Considering PADI master diver

[MikeFerrara]

Sorry, but I don't think that statement can be just thrown out there and left. On exactly *what* do you base that statement? Accident/mortality rates? Diver drop out? Your personal opinion that most divers "just are not good enough"?

As far as I am aware, diver accident mortality rates do NOT bear out that agency training methods do not work. There are what? Millions of certified divers? Tens of thousands (?) of active divers divers diving each week and accident/mortalities are *rare*.

You need dead people to convince you that there is a problem with training? You think a lack of deaths is proof that training is good? Your logic is flawed. It assumes that divers will die without good training and that since they aren't dying, the training must be good. I started diving 10 years before I ever took a course. My training must have been good because I didn't die right? However, that can't be true because I didn't have any training. The mortality rate is low because a divers can crawl down a line, walk around the bottom for a while and climb back up the line and usually not get hurt. That does more to prove that divers don't need any training than it does to prove that training is good.

Why don't we look directly at the average skill level of newly certified divers and judge training based on that. Rototiller, is a word that comes to mind. It's a silted out churned up mess anyplace there are a few divers in the water. Why might that be? Lets look at training standards. PADI standards only require a student to be off the bottom for a couple of minutes during the whole course. The word trim isn't mentioned anyplace in course materials and the mechanics behind it is never introduced. Skills are taught to kneeling divers and divers never need to demonstrate them in a diving situation (midwater). Divers are never required to demonstrate that they can do a controled descent or ascent while staying with, and aware, of a buddy. There are no performance reauirements that divers have to meet during the tour portion of the diive. The diver can crawl through and it meets standards.

You want to look at the con-ed courses? The skills that aren't taught in OW aren't taught or required in AOW, rescue DM or instructor training either.

Lets go back to your accidents now. According to DAN buoyancy control problems are reported in a large percentage of dives that result in death (60% or so?). Back when they used to report that same stat for dives that resulted in injury, it ran over 40%. Do you see anything in the standards that would help us understand why there are so many buoyancy control problems? Maybe it's because it literally isn't taught or required to be learned?

I keep hearing that accidents are rare but I've had to pull too many divers out and direct traffic for ambulances too many times. Accidents aren't rare enough to suit me.

Sorry if you're going to use accident statistics to prove the effectiveness of training, they're going to have to be real statistics. Compare the incident rate of your trained divers to those who are not trained and/or who are trained differently. Then we could examine the effect that your training really has. Your argument using accident statistics is a straw man argument that's been used to long and it only works on people who don't know any better.

On behalf of some people, there seems to be a hugely elitist attitude. Unless some one can free dive to 50 meters, assemble their gear at depth, do the whole dive with their mask off and *still* have three quarters of a tank left at the end of the dive - then they are just not REAL divers....

Unless I'm mistaken, those are your words and I haven't seen them repeated by anyone else here.

Sorry, but to me, diving is about introducing people to a "new world", and to do that as safely as possible. Too many people here seem to forget that simple idea.
-j-

I didn't forget that and I don't believe it. Dive training is sold on the pretence that the client will be taught to dive. Instead they are taught to breath under water while kneeling. "As safe as possible"? Just rhetoric. How are you defining safe and what are you comparing it to?

 

[josh]

You need dead people to convince you that there is a problem with training? You think a lack of deaths is proof that training is good? Your logic is flawed. It assumes that divers will die without good training and that since they aren't dying, the training must be good. I started diving 10 years before I ever took a course. My training must have been good because I didn't die right? However, that can't be true because I didn't have any training. The mortality rate is low because a divers can crawl down a line, walk around the bottom for a while and climb back up the line and usually not get hurt. That does more to prove that divers don't need any training than it does to prove that training is good.

Why don't we look directly at the average skill level of newly certified divers and judge training based on that. Rototiller, is a word that comes to mind. It's a silted out churned up mess anyplace there are a few divers in the water. Why might that be? Lets look at training standards. PADI standards only require a student to be off the bottom for a couple of minutes during the whole course. The word trim isn't mentioned anyplace in course materials and the mechanics behind it is never introduced. Skills are taught to kneeling divers and divers never need to demonstrate them in a diving situation (midwater). Divers are never required to demonstrate that they can do a controled descent or ascent while staying with, and aware, of a buddy. There are no performance reauirements that divers have to meet during the tour portion of the diive. The diver can crawl through and it meets standards.

You want to look at the con-ed courses? The skills that aren't taught in OW aren't taught or required in AOW, rescue DM or instructor training either.

Lets go back to your accidents now. According to DAN buoyancy control problems are reported in a large percentage of dives that result in death (60% or so?). Back when they used to report that same stat for dives that resulted in injury, it ran over 40%. Do you see anything in the standards that would help us understand why there are so many buoyancy control problems? Maybe it's because it literally isn't taught or required to be learned?

I keep hearing that accidents are rare but I've had to pull too many divers out and direct traffic for ambulances too many times. Accidents aren't rare enough to suit me.

Sorry if you're going to use accident statistics to prove the effectiveness of training, they're going to have to be real statistics. Compare the incident rate of your trained divers to those who are not trained and/or who are trained differently. Then we could examine the effect that your training really has. Your argument using accident statistics is a straw man argument that's been used to long and it only works on people who don't know any better.



Unless I'm mistaken, those are your words and I haven't seen them repeated by anyone else here.

I didn't forget that and I don't believe it. Dive training is sold on the pretence that the client will be taught to dive. Instead they are taught to breath under water while kneeling. "As safe as possible"? Just rhetoric. How are you defining safe and what are you comparing it to?

I asked what you based your statement on, and suggested diver accident mortality rates as one of the possibles. You could have saved a lot of bandwidth by saying "option 3: my own personal opinion".
-j-

 

[Thalassamania]

I asked what you based your statement on, and suggested diver accident mortality rates as one of the possibles. You could have saved a lot of bandwidth by saying "option 3: my own personal opinion".
-j-

There are a fair number of us on this board, Mike included, who's "personal opinions" are based on enough experience and accomplishment to be admissible in court as expert testimony. Unless you fall in that class also, I suggest that you are being foolish, disrespectful and incredibly full of yourself when you try and toss off what Mike has to say as, "just personal opinion" with the assumption that one opinion is every bit as valid as another.

 

[Web Monkey]

I asked what you based your statement on, and suggested diver accident mortality rates as one of the possibles. You could have saved a lot of bandwidth by saying "option 3: my own personal opinion".
-j-

He's not alone. I go on a cruise with my wife every winter and generally go on a couple of dives while we're out.

The cruise line does PADI OW certs in about 2 1/2 days of class and pool (not sure how they pull this off in a 5' pool but that's another story), then island dives on two islands, then they hand out C-Cards.

Without exception, every single year, I see students return injured, bloodied and terrified. The area they dive in looks like it's been run through with a snow plow. And they all passed and were handed a PADI OW card.

I suspect the people with the cheese-grater coral injuries would have appreciated a little heads-up that buoyancy control might be nice, and that the people with the blown sinuses and eardrums might have liked a little more training on the importance of and various methods for clearing, and the guy who did a back-roll with his air off could have used a little more training in general.

While we can argue class length all day here, the results speak for themselves.

An organization that allows certs with truly minimal skills deserves to have a little sunshine thrown on their practices.

Terry

 

[MikeFerrara]

I asked what you based your statement on, and suggested diver accident mortality rates as one of the possibles. You could have saved a lot of bandwidth by saying "option 3: my own personal opinion".
-j-

Actually, I referenced, DAN accident data, training standards, the observed skill level of divers in the water and accidents that I've witnessed. None of that is a matter of opinion but rather a matter of fact. The significance you or I place on those facts might be considered opinion but the existance of the data and events is not.

 

[josh]

There are a fair number of us on this board, Mike included, who's "personal opinions" are based on enough experience and accomplishment to be admissible in court as expert testimony. Unless you fall in that class also, I suggest that you are being foolish, disrespectful and incredibly full of yourself when you try and toss off what Mike has to say as, "just personal opinion" with the assumption that one opinion is every bit as valid as another.

I asked upon what he based his statement. He picked up and demolished a straw man, somewhat impressively, but did *not* answer the question. The *bottom* line is: personal opinion - as you have re-inforced. Now, if you wish to make that "informed personal opinion", so be it. BUT - that does not get away from the fact that it *is* a personal opinion.

Now, Mikes opening comment that

You need dead people to convince you that there is a problem with training?

was both tacky and insulting in the extreme, and certainly *not* worthy of some one you claim to have "enough experience and accomplishment to be admissible in court as expert testimony".

Lets recall mikes original comment:

Many of the agencies use methods that demonstrable DON'T work. That's exactly the point.

I am still waiting for an answer to that, especially the *demonstrable* (sic). People want to throw out comments like that, they need to back it up with more than "because I say so".....

and lastly:

I suggest that you are being foolish, disrespectful and incredibly full of yourself

Ah. Far be it for me to question the perceived "wisdom" of the boards "gurus" eh?
-j-

 

[Web Monkey]

I am still waiting for an answer to that, especially the *demonstrable* (sic). People want to throw out comments like that, they need to back it up with more than "because I say so".....

I see dead people. OK, Not quite dead, but close. I'm also not Mike, but suspect he sees even more than I do.

I see the results of the lowered OW standards (specifically PADI) every year on vacation, where they come up from their checkout dives injured, bleeding and scared.

Watching a bunch of people go through a PADI class, then come up from their checkout dives injured and terrified, every single year for 6 years in a row looks like pretty hard evidence in my book.

Terry

 

[MikeFerrara]

You seem to be having trouble reading.


My question...You need dead people to convince you that there is a problem with training? ...was part of a direct response to your statement...

As far as I am aware, diver accident mortality rates do NOT bear out that agency training methods do not work. There are what? Millions of certified divers? Tens of thousands (?) of active divers divers diving each week and accident/mortalities are *rare*.

As support to my statement ...Many of the agencies use methods that demonstrably DON'T work. That's exactly the point....I referenced, DAN accident reports, observed accidents, observed diver skill level and PADI training standards.

When you can watch classes all around you that are being taught completely within standards yet the students are doing butt first descents and wallowing in the bottom, I think it's safe to say that either standards intend for them to wallow or the standards aren't working. Of course you can read the standards and see that wallowing in the bottom meets performance requirements.

You have read the standards right? You tell me, what are the performance requirements for the tour portion of the OW dives? Lets just look at exactly what PADI standards require, no more no less. You want to defend the standards? Lets go through them line by line.

 

[josh]

You seem to be having trouble reading.

Insults again mike? Classy.

As support to my statement ...Many of the agencies use methods that demonstrably DON'T work. That's exactly the point....I referenced, DAN accident reports, observed accidents, observed diver skill level and PADI training standards.

Of course, it does not help your arguement that DAN itself says:

"Fifty years ago, fatalities and serious diving injuries were common. Today, they are rare and often seem to be associated with unsafe behaviors or hazardous conditions, but they also occur without apparent cause".

http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/medical/report/index.asp

The "today they are rare", directly from DAN kinda knocks your arguement down a bit does it not? (and is in line with *my* original statement). You possibly get the "unsafe behaviour" for your arguement, but, I do NOT see it saying "due to poor standards or training".

While not having the whole report here at the moment, I would also take a pretty good guess that the buoyancy problems associated with deaths (and as reported by DAN) are going to be a failure to establish buoyancy *at the surface* and nothing to do with being under water (although I am prepared to be corrected on this, if some one has the right data).

However, you can continue to be insulting and snide, or you could *try* to explain your position rather than try to ram it down my throat with a "I know better". Some of the points you have made bear mulling over, and, believe it or not (I do not care one way or another), I am on this board mainly to *learn*. Frankly, at the moment, you come across as an overbearing boor rather than some one who may have something interesting to say.
-j-

 

[MikeFerrara]

Insults again mike? Classy.




Of course, it does not help your arguement that DAN itself says:

"Fifty years ago, fatalities and serious diving injuries were common. Today, they are rare and often seem to be associated with unsafe behaviors or hazardous conditions, but they also occur without apparent cause".

http://www.diversalertnetwork.org/medical/report/index.asp

The "today they are rare", directly from DAN kinda knocks your arguement down a bit does it not? (and is in line with *my* original statement). You possibly get the "unsafe behaviour" for your arguement, but, I do NOT see it saying "due to poor standards or training".

DAN reports about up near 1000 injuries/year and pushing 100 fatalities. BSAC reports another bunch. I guess you need to define rare/common. We've had seasons here where we see an ambulance run about every time out to the local site. Quit a few AOW deep dive students, mostly free flows causing rapid ascents, one student lost a fin, sank and freaked. Most don't result in injury but enough have. Per standards, the student could be making their 5th lifetime dive and doing the AOW deep dive. The OW standards don't require much in the way of buoyancy control, nothing in the way of trim and to that point the student has often spent most of their in-water time on their knees. Why dive deep, if you aren't yet doing shallow dives well?

As I tried to point out earlier, I don't think fatalities are a good measure of training effectiveness because that assumes that without training, fatalities must be the result. We don't know that to be true. On the contrary, many of us dived for years without any formal training at all and are still alive. Walking on the bottom might be safe enough but might still be an indication of poor training or at least poor skills. Avoiding fatalities is a good reason to train divers well but I don't think it's the only reason.

I think the nature of the accidents and overall diver performance are a better measure. Silt is a good measure. Damaged coral is a good measure. Standards that explain the silt in that they don't require buoyancy control performance to meet standards. Since divers can get certified without being able to dive midwater, you have to expect silted out sites and damaged coral...we get the silt and we don't have coral. LOL. No sense in diving on the weekend around here unless you like eating dust. Those standards also help explain the high percentage of buoyancy control problems reported in dives that result in injury or death...whether at the surface or not. It doesn't automatically identify the cause but rather just says that the divers who are getting hurt are poorly skilled.

While not having the whole report here at the moment, I would also take a pretty good guess that the buoyancy problems associated with deaths (and as reported by DAN) are going to be a failure to establish buoyancy *at the surface* and nothing to do with being under water (although I am prepared to be corrected on this, if some one has the right data).

I don't have the latest report at all. I have a number of them because I used to review them with students in every class I taught but the reports are all pretty much the same. They really don't change and I don't teach anymore so I don't need the latest report in hand.

BTW, the reason that I reviewed the report with students was because the numbers show poor skills as a primary cause of accidents and DAN spells it out in the summary.

However, you can continue to be insulting and snide, or you could *try* to explain your position rather than try to ram it down my throat with a "I know better". Some of the points you have made bear mulling over, and, believe it or not (I do not care one way or another), I am on this board mainly to *learn*. Frankly, at the moment, you come across as an overbearing boor rather than some one who may have something interesting to say.
-j-

[/QUOTE]

Don't mean to sound overbearing and if I really do, I apologize.

I really think the place to go with this discussion is to the standards. But...it's about
1 am here and I'm about to pack it in for the night.