DM blew me off

[Wookie]

I completed 6 dives in Thailand. This experience happened on the first two of those dives.
Maybe your experience jades you to the experience of a new diver. A new diver who blows thru a 3 day ow course is still green. I emphasize with new divers and can recognize many of them are a little freaked out--on edge-the first few dives after completing the course.

My mistake. I thought you were being blown off by your DM in Mexico. My apologies.

 

[Darnold9999]

The short version of your story is that the DM guiding a group dive was at fault because you ran low on air and expected him to provide additional air at depth so you could continue your dive, so when he didn't, you continued the dive anyway, drained your tank at depth and then the DM rescued you when you all but ran out of air.

WOW - just WOW - so far the responses have been very restrained. I would suggest that you go back and reread them and try to learn from them as opposed to berating those who were trying ever so gently to educate you.

You - and only you - are responsible for getting yourself to the surface. Not your buddy, not a DM, not your instructor, not the boat captian, not God ... you.

Don't care if you are doing your first dive after OW or your 500th dive, unless you have specifically hired someone to take care of you while diving - which was not the case here - you are responsible for you. Assuming that someone else will take care of you is just a bad idea and has the potential to kill you. Take this as a learning exercise, the DM did nothing wrong here, and frankly I would bet that he was pissed at you for running out of air twice in one day and forcing him to deal with that rather than ensuring all of the divers in the group had a great dive.

 

[brnt999]

The short version of your story is that the DM guiding a group dive was at fault because you ran low on air and expected him to provide additional air at depth so you could continue your dive, so when he didn't, you continued the dive anyway, drained your tank at depth and then the DM rescued you when you all but ran out of air.

WOW - just WOW - so far the responses have been very restrained. I would suggest that you go back and reread them and try to learn from them as opposed to berating those who were trying ever so gently to educate you.

You - and only you - are responsible for getting yourself to the surface. Not your buddy, not a DM, not your instructor, not the boat captian, not God ... you.

Don't care if you are doing your first dive after OW or your 500th dive, unless you have specifically hired someone to take care of you while diving - which was not the case here - you are responsible for you. Assuming that someone else will take care of you is just a bad idea and has the potential to kill you. Take this as a learning exercise, the DM did nothing wrong here, and frankly I would bet that he was pissed at you for running out of air twice in one day and forcing him to deal with that rather than ensuring all of the divers in the group had a great dive.

Your wrong.
The short version of the story is I paid a dive shop to train me how to dive. I then paid them to take me on my first dive. They assigned me a DM who briefed me on what to do--which included follow my direction--signal me when you are low on air and I will guide you through the process of surfacing. The direction I was given was to follow his direction. I signaled I was low on air and he blew me off so he could contunue his dive.

 

[nimoh]

Your wrong.
The short version of the story is I paid a dive shop to train me how to dive. I then paid them to take me on my first dive. They assigned me a DM who briefed me on what to do--which included follow my direction--signal me when you are low on air and I will guide you through the process of surfacing. The direction I was given was to follow his direction. I signaled I was low on air and he blew me off so he could contunue his dive.

It is very common that DMs are in the water mainly to just guide the divers and show them interesting things. I think this may be contributing to some confusion in this thread. However, from your description, it sounds like the DM planned on surfacing with you, and if that is the case, I agree they should have. It sounds like the dive was planned but the plan was not dived.

 

[brnt999]

I agree and was thinking the same thoughts. My experience in Mexico and Thailand was the DM was leading the dive. He was in charge and controlled the dive. We literally followed him and we did what he said. He controlled the ascent--if one person was low on air he might send him up alone(after sending up a marker) or he might send him up with someone else, or everyone would go up together. But it was his decision. This idea that the DM is just a guide and everyone looks after themselves and surfaces on their own is alien to me.

 

[cb5150]

"It blows my mind some of the responses I am getting to this."

Our responses blow your mind because you are very inexperienced. You obviously came into this with an over-expectation (is that a word?) of DM responsibility and an under-expectation of the role you play in your own safety.

I encourage you to consider revisiting this thread after you've completed a rescue diver course and logged at least 100 dives in varied environments. I'd really be interested to see if your mind set has changed.

BTW, in case you're wondering...yes, I too was initially led to believe that a DM or divebuddy would always be there for me when things get sketchy. It didn't take too many dives in the dark, murky, zero-viz lakes of Texas before I realized that even a nearby dive buddy was no help if you couldn't see him. I then progressed to vacation diving with insta-buddies who managed to disappear even in crystal clear Caribbean water. It was right about my 25th dive that I realized I could ulimately depend on NO ONE ELSE except myself.

I quickly enrolled in every scuba course I could find in order to gain knowledge and watch how the more experienced folks did things. I even went as far as completing a Self-Reliant Diver and Divemaster course...not to become a dive professional, (I already have enough headaches with my REAL job), but just to take my experience to the next level. I'm about to log my 200th dive and I still learn something new about my skills or my gear configuration everytime I hit the water. One thing is still the same though...I don't depend on anyone but MYSELF for my own personal safety. My dive buddy and my pony bottle are just redundant safety devices.

May you have many safe dives and see lots of cool critters.

 

[TSandM]

If you actually paid to have the DM dive as your buddy, then the DM was in the wrong here. If you thought that the DM was there to take care of you, simply as a result of the fee you paid to dive, you were wrong. If you did not know, at the end of your OW class, that it was your responsibility not to remain underwater until you nearly ran out of gas, then either your instructor did you no favors, or you didn't absorb the teachings in the class very well.

I know it was your first post-class dive (although this is very much unclear in your original post). I know you were new and green and probably a little apprehensive and unsure of yourself. But the basic equation that gas = life expectancy is not a complex concept. And if you had been taught to expect that your dive buddy would donate gas to you to allow you to remain underwater, then that was really and truly wrong.

I am not against sharing gas to equalize supplies -- my husband and I do it, when we are forced to dive the same size tanks. But a) we do it near the beginning of the dive, when neither of us is low, and if we get separated for any reason, it doesn't matter; b) we are both experienced enough to be able to share gas comfortably and in a relaxed and stable fashion, while swimming and looking around, and c) neither of us is likely to panic from having a regulator pulled out of our mouth.

Allowing a diver to get to absolute low limits for surfacing, and then extending the dive by sharing gas, is a practice I think is fundamentally unsound. But if it was briefed that that was how things were going to go, then the DM erred on the second dive.

Again, the bottom line is that if you learn enough to plan your dive, and you dive your plan, you shouldn't end up in situations like this. And if I were you, I'd let go over the anger you have over this incident. You've done 24 more dives; I assume you have seen a bunch more strategies for handling diving, and I hope you have learned better how to take responsibility for yourself. This incident is pretty meaningless in the great scheme of things.

 

[nimoh]

I agree and was thinking the same thoughts. My experience in Mexico and Thailand was the DM was leading the dive. He was in charge and controlled the dive. We literally followed him and we did what he said. He controlled the ascent--if one person was low on air he might send him up alone(after sending up a marker) or he might send him up with someone else, or everyone would go up together. But it was his decision. This idea that the DM is just a guide and everyone looks after themselves and surfaces on their own is alien to me.

not exactly, the DMs lead the dives, and buddy teams look after themselves (each other), however this commonly doesn't work well if you don't know the other divers and if they are good buddies or not. So, if you are planning to do a lot of diving with unknown buddies, it would be prudent to be more self-reliant.

 

[Doppler]

I agree and was thinking the same thoughts. My experience in Mexico and Thailand was the DM was leading the dive. He was in charge and controlled the dive. We literally followed him and we did what he said. He controlled the ascent--if one person was low on air he might send him up alone(after sending up a marker) or he might send him up with someone else, or everyone would go up together. But it was his decision. This idea that the DM is just a guide and everyone looks after themselves and surfaces on their own is alien to me.

OK, I have two questions for the OP... and please, an honest answer. How deep were these first two dives following your certification? And now that you have 25 dives, what is the maximum depth you have visited?

Thanks.

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

I agree and was thinking the same thoughts. My experience in Mexico and Thailand was the DM was leading the dive. He was in charge and controlled the dive. We literally followed him and we did what he said. He controlled the ascent--if one person was low on air he might send him up alone(after sending up a marker) or he might send him up with someone else, or everyone would go up together. But it was his decision. This idea that the DM is just a guide and everyone looks after themselves and surfaces on their own is alien to me.

now that's the opposite for me out of my 50 after OW and AOW 39 of those you surfaced by yourself and was expected to deploy your own SMB if needed! With the ones with the group surfacing together being the last few.