Breaking news: Alabama student drowns

[eleven]

why do people constantly forget that the surface is not far away.
my condolences to the family but hey common sense please!

 

[santadive2001]

A sad sad experience... -and so easely avoided...
Our hearts goes out to family and friends...

 

[wfmiller]

Sorry...I didn't read new replies this morning:blush:

That's ok, best thing is just to learn from this. Remember practicing skills is important no matter if you have 2 dives or 2,000 dives.

 

[fisherdvm]

why do people constantly forget that the surface is not far away.

No, contrary, I think the victim was TOO aware that the surface is not far away. If it was 100 ft away, he might not have rushed to the surface holding his breath.

Based on the comments made by some certified divers here on this forum, they still think that pulmonary embolism can not happen at shallow depth. It can happen even if you are only 4 ft below the surface.

The surface is always far away, therefore you always need to blow before you go. Whether that is horizontally to a buddy or vertically to the surface.

 

[eleven]

I have had to swim to the surface on more than one occasion and i admit,its not very nice . I will take a bend and a barotrauma over death anyday. how hard is it to remember to breath out? it is taught to you in the pool on your second day in the pool when you do the open water course, if you can remember important things like this perhaps you shouldnt be in the water

 

[biggmarty]

I took an SSI OW class at Ole Miss, and our instructors more than expressed the need to constantly exhale. Even when we did reg retrieval at 15ft, they got onto people who weren't exhaling when we got back up. When they allowed us to work on buoyancy, they told us explicitly that barotrauma, overexpansion, etc. was all completely possible even in the pool. Our instructor even told us that we had to come up from 15 ft in no less than 30 seconds, because of the 30ft/min rule. Even so, any one of us could have still panicked and shot to the surface, thus blowing a hole in our lungs on the way. It's really sad, but I don't think I would be quick to say that SSI needs to do better or the Instructor/DM's need to do better.

 

[Steve P]

We are taught from day one that to dive safely we cannot break certain rules (actually Laws of Physics). None of these are more fundamental than to exhale while ascending - even at very shallow depths. My OW checkout included an ESA from ~ 30feet. While its been almost 30 years I can still recall the sensation of continous exhaltion during the ascent. Problem is that panic is either the cause or significant contributing factor in many (if not most) diving accidents. Yes its speculation, but seems likely that diver panic may have been a factor here.

 

[Lead_carrier]

Sincerest condolences to the family. It's never easy to lose someone, especially when they have so much of life to look forward too.

http://www.al.com/news/press-register/index.ssf?/base/news/1176974235195340.xml&coll=3

Did anyone else notice that on the last paragraph on this report that it says the instructor was a master diver? I wonder if this was a misprint, misqoute or what?

 

[mike_s]

Did anyone else notice that on the last paragraph on this report that it says the instructor was a master diver? I wonder if this was a misprint, misqoute or what?

The news media is known for inaccurate reporting, regardless of the subject. This is most likely just another inaccuracy.

A perfect example of this is most news media stories refer to the tank as an "oxygen tank" or that the diver "ran out of oxygen" any time there is an incident. (We all know that we're not diving on oxygen, but air, or air/nitrox mixes 99% of the time. If pure o2 is used, it's usually a deco bottle).

Their reference to the instructor as a "master diver" is that he's most likely a MSDT (Master Scuba Diving Trainer )

A MSDT is just a PADI instructor who has five PADI Specialty Instructor certifications and has certificatied at least 25 student divers, and of course sent in another payment to PADI for the new rating. The Master Diver rating in Padi is just someone who has 5 speciality ratings and rescue cert. Naui, it's a seperate class, but somewhat similar in requirements (depending on speciality classes taken).

 

[Thalassamania]

The Master Diver rating in Padi is just someone who has 5 speciality ratings and rescue cert. Naui, it's a seperate class, but somewhat similar in requirements (depending on specialty classes taken).

NAUI Master Diver has nothing whatever to do with specialty courses, it is based on the idea that the student demonstrates the same level of knowledge an skill expected of a NAUI Instructor except for the teaching and class control material.