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[Bottom Scratcher]

Interesting article?

Unsafe at any Depth: PADI Scuba Diver
Powered by CDNN - CYBER DIVER News Network
by STANFORD SUZUKI

http://www.cdnn.info/news/editorial/o050620.html

[Mod note: Please do not copy & post entire articles here. You are free to create your own synopsis or link to the article. Thank you. ]

 

[TheRedHead]

Haven't we done this one before?

 

[Don Burke]

Haven't we done this one before?

Several times

 

[daniel f aleman]

Considering that 80% of all divers are trained by PADI... and that scuba divers are not dying in droves.

 

[JeffG]

Considering that 80% of all divers are trained by PADI... and that scuba divers are not dying in droves.

The article is about the "Resort Diver Card" (or something like that). Its where the diver has to be accompanied by a DM or instructor IIRC.

 

[MoonWrasse]

Anyone can purchase dive equipment, with or without any training.
They can then proceed to dive as deep as they please, and if they survive somewhat intact they will likely be encouraged to continue doing so without any training.

Contrast this to a different water sport, surfing, which has no training. Just buy a board and go. Just a couple of days ago I was bike riding and at my stretch stop they had just fished out the body of a new surfer who'd drowned.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/01/24/MNGDPGS5MB1.DTL
Taste of surfing proves fatal
Man who apparently drowned off S.F. beach was new to sport

Suzanne Herel, Stacy Finz, Chronicle Staff Writers

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Sean O'Flaherty Fahey grew up in Vermont and became inter...

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Sean O'Flaherty Fahey seemed to accomplish anything he set his mind to, earning three degrees in mechanical engineering, including a doctorate, working on a master's in business and studying Gaelic in honor of his Irish heritage.

So when the 33-year-old Fahey went looking for a new pursuit -- something recreational -- he picked the challenging sport of surfing. He had gotten a taste for riding the waves last month during a vacation in Central America, said his mother, Bonnie Machia, and ultimately "it undid him."

On Sunday, beachgoers found him unconscious after an apparent surfing accident just off San Francisco's Ocean Beach near Sloat Boulevard. A nurse who happened to be surfing there and another man tried to resuscitate Fahey but to no avail. He was pronounced dead at UCSF Medical Center shortly after 11 a.m.

The medical examiner is investigating the cause of Fahey's death, which for now is being treated as a drowning.

Machia, who lives in Burlington, Vt., where Fahey grew up, said she hadn't talked much with her son about his newfound hobby "because he knew I was concerned about him doing it."

Fahey visited Costa Rica in December and took surfing lessons there, said a close friend, Melanie Nunnink. "He was so excited to learn this new sport," she said. "Being on the water was just thrilling for him."

When he returned from his vacation, Nunnink said, Fahey was gung-ho about getting all the right surfing gear. He bought a wetsuit in Los Angeles, but Nunnink said she thought Fahey was just getting started and hadn't even bought a surfboard yet.

"I'm just so confused," she said Monday. "I didn't realize he was making it happen so quickly. That's why it's so shocking that he washed up on the beach."

Nunnink believes that Fahey had accomplished so much in his professional life that he was looking for something new to fulfill him.

At CSA Engineering in Mountain View, where Fahey had worked since 2000, vice president Eric Anderson said he was a "straight-shooter, no BS."
...

 

[proyce]

Wow! Somebody needs to take a pill. A whole article of opinions and "facts" and "statistics", none of it supported by any references, documentation, footnotes, interviews, or anecdotes.

An edit: I have PADI open water certification. I guess I'm going to die when I go to San Diego in March and Cozumel in April.

 

[Diver Dennis]

The article is about the "Resort Diver Card" (or something like that). Its where the diver has to be accompanied by a DM or instructor IIRC.

It is I think Jeff. I would like to see them get rid of that course.

 

[MoonWrasse]

Wow! Somebody needs to take a pill. A whole article of opinions and "facts" and "statistics", none of it supported by any references, documentation, footnotes, interviews, or anecdotes.

An edit: I have PADI open water certification. I guess I'm going to die when I go to San Diego in March and Cozumel in April.

Only from shock when you realize there's more than frozen tundra out there

 

[RonFrank]

Despite PADI's claims to the contrary, the PADI "Scuba Diver" course has effectively cut, almost in half, the requirements for the 70% of entry-level divers who do NOT continue their training. Just as Open Water divers and dive professionals typically ignore recommended O-W depth limits, so too PADI "Scuba Diver(s)" will be diving deeper, probably much deeper, than 12m/40ft.

From the let's pull some stuff out or our tail department comes this statement....

PADI does not endorse a *resort* course that I can see that allows one to dive beyond the resort where the certification was done. Sandals for example offers the Discover Scuba. It limits one to one year of diving ONLY at sandals, and ONLY one tank a day to 40feet max WITH an instructor.

Hardly the scenerio that is described in the original thread that implied that the resort course was good anywhere in the world, and that divers would be breaking the rules.

Regardless of if the Resort course is a good idea, I'm not sure I can buy into this dudes stats. :11doh: