OP
Robinhood:
Really? I didn't know that. His class was before the change though.
Another good ol OOA
- Thread starter MikeFerrara
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
Really? I didn't know that. His class was before the change though.
Odd, that...MikeFerrara:
I don't have the NACD standards in front of me, but the course description from the NACD website states:
"The cave diver course is one of the most advanced certifications available today. It is taught in a minimum of four days with a minimum of eight dives. The emphasis of this course is equipment configuration, decompression problem solving, jumps, circuits, traverses, and surveying."
Seems a bit of a stretch to emphasize "decompression problem solving" without doing any decompression... My own cert is NACD/TDI (cavern was IANTD/NSS-CDS, Intro & Apprentice were NSS-CDS) and we did deco as a routine part of caving. Perhaps it was just a function of the caves we used.
Rick
OP
Rick Murchison:
Decompression planning is part of the course material although not very extensive compared to say...a trimix class. It isn not (at least it wasn't) required to actually dive deep and/or long enough to incure any mandatory decompression during training dives though.
The use of decompression gasses wasn't a requirement either.
When he did his class they dived in Peacock (1, 3, olsen and OG) and telford for cavern and intro. They dived the same with the addition of Ginnie for full cave.
Diving nitrox and no stages it's unlikely you'll rack up much in the way of deco in any of those except Ginnie and thinking back I guess I don't know for a fact that they didn't in Ginnie. Maybe they did do a little there...not sure.
Little River was closed at the time and that's one of the caves where students usually get into a little deco.
Former FLL Now MSP Diver
Contributor
MikeFerrara:
Not at all. I'm saying that here's a diver with advanced training with a strong instructor who would have surpassed standards, yet he still managed to run out of air on a rather routine ow dive.
If someone like this can go OOA, then maybe the accidents you always rally against aren't due to a particular agency, but are due to human error. I haven't had the level of training he's had, but I've never had an OOA.
Marc
OP
FLL Diver:
You have a point. The only thing I would add is that so many of the incidents we've seen correlate well (by observation) with what often isn't taught in conventional training or required to be taught by standards.
Training doesn't eliminate the possibility of error of course but if it doesn't minimize it then why bother?
The one problem we see a lot of is divers suffering rapid ascents that start with a free flow. Free flow management isn't taught in all classes and usually when it is it's practiced once with the diver on their knees. When it happens for real they're midwater. All you have to do is ask a few divers to manage a free flow midwater to find out how many can't.
We've also seen a fair number of problems and even injuries during AOW deep dives. When you see them it's pretty clear that the divers aren't very good shallow so why go deep?
You can only make an error in gas management if you've learned it. He made an error but some training just leaves a diver totally ignorant on the subject.
Even with the fairly extensive training this student has I didn't want to take him any deeper that what we did because he hasn't been diving recently. That could have been a real mess if we were at 130 ft...150 ft is allowed in the class. We wouldn't have been as deep as we were (40 ft) except the planned skills included lift bag deployment and leading us through a mock decompression schedule. Both are hard to get anything out of if you're too shallow.
Like anything else. Once you're taught a thing then it's your job to keep learning and maintain it but again you can't maintain something you never had.
Former FLL Now MSP Diver
Contributor
MikeFerrara:
Bingo. Training and practice should never stop, regardless of where you get it.
I'm glad we've agreed on something.
Marc
Ok... we used Nitrox & stages & deco gases & lost deco gas drills & such as part of our course. I just assumed everyone else would too. It is only tangentially connected to this problem anyway; running out of gas is pretty early on the "do not do" training list.MikeFerrara:
Rick
Scubamedicjoe
Contributor
to me dont matter what his level of training is he forgot the most basic part of scuba training , monitoring your O2 and not asking your buddies for air how more stupid can you get , Bolting to the surface, man accident waiting to happen . he needs to read this thread himself or herself ,so they can think about this long and hard maybe his or others life will depend on it in the future.
So Mike,
Are you game for continuing Trimix class with this student, or will you ask him to play in the shallow water with the other rec divers?
Wouldn't ask for shared air from a handy diver because he didn't know him well enough? . . . but was there diving with him as a team member? . . . I've never heard a lamer excuse for poor decision making!
theskull
Are you game for continuing Trimix class with this student, or will you ask him to play in the shallow water with the other rec divers?
Wouldn't ask for shared air from a handy diver because he didn't know him well enough? . . . but was there diving with him as a team member? . . . I've never heard a lamer excuse for poor decision making!
theskull
OP
theskull:
I would like him to make a sensible decision and he already has a pocket full of cards. I wouldn't encourage him to do anything deep or technical right now. For myself, I'm not willing to do anything other beyond working on shallow skills with him until those are sharp.
Yes it was an excuse. The fact of the matter is that he blew the gas plan thinking that it was close enough. Since he was at or slightly below ascent pressure and was deploying his bag to ascend I suppose he figured he was on track.
Then, however, deploying the bag task loaded him to the point that he didn't have a handle on anything else. Ho stopped watching us and his gas. While you deploy a bag (or do anything else) you have to continue to manage the rest of the dive...buddy, gas, depth ect.
Task loading is one of the big killers.
I think training and practicing for multiple tasks is critical for all divers but all technical dives require divers to manage multiple tasks and some times lots of them. Especially ascents can get real busy with swithching gasses, tracking a schedule, deploying bags and keeping an eye on every one else. Throw in a leaking mask or malfunctioning reg or something and every one better be on the ball.
Similar threads
