As a scuba facility owner, I'm supposed to think they are a tool that "hooks" prospective students into signing up for OW classes. Based on conversion percentages, it doesn't work very well. AdivngBel's experience is more an aberration than it is a common outcome. What we see more often is a person checking off one more bucket list item. Once they've done that Try Scuba, they've been scuba diving...in our case, in 14 feet of crystal clear confined water.
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If we never did DSD's, this would never have happened.
The blame for this Scout's death sits squarely upon us as an industry and a is sad comment on greed over reason. We should all be ashamed and, in respect for the family and the very short life of a child, we should man/woman up, look deep inside and consider the consequences of our actions.
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I admire the scuba shop owners located in landlocked middle of nowhere - they show how resilient this industry is, the commitment of the business people behind them, the passion for the sport.
However in this case you miss the forest from the tree and it's probably a matter of perspective, ot in otehr words a constraint of your environment, but certainly does not reflect statistics at large.
Try scuba as a pool-only experience leads to low conversion rates mostly because the experience is what it is, and can be ticked off the bucket list without much regret - people who do try scuba in tropical settings, where after the confined water go to open water and have a real scuba experience, have much higher conversion rates - we love getting the list of these names, because even with our cold water environment we can convert 35-60% of the names we get.
On your second quote, if that's your thinking, to be coherent you should close both your shops and change business - because according to your thinking, if there were no shops and\or manufacturers to promote, endorse or facilitate scuba (and closed circuit) at all there wouldn't be any scuba accidents. i'm sure you wouldn't be happy to eliminate some (those due to DSD) but not all the others (many more in fact) due to all the remaining scuba diving activities.
---------- Post added December 17th, 2014 at 09:50 PM ----------
I'll offer this as "just a diver." I've been watching this thread and pondering the various elements of this situation, including the debate about standards. This debate has caused me as a non-pro to understand standards in a new way. I've always thought of standards in some generic sense as a way to keep training safe. I'm seeing now that they do that in a way that I hadn't previously considered: Tighter standards mean that when other things go wrong, there's more of a buffer to prevent the problems from becoming an accident.
It's kind of mind-boggling all the elements that came together to cause this child's death. It doesn't look to me like the current standard caused his death but that a tighter standard (1:1) would almost certainly have kept all those other wrong things from creating a fatality. For that reason, I can see discussion of changing standards as a reasonable part of proposed solutions. If this view is misinformed, I welcome input.
Why stop at 1:1? maybe we should say DSD should not be done a depths greater than 5 feeet? maybe we should say that we should do experiences like DSD with a 2:1 ration, one instructor per side.. Perhaps we should say that DSD should only be run in water 85F or warmer. Only when conditions are confined water like. Maybe only when visibility exceeds 50 feet.
I wish we could treat this the way we would treat a car accident, when a distracted driver runs over and kills a passenger, another driver, or someone crossing the street. in those cases nobody start reviewing the standards by which driving licenses are issued, but simply the responsibility of the driver in question.
---------- Post added December 17th, 2014 at 10:09 PM ----------
So, it is your position that agencies must simply accept incidences like that as there is just nothing more they can do to prevent them?
Bad judgement takes many forms.
how do we eliminate risk from skydiving?
---------- Post added December 17th, 2014 at 10:11 PM ----------
PADI took fairly quick action in this case and expelled the instructor. Yet, they were condemned by SDI/TDI for doing what I see as prudent and reasonable. How do you feel about that? Do think it was prudent of SDI/TDI to defend such an instructor? Why then do you think they did it? I am almost certain that if they had an instructor do the same thing they would have no problem cutting him loose. At least, I hope that they would take such a stand.
to expand on the quick action, in 2013 (well before the fertilizer hit the fan with the court case) PADI's IDC\CD update had a long pool session on safety considerations for DSD
---------- Post added December 17th, 2014 at 10:14 PM ----------
PADI heavily relies on weeding out or correcting errant instructors by use of student questionnaires and reporting of violations by other witnesses. They specifically said that they won't do "fake student spies". Other than that and a chrystal ball, do you have a suggestion that may allow them to weed out the bad ones before they do anything wrong?
did you watch Minority Report?
---------- Post added December 17th, 2014 at 10:27 PM ----------
No, the agency did all they could do with the instructor. Now they need to look at other contributing factors and what more they can/should do to reduce risk.
---------- Post added December 17th, 2014 at 10:25 PM ----------
To start, agencies could inform the students what their standards are. Right now, they seem to be a secret. (What is the standard for student weighting?) I agree that fake students should not be a routine tool but it might be useful to investigate specific reports when more information is needed.
What proportion of students are asked to complete a questionnaire and how thorough is the questionnaire? I have never heard of one before. Could you post a copy? Do shops prepare periodic instructor evaluation reports? When they decide they need to do more, they will find ways.
It sounds like in order to remain coherent in your incoherent bashing the only recourse for the Agency should be to liquidate itself and dedicate to completely ban diving like a born again porn stars bashing porn or born again [insert your religion here] bashing every conceivable pleasure others partake in.
So, your long established cursus honorem of educator in the diving industry would lead you to believe that instead of training divers using manual written for uneducated novice aspiring divers, the Agency should ask new students to read a technical manual like an instructor manuial or the ISO publications relative to
ISO 24801-X, ISO 24802-X and ISO 24803 [hint, hint - the "secret" standards are actually ISO internationally shared documents]
As for last question, you must have not had any contact with anyone in speaking terms with the Agency, because is a very well know fact that 100% of Open Water certified student plus a considerable percentage of other certified students are requested to participate to the Quality questionnaire and survey.
---------- Post added December 17th, 2014 at 10:29 PM ----------
So far about 50% of my PADI OW students have reported gotten the quality assurance questionnaire - or at least told me they have. So I'd say they are sending them out frequently. They have also gone out to rescue and AOW students.
100% of open water certified divers plus a substantial percentage of other certifications receive the QA questionnaire.
