Accidents waiting to happen

[Mako Mark]

Pug,
teaching diving skills and knowlege is the easy part, it is a matter of time and effort andyou can teach anyone who wants to learn, how to dive.

YOU CANNOT TEACH ATTITUDE.

your students have to adopt an attitude. We adopt the attitude of those we respect and hold as role models. As a mentor to this "generic" diver, you have the duty to guide this diver to want to adopt the correct attitude. Harsh words may be enough, they may be not, however I have found with the gung ho newbie, that ultimatums are often very effective.

I am thinking of the new DM or DM candidate in particular, that feels the "it wont happen to me syndrome. I have taken a number of them aside and told then that although they are meeting the requirements for the course or passing the exams, I will not certify them due to attitude and that they have a certain amount of time to demonstrate to me the correct attitude or the course is over.

In the case of a recently certified DM, this is not possible, but the threat of blacklisting them for employment is equally effective.

whatever approach you take, you have to consider:

Is what you do to adjust their attitude fair, is it for the best of all involved, and will it build goodwill.

 

[vjongene]

Question (FINALLY!) Is there a list of drills, skills, practices, whatever, that should be mastered to ensure "maximum" safety? What are they? And what type of diving should one do until they are mastered (only supervised, etc)? Or is it only a question of experience? ... I can accept that. It seems pretty obvious that the more experience you have the better prepared you are to meet difficulties.

I do not know enough about the DIR-F curriculum to comment, but I do know the CMAS/YMCA drills. They certainly make a good start. BTW, most of these are not taught in PADI OW classes. The drills are practised at 15-20m during level 2 certification, and at 35-40m for level 3. Only once you reach level 3 are you allowed to dive without any supervision.

1) OOA: give primary, make safe ascent while buddy breathing

2) out of breath / hypercapnia: stop buddy, restore normal breathing pattern (sternal pressure, maximize air flow), bring buddy to surface

3) dizziness / vertigo: provide fixed point (on wall or bottom if possible), restore stability, bring buddy to surface

4) nitrogen narcosis: detect aberrant behavior, force ascent to safe depth, check buddy, abort dive if necessary

5) free flow: close buddy's tank valve, initiate buddy breathing, restore air and test regulator, abort if necessary

6) unconscious diver: secure regulator in mouth, make sure buddy is breathing, hold buddy from behind, bring buddy to surface

There are a few more, but you get the gist. The most important skill is to manage two BCs during ascent, and to be able to reassure your buddy. In real life, buddy breathing would of course not be needed.

 

[Rick Murchison]

Is there a list of drills, skills, practices, whatever, that should be mastered to ensure "maximum" safety? What are they? And what type of diving should one do until they are mastered (only supervised, etc)?

Sure...
On the "maximum" safety end:
(1) Don't go near the water
(2) Don't go near the road
(3) Don't leave the house
(4) In fact, don't get out of bed!
----------
If you dive, you must accept that there is risk. Risk management is a combination of envelope (that is, the dive environment), equipment, knowledge, experience and skill. As an extreme example, let's use the skill "mask clearing" - which would certainly be on any list of essential safety skills for most Scuba diving. However, if one limits their diving to the shallow end of the swimming pool, where they can stand up and get their head out of the water, one could remove even that skill from the essentials list.
In other words, the answer to your question depends on the dive envelope (how deep, how long, overhead, hazardous marine life, currents, visibility, entanglement hazards, sharp edges, nearby structure, dive objectives, etc) - which will drive the knowledge, equipment, experience and skill required to lower the risk of the dive to at least "acceptable." If the "maximum" safety achievable fails to meet an acceptably low level of risk, the dive must be aborted on the surface until the required knowledge, equipment, experience and skill can be mustered, or the envelope modified to allow the available knowledge, equipment, experience and skill to lower the risk to an acceptable level.
Trying to come up with a "one size fits all" list of skills, knowledge, experience or equipment may be an interesting intellectual exercise, but 'tis folly in the real world.
Rick

 

[db8us]

Sure...
On the "maximum" safety end:
(4) In fact, don't get out of bed!
Rick

Nope, most people die in bed

 

[Gary D.]

Neither prophet nor soothsayer I am still literate enough to read the handwriting on the wall. What to do with the message however is, I must admit, sometimes perplexing.

You do a couple of dives with an individual, first as a beginner and then later after they have been diving aggressively for a half year and have 60+ dives.

Things you attributed to newbieness haven't changed and you realize that they indicate an attitude of carelessness. You realize that there is a general spirit of unteachableness and surmise an underlying ego problem is at the root of it all.

You watch the individual from afar through postings on the internet and see that they are taking what appear to you as *chances* but worse... they are involving other new divers in their quest for.... whatever it is.

You see this individual playing on the railroad track and calling others to join in the fun. And you see, from your vantage point, the train that is coming.

What do you do?

It’s caused by the lack of a mineral supplement in their diet. A lot of people suffer from it and adding the supplement can get some positive results.

Try to work with them without having to add the supplement. But if all else fails take a cast iron skillet and smack them right between the eyes with it. Adding some iron to their diet should get their attention.

Gary D.

 

[aviddiver(him)]

Thought I was one of the safest divers in the ocean with hundreds of dives under my weight belt - until I ran out-of-air (OOA) at 45ft. I had mismanaged tagging my tank for refill and jumped back into the ocean short-tanked. 25minutes into the dive, no air. One of those lucky days - my buddy was near or was it I had stayed near my buddy. Alternatively I feel confident I could have made it to the surface using a controlled swimming ascent. So with hundreds of dives under my weight belt, my mirrage instantly evaporated and I understood I was one of the most reckless divers in the ocean.

Many many mistakes evolved to bring me to that point. Yes I did my topside pre-entry "Begin With Fasteners And Review". Still didn't register how much air I really had; jumped into the water and didn't recheck before decending; didn't recheck upon reaching depth; as a matter of fact didn't recheck for 25minutes. Ran out of air.

During my topside pre-entry check, I had fallen into a trap of mindlessly performing procedural steps without registering events; during topside pre-entry check we (my buddy & I) had slightly (but critically) modified the "Air" check procedure many dives ago (We had added watching our mechanical pressure gauge for "bounce down" - a valve-not-opened/air-not-flowing indication; this eventually caused me to quit registering absolute air fill). Submerged, my air consumption had become so good that I now did not start checking my pressure guage until approximately 30minutes into shallow dives; in 1969 I learned SCUBA on unbalanced regulators and no pressure guages (in other words: every dive ended with a controlled swimming ascent - as your tank pressure lowered - breathing became harder and harder so you ascended making breathing easier and easier). Unfortunately with balanced regulators low air is NO air; with balanced regulators your last breath isn't even a full breath, as I wrecklessly learned. On and on, mistake after mistake. Too complacent, I am.

Our current solution is to vocalize absoulte air pressure aloud to each other then do the "guage bounce" test taking 4 long deep breaths.

Adding insult to injury, the above was the 2nd time I had similarly jumped short-tanked into the ocean without getting an air refill. Only on the 1st I hadn't run out-of-air. The 1st time was a 35minute short-tanked dive wherein I discovered I only had 500psi upon arriving back on the boat's swimstep. That 1st time was on the last dive of the immediately preceding dive trip to my actual out-of-air event. Even though at the occassion of the 1st short-tank incident, though I swore I would I would change, submerging with a short-tank did happen again but with much worse consequences. So saying, "I recognized my error", may have made me cognitively aware, it didn't guarantee a change in my bad habit. Bad habits are hard to change back into good habits. My out-of-air error event was approx 150 dives ago.

Yes, at one time I was one of the safest divers in the ocean. Then the illusion faced me in my mirror. Diving is not SAFE, it is risky - only I can be safer when diving.