A good point, and it gets at the heart of the clarification I was trying to make. I am not at all suggesting that one instructor cannot deal with more than one student at a time. Rather, for certain skills performed during the OW dives, certain provisions need to be made, if the requirement that 'students are not to be left unattended' is to be met. Clearly, if a CA is present, life is easier. But, if I have 8 students doing their OW dives (i.e. within the accepted 8:1 ratio), AND I am without a CA, I have to find a way to retain 'control', and provide 'direct supervision', when doing individual skills that involve ascents, or underwater compass swims, etc. If I have two students doing Alternate Air Source use, then an AAS Ascent, obviously both students ascend. But, I cannot leave any students 'unattended' on the platform where we started, so If I have any students underwater, but not doing the skill, they have to ascend as well. The same is true for the CESA. The same would be true for the out and back u/w compass navigation, where all students swim with the student doing the compass run.
Certainly, many of us (instructors) have ear issues after an OW weekend because of the substantial number of ascents / descents we do across the 4 dives, and to expose student divers to that same uncomfortable experience seems unwise. The solution that at least a few instructors adopt (logically) is leave the remaining students on the surface and take students down 1-2 at a time for the specific skills. (They are presumably 'safer' left alone on the surface than underwater.) The problem is, that approach does not meet the requirement that you 'Do not leave student divers unattended, either at the surface or underwater'. As Peter pointed out, there are exceptions, but those exceptions apply when a CA is involved.
That has been my understanding (from PADI) as well, hence my comment.Hawkwood:
Absolutely, although I have to do so (conduct OW without an assistant) at times. I will be doing so next week in the Keys, with two OW students.Hawkwood:
I wasn't trying to make this issue a focus of the thread, and as I said in an early post in this thread, I wasn't at Rawlings last weekend, don't have many details of the accident, and not suggesting the instructor did anything wrong or violated standards, and I do not know if a CA was involved. Rather, I was responding to Mark's perception / statement about the (required) presence of a DM.
Yep. And, they / we usually get away with it. But, ponder this, and I am not suggesting this occurred at Lake Rawlings: you have a group of 6 OW (PADI) students, you do not have a CA, you are doing the CESA skill, and descending with the students one at a time to perfom the skill beginning on a platform 22 feet underwater. Each time you descend, you leave 5 students unattended on the surface, with explicit instructions to 'stay close together and watch each other'. After the fourth CESA, when you surface and count, there are only a total of 5 students on the surface. Nobody knows where the 6th student is. A search is quickly mobilized, the mssing student is located unresponsive on the bottom, 40 feet from the platform, and resuscitation efforts performed after the student diver is brought to the surface are, tragically, unsuccesful. You as the instructor are sued for negligence, and failure to adhere to the training standards of your agency, specifically that you 'Do not leave student divers unattended, either at the surface or underwater'. Do you think PADI will join in your legal defense?bankyf:
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