risk averse person but it was obvious from the training materials and the way the course was taught that the OWD program is a very first stage of a long journey and the student needs to be confident and keep close to the professional(s) throughout the first four dives and only do things they are instructed to do, when instructed, for their own safety and the rest of their group. apart from the lack of any assistants, the speculation that this lady panicked and tried to get to the surface suggests that her course was being taught in a very different way than what i would recognise as padi standard.

 

[BDSC]

so i presume if the padi decision is final then the owners would have to make plans to sell the business on to new owners in order for it to remain a going concern (for the benefit of all the other staff that are associated with it at least).

The last time I checked the instructor involved, who also is part owner, is no longer featured on the website. No doubt he will never instruct again as a PADI instructor but not sure if he could instructor under a different agency. Of course after what happened, maybe he never want to instruct again anyway. I have no idea if he would be required to sell his interest in the business but I kinda doubt it. Maybe he goes back to being a silent partner.

 

[t-mac]

Interestingly I just went to the PADI website and searched for the shop using their locator (geographically and by name). It is not in there. Was it never listed for some reason or has it been removed? All of the other local shops appear to be there. The shop's website is still up and still shows PADI affiliation, but they are conspicuously absent on the padi shop search tool.

 

[Diveva]

The last time I checked the instructor involved, who also is part owner, is no longer featured on the website. No doubt he will never instruct again as a PADI instructor but not sure if he could instructor under a different agency.

It was mentioned earlier that the Instructor is also a NAUI instructor trainer, So yes he could teach under NAUI.

Interestingly I just went to the PADI website and searched for the shop using their locator (geographically and by name). It is not in there. Was it never listed for some reason or has it been removed? All of the other local shops appear to be there. The shop's website is still up and still shows PADI affiliation, but they are conspicuously absent on the padi shop search tool.

Yes, The Shop used to be listed as a 5-Star PADI facility, the fact that it's no longer listed on the PADI site is interesting.

 

[hypertech]

I don't see anything on the expelled dive center page - at least yet. For whatever reason I was a couple days behind on the instructor so I might be seeing a cached page.

 

[tursiops]

It was mentioned earlier that the Instructor is also a NAUI instructor trainer, So yes he could teach under NAUI.

Yes, I think you mentioned this earlier. How do you know this? Did someone else mention it too?


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