Criminally negligent homicide?/Scuba Instructor Faces Charges (merged threads)

[Thalassamania]

The only time I ever left my scuba unit at the bottom of the pool was in Divemaster training and it was closely supervised.

Are you bragging or complaining?

 

[bfw]

True, but not as done in this exercise. I've been teaching scuba for a number of years now (PADI) and during any emergency ascents in open water classes, regs always stay in the mouth, just to be safe.

It's NOT an emergency ascent drill.

Additionally, in open water classes, we teach to don and doff on the bottom,

Again, NOT the same drill.

PADI would never allow one of its instructors to do this skill with open water divers,

Wrong. You could teach it, you just couldn't REQUIRE a student to perform it in order to pass. This aspect of PADI standards has been thoroughly discussed here.

Your logic is flawed. Diving is not safer with this skill than without it and it doesn't save lives. I'd seriously doubt that you can cite a single incident where a diver said "If I hadn't done that skill in my open water class, I'd be dead".

I can, and his logic is sound. The skill being taught is problem solving, and not panicking when task loaded. There is more to learning to dive than parroting.

 

[bfw]

I agree that some instructors in general don't turn out the best students, but pease do not lump me in with the crowd. That said, many instructors don't turn out good students and you can't simply generalize it to all PADI instructors.

Dive instruction properly has two purposes - imparting knowledge/skill, and, as long as it confers a credential granting access to the sport, as a barrier to entry, preventing access for those not suited. PADI specifically prevents the realization of the second goal, by prohibiting any exercise that might probe a student's stress tolerance, task loading capacity, or anxiety threshhold.

 

[Walter]

I am glad you brought up stress.

I didn’t. You did. I merely pointed out you were clueless as to the stress involved with this skill.

Stress in a student can show up at anytime any where. This is an important fact for an insturtor to believe.

I think it’s important to reduce stress.

Yes we break the teaching process down into small steps to help reduce stress. But this does not prevent all possibility of stress. We must always be on the look out for stress.

Unless you teach a class that is substantially different from that taught by most instructors with your agency, and I’ve seen nothing in any of your posts to lead me to believe your class is anything but a cookie cutter product, you don’t break the skills down enough to reduce stress and you don’t teach enough skills to reduce stress in open water.

I have seen students complete the pool sessions and not exihbit any stress until the open water dives.

This is no surprise considering your methods.

Stress is a the root of more dive acidents than any other single factor.

Yes, and skills such as doff & don give divers confidence in their abilities and, as a result, reduce stress.

 

[bfw]

Forgive me calling you on this. I can't tell you how many CESA students I have stopped for not exhaling with a reg in their mouth, I am going to bet you have too. The gear is not necessarily a part of the issue.

BINGO! Even had one spit out the reg and fight me stopping him.

Regulator in mouth is no substitute for brain in gear.

 

[bfw]

Not-so-good agencies can turn out good instructors too, but it is usually not directly the result of anything the agency did. It is more due to the individual instructor taking enough pride in what they do to want to do it better than what the minimum standard calls for.

Short form, even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then.

 

[bfw]

Stress is a the root of more dive acidents than any other single factor.

And THAT is the point. Valid training will probe and raise a student's stress tolerance and their ability to deal with stressful situations. That is one purpose of the exercise in question.

 

[bfw]

In which case the blame goes to the person that knowingly appointed an unqualified person to teach.

Because the unqualified person had no way of knowing she wasn't qualified, or because she had no choice in the matter?

 

[Thalassamania]

Because the unqualified person had no way of knowing she wasn't qualified, or because she had no choice in the matter?

Please ... let's not confuse qualified and certified, in either direction.

 

[perdidochas]

The only time I ever left my scuba unit at the bottom of the pool was in Divemaster training and it was closely supervised.

I did that particular drill at all levels of training--from NAUI OW I to NAUI Assistant Instructor. It's not a dangerous drill, however, I will grant that if circumstances are the way people claim--that the instructor was at the other end of the pool, the instructor was negligent. IIRC, whenever that drill was done, it was with at least 1 instructor/AI per 3 or 4 students. I can't imagine doing it with 20 students and 2 AIs.

That said, I took the course in question at UA, but in 1982. I also took my Advanced course there as well (1984), and was an AI with courses there from 1985 to 1987. However, when I was taking the course it was NAUI, and contracted to another shop.