Certification accidents

[deepblueme]

Walter is right, the biggest 2 letter word.....
If

I have and have used a spare air, came up from 110 ft and it worked ok for me (I was testing it).
Wouldn't want to count on it in a high breathing panic but then again a diver should never be using that P-word anyway.

And yes people do have problems during O/W check out dives. I myself had a nonbreather twice at the lake and once on the pool deck.
None of those could have been helped with any kind of air source.

AOW bolt from 80 ft. He walked away after CPR
OW Asthma attack 40. Rode away after CPR
Pool Lesson Heart stopped.

My advice is never be farther from your Inst./DM/Buddy than you want to swim if you have a problem.

 

[Nick_W]

If .

True. I guess what I should have said is "If your instructor and/or DM isn't a totally brain dead moron who devoured paint chips as a child" and despite what some may say around here, there aren't that many brain dead instructors and DMs out there.

 

[Kingpatzer]

There seem to be two issues here:

1) do accidents happen in certification dives. Answer: yes, every year there are a number of serious injuries and deaths to people doing training. It happens. Far more people are injured in car accidents on their way to training, however, so keep it in perspective.

2) are spare air worth it? No, if you mean the spare air gadget that some marketing genius designed as a way to trade useless small cylinders for hard earned gullible diver dollars. If, however, you are mistakenly calling pony bottles "spare air," then the answer is also no for checkout dives, but the question isn't nearly so foolish.

Pony bottles are a great idea for some divers. Some profiles nearly require them, and many divers swear by them. However, open water dives aren't going to be pushing any limits and your instructor will be right there the whole time. You are not at all likely to get into a situation where a pony bottle will help you. But as a new student, carrying a pony might just be the extra bit of task loading that could cause an accident!

 

[Thalassamania]

Accidents do occasionally happen in training although the majority are mainly medical related.
And not a single one of them would have been prevented by a spare air.

You are correct about the Spare Air but way off base on the cause of the majority of training accidents, of which there are typically ten to twenty per year. The typical training accident involves a single entry level student who is separated from leadership personnel and dies a solitary death which is unwitnessed by anyone, and argued about up until the insurance company settles the case on the courtroom steps just before a verdict is brought in and gets a NDA as part of the settlement.

 

[Nick_W]

You are correct about the Spare Air but way off base on the cause of the majority of training accidents, of which there are typically ten to twenty per year. The typical training accident involves a single entry level student who is separated from leadership personnel and dies a solitary death which is unwitnessed by anyone, and argued about up until the insurance company settles the case on the courtroom steps just before a verdict is brought in and gets a NDA as part of the settlement.

I'd venture to guess there are a whole lot more than twenty training accidents a year. I don't think we should only count the ones that result in death. I would like to find some actual stats. I'm sure there are a good percentage of training deaths in basic open water classes each year that are caused by some sudden and unforseen medical issue. Having said that, I'm not really going to go searching for stats to support that hypothesis so I guess we can all just take that for what its worth.


Now, if you're the (insert a beautifully crafted ten word string of profanity here) moron student I had today, me not paying attention wouldn't be the cause of the accident, smashing my personal reg with a tank would be. But it would be like the cases you mention above in that there wouldn't be any witnesses.

 

[Thalassamania]

Yes, I was referring to ten to twenty fatalities per year among any diver in US waters and US citizens worldwide. Sorry about your reg.

 

[Nick_W]

Yes, I was referring to ten to twenty fatalities per year among any diver in US waters and US citizens worldwide. Sorry about your reg.

And are the majority of those really caused by instructors and DMs losing track of students? Like I said, I'm just magnificantly lazy right now so I'm not going to actually look for any statistics, I'm just kind of curious if this is actually the case. It just really seems like there would be a good number of heart attacks or asthma cases, stuff like that.

 

[Thalassamania]

If a student goes under, for whatever reason, and there is not leadership personnel close enough, aware enough and in position to intervene on that student's behalf what does it matter the proximate cause of the incident? If they had that heart attack on the beach would it have had the same outcome? If they had had that asthma attack on the boat do you think that they'd have died? The very situation of a student EVER dieing without leadership personnel to witness it and attempt to assist is unacceptable and unconscionable.

Remember, most training fatalities are unwitnessed. Were they the result of preexisting medical conditions why would most be unwitnessed? Wouldn't they present as witnessed with a significant rescue attempt? Don't fall for the crapolla of ex post facto legal maneuvering.

 

[Nick_W]

If a student goes under, for whatever reason, and there is not leadership personnel close enough, aware enough and in position to intervene on that student's behalf what does it matter the proximate cause of the incident? If they had that heart attack on the beach would it have had the same outcome? If they had had that asthma attack on the boat do you think that they'd have died? The very situation of a student EVER dieing without leadership personnel to witness it and attempt to assist is unacceptable and unconscionable.

Remember, most training fatalities are unwitnessed. Were they the result of preexisting medical conditions why would most be unwitnessed? Wouldn't they present as witnessed with a significant rescue attempt? Don't fall for the crapolla of ex post facto legal maneuvering.

First, using the example of a heart attack, if you have a heart attack on a beach or that same heart attack at, let's say 40 feet, there are most likely going to be very different outcomes whether the instructor or DM is one foot away and staring at you or ten feet away and glancing in the other direction. Its sad, but true. There's only so much you can do for someone in that kind of situation. Especially if you're diving off a boat. Now you've got to get them out of the water, get them on the boat, get the boat to the beach and the hopefully wating ambulance. All that while doing what needs to be done to keep them alive. Odds are you're not going to be as successful as the folks on the beach that just have to wait for the ambulance.

Second, where is all the "unwitnessed" stuff coming from? I honestly am asking. By unwitnessed do you mean the instructor gets back on the boat only to realize that a student is at the bottoom of the bay having a heart attack, or do you mean the instructor looks away for 30 seconds, looks back and sees a student having some serious problems? I'm just kind of confused by what you mean here.

Now, you're correct that if a student just disappears and dies during a class and the instructor has no idea where they are and what happened it is just insane and inexcusable. But is that really a majority of cases? Again, I don't know, but I find it hard to believe.

And wow, sorry, I'm pretty sure none of what I just typed makes any sense at all.

 

[Thalassamania]

Second, where is all the "unwitnessed" stuff coming from? I honestly am asking. By unwitnessed do you mean the instructor gets back on the boat only to realize that a student is at the bottoom of the bay having a heart attack, or do you mean the instructor looks away for 30 seconds, looks back and sees a student having some serious problems? I'm just kind of confused by what you mean here.

Either situation is unacceptable to me.

Now, you're correct that if a student just disappears and dies during a class and the instructor has no idea where they are and what happened it is just insane and inexcusable. But is that really a majority of cases? Again, I don't know, but I find it hard to believe.

That is my understanding.

And wow, sorry, I'm pretty sure none of what I just typed makes any sense at all.

Don't be so hard on yourself ... it makes complete sense.