DARK NARC on AOW dive

[gcarter]

Maybe this should be a separate thread, IDK, but I never hear of - nor have I seen - an instructor pulling out a slate or wet notes when there is a situation where pre-agreed hand signals are insufficient. Seems to me this might help from time to time.

 

[Twisted Bones]

The sad part is I had one in my gear bag. I carry it on my wrist during solo dives for compass bearings.

 

[AfterDark]

The sad part is I had one in my gear bag. I carry it on my wrist during solo dives for compass bearings.

One of the reasons I still use my console, it has a slate on the back, always there always ready.

 

[Hatul]

I'm one of those who is slow and methodical on gearing up, but the instructor should wait for everyone to be ready before jumping in. You need to be comfortable and check out your gear before you jump in, not just on the bottom. So I feel your instructor was at fault and so was your buddy to lose you. And as you realized, when you sense the dive is not safe you need to call the dive, regardless of what someone else wants you to do.

 

[muteki]

Scary to read, but glad everything worked out okay. I got pretty narced from diving to 37m today and realized that I hadn't had enough sleep or food in the morning, plus I woke up with a sore throat… so yeah, the little things definitely add up. (Luckily the worst effect on me was feeling drunk, but aware enough to check my air more frequently than normal).

Agreeing with everyone on the instructor… that was handled terribly on their part. Just the fact that they were rushing you into the water is a huge red flag.

 

[gkwalt]

Looks like you dodged a bullet there. But I may not be a forgiving as the other comments. First, you were in an AOW class. To me, as an instructor, you have successfully completed OW training and at this point a responsible diver. Class or no class, as a certified diver you should have aborted the dive regardless of the instructor. If I was leading this class and you told me you ascended by yourself because on how you felt, I would have congratulated you for doing what is right. As far a being a "solo diver", certifying agencies don't certify solo divers to only a limited depth. Being a solo diver requires experience and training. We all have dived with instabuddies. Being a buddy means both divers are looking out for each other. You said your buddy was no where to be found. Both members of the buddy team have the same responsibility to stay close to the other. I'm sure many others experienced divers on this thread had to chase buddies and scold them underwater. An AOW specialty certificate means that for that situation in which you are seeking certification, you handle not only the routine, but the unexpected. I did an AOW deep diving certification dive recently where the dive plan went completely wrong. However the students responded appropriately and passed the class. If the pilot of the plane comes on the speaker and says," Something does'doesn't feel right in the cockpit, but let's go anyway", how would you feel? It's not important to blame it on dark narc, CO2, or any other rapture of the deep. Any diver, can call, any dive, for any reason, no questions asked!! The only other comment is that some of your posted seemed a bit histrionic. Self awareness and situational awareness are the mainstay to self preservation as a diver.

 

[Twisted Bones]

Thank you for the honest input gkwalt. What do you mean by histrionic? Just a question. I agree on the insta buddy. I wasn't a very good one either after thinking about it. In my defense, I don't think after 5 or 10 minutes I was capable of being anybody's buddy. My decisions were very poor and I will be the first to admit that. I did not post this story to be coddled or anything else, I posted it hoping it may do some other new divers some good to read how many small mistakes or missteps can become big problems really fast. I feel very lucky to be sitting here typing this post right now as it could very easily have gone the other direction and I would have appeared in the accidents forum. On the solo diver comment, I am not a certified solo diver. I just prefer to solo dive in shallower depths. It is less distracting. Yes I get flamed for it on a regular basis.

I would also like to thank everyone else who offered input as well. There have been many things brought up that have added to my thought over this episode. Good stuff.


Thanks


Matt


Histrionic personality disorder (HPD) is defined by the American Psychiatric Association as a personality disorder characterized by a pattern of excessive emotions and attention-seeking, including inappropriately seductive behavior and an excessive need for approval, usually beginning in early adulthood. People affected by HPD are lively, dramatic, vivacious, enthusiastic, and flirtatious. HPD affects four times as many women as men.^[1] It has a prevalence of 2&#8211;3% in the general population, and 10&#8211;15% in inpatient and outpatient mental health institutions.<sup>[2]


LOL, anyone who knows me would argue that definition right out the door. I am actually quite a quiet and boring person to be around. very much an introvert. I also own my mistakes and don't look for a reason to be right when I am wrong.</sup>

 

[DivemasterDennis]

Twisted Bones is certainly a smarter and better diver for having learned from his many mistakes on a single dive. I hope he will add this lesson to those he listed" having less than fifty dives, but more than 25, means you are experienced but not expert. DO not overestimate you abilities and competence. The predive equipment check for example. Never think you "know what your doing." DO that check on every dive like you did on your first dive. Part of that predive check involves getting to know instabuddy's experience and recent diving outings. See my blog about diving with instabuddy. Learn and grow. Be safe. Happy Diving.
DivemasterDennis

 

[tracydr]

I wonder if having the vest, which was a bit tight, also contributed to not being able to breathe efficiently and clear your CO2.

I do think the instructor did not behave properly. At that depth, if a student indicates something isn't right and they want to go shallower, I certainly wouldn't argue with them. I think you can make a very delicate judgment call about not allowing an OW student in 20 feet of water to surface over a minor issue -- but you'd better be right, and be prepared to deal with the consequences if you aren't. Holding a student at 90 feet when they don't want to be there is very poor judgment on the part of an instructor in my book.

So true. What if he then panicked and bolted. The instructor really took a chance that something could have gone badly wrong.
Also, the too tight vest. I once had a too tight wetsuit in the Puget Sound, when I was still renting gear. I had a full blown asthma attack. I've never had an asthma problem on scuba. The clean, dry scuba air generally allows me to breath easy. It's been 15 years since that happened and I've not had any further issues with asthma while diving. I've had asthma when sick but never when I'm diving. As soon as he said the vest was too tight I started to wonder what the consequence of that would be.
the fact that he can't remember. So strange. Could it have been bad air?

---------- Post added December 12th, 2013 at 04:27 PM ----------

Looks like you dodged a bullet there. But I may not be a forgiving as the other comments. First, you were in an AOW class. To me, as an instructor, you have successfully completed OW training and at this point a responsible diver. Class or no class, as a certified diver you should have aborted the dive regardless of the instructor. If I was leading this class and you told me you ascended by yourself because on how you felt, I would have congratulated you for doing what is right. As far a being a "solo diver", certifying agencies don't certify solo divers to only a limited depth. Being a solo diver requires experience and training. We all have dived with instabuddies. Being a buddy means both divers are looking out for each other. You said your buddy was no where to be found. Both members of the buddy team have the same responsibility to stay close to the other. I'm sure many others experienced divers on this thread had to chase buddies and scold them underwater. An AOW specialty certificate means that for that situation in which you are seeking certification, you handle not only the routine, but the unexpected. I did an AOW deep diving certification dive recently where the dive plan went completely wrong. However the students responded appropriately and passed the class. If the pilot of the plane comes on the speaker and says," Something does'doesn't feel right in the cockpit, but let's go anyway", how would you feel? It's not important to blame it on dark narc, CO2, or any other rapture of the deep. Any diver, can call, any dive, for any reason, no questions asked!! The only other comment is that some of your posted seemed a bit histrionic. Self awareness and situational awareness are the mainstay to self preservation as a diver.

He has no memory of the dive and he's supposed to keep track of a buddy who doesn't want to be kept track of? And, the instructor basically told him not to go up when he tried to thumb. Very few young divers know that they are allowed to overrule the instructor and thumb a dive. I would say 90% of AOW students would have done what the instructor told them to do in this situation. I say the instructor was at fault.
To me, this wasn't a class. It was a poorly led guided dive. Not a very good one. The instructor was acting as a DM. He wasn't teaching an AOW class.
Why would you say the OP was being histrionic? He has no memory of the last part of his dive. He didn't panic. I really can't understand why you would say something like that.

 

[bada3003]

Thanks to the OP for sharing his experience. I don't know with which certification agency the OP did AOW. In PADI AOW, I recall doing 5 checkout dives, a fairly common selection being: peak performance buoyancy, night diving, underwater navigation, wreck diving, and deep diving. We were a group of 4 and the instructor was preoccupied with an OW class he was concurrently running, so the dive master did most of the training except the deep dive. The instructor was ultra careful in setting up spare cylinders at different depths on the ascent line, just in case of free flow. The deep and wreck dives took place at Gilboa, and with the string of deaths a few years back, caution seems to have been utmost on his mind. He capped the deep dive at around 65 feet (my buddy and I lingered at 80 feet) -- it seemed that instructors have significant leeway in certifying "deep diving" as long as its 60+ feet -- which was a bit disappointing but understandable.

Anyhow, the point being: wreck diving was all below 60 feet (well, there's an airplane with minimal overhead that we penetrated), and deep diving was 65 feet (two of us nudged it to 80 feet). Since dive instructors earn a living doing this, it seemed they are averse to taking unnecessary "risks," not going deeper than necessary being one of them. What is unclear to me is why the OP's instructor was pushing students to depths in the 100 feet range. Especially when the OP was signaling a potential problem. Was this a wreck dive and there are no wrecks in more shallower waters? Granted there are probably a wide range of instructors with different temperaments/priorities. But the OP's instructor seems unusually gung ho.

Looks like you dodged a bullet there. But I may not be a forgiving as the other comments. First, you were in an AOW class. To me, as an instructor, you have successfully completed OW training and at this point a responsible diver. Class or no class, as a certified diver you should have aborted the dive regardless of the instructor. If I was leading this class and you told me you ascended by yourself because on how you felt, I would have congratulated you for doing what is right. As far a being a "solo diver", certifying agencies don't certify solo divers to only a limited depth. Being a solo diver requires experience and training. We all have dived with instabuddies. Being a buddy means both divers are looking out for each other. You said your buddy was no where to be found. Both members of the buddy team have the same responsibility to stay close to the other. I'm sure many others experienced divers on this thread had to chase buddies and scold them underwater. An AOW specialty certificate means that for that situation in which you are seeking certification, you handle not only the routine, but the unexpected. I did an AOW deep diving certification dive recently where the dive plan went completely wrong. However the students responded appropriately and passed the class. If the pilot of the plane comes on the speaker and says," Something does'doesn't feel right in the cockpit, but let's go anyway", how would you feel? It's not important to blame it on dark narc, CO2, or any other rapture of the deep. Any diver, can call, any dive, for any reason, no questions asked!! The only other comment is that some of your posted seemed a bit histrionic. Self awareness and situational awareness are the mainstay to self preservation as a diver.