forgetting scuba skills....

[scubajoh44]

I recently assissted with a Rescue class. There was one student that OBVIOUSLY did not remember the basics of scuba. He fumbled around with his tank and BC untill he finally got it all turned the right way. Later I found out that he had not been diving for 9 years. He actually HAD forgotten all the basics. Should these people be able to enter a higher level class or even be able to use their c-cards? How would this be monitored?:06:

 

[Ber Rabbit]

It's up to the instructor teaching the class. Personally I would have told him he needed to take a refresher course first but I have the option of accepting or denying students since I teach independently. Many of the students in my AOW class have not been in the water in months or years but my AOW class is set up specifically for this type of situation (requires minimum of 400 minutes of bottom time and 12 dives). There is a 2 hour pool session and we dive 4 weekends, the first weekend we do 5-6 dives and the first two are just to get people re-acclimated to diving.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[Walter]

I take all my non-OW students and run them through basic skills such as doff & don & bailout before starting the course.

 

[scubajoh44]

I guess instructing someone would be a little easier to monitor "these" people. What about after they get their OW cert and don't dive again unitll 5 yrs later when they go to the Caribbean (or somewhere) and sign up for an advanced dive? Any way to montior?

 

[Fish_Whisperer]

I guess instructing someone would be a little easier to monitor "these" people. What about after they get their OW cert and don't dive again unitll 5 yrs later when they go to the Caribbean (or somewhere) and sign up for an advanced dive? Any way to montior?

Well... I think this falls in the realm of personal, individual responsibility. If I hadn't dove in five years, and all I'd done was complete the basic minimums, and I didn't take any kind of refresher course beforehand, (even if it were just to hop in the pool with my gear on), then I'd pretty much deserve whatever I got.

I'm not trying to be a hard-azz about it, but you can't babysit everyone all the time. It's the divers' responsibility to prepare properly.

 

[scubafool]

I don't want to be monitored and I don't want to be involved in monitoring others.

If a particular dive op wants to require a certain certification, or do a checkout dive, or whatever else, before they allow someone to dive with them, so be it. Leave it to the dive ops & the individual.

 

[TheRedHead]

I agree with Fish_Whisperer and Scubafool. People should take responsibility for themselves. I can understand an instructor's concern when encountering such a person in an advanced class because the instructor is responsible for them. You can't protect a person from themselves.

And to give credit to the mostly excellent DMs of the Caribbean, they usually go to whatever lengths necessary to protect their charges, even to the point of holding their hands for the entire dive.

 

[veggiedog]

I dove for about 12 years and accumulated about 60 dives (1980 - 1992). I stopped diving after my first was born, and didn't start again for 12 years or so, and I have another 50 dives or so since then. At least 95% of those dives are solo. I was comfortable after only 3 or 4 dives after starting again, and I have spent thousands of dollars on new gear since picking up diving again (last year). I can't imagine it being in the dive industries best interest to interfere with that.

When selecting a buddy, isn't it important to evaluate their capabilities? If they are rusty, they should be paired with a "less rusty" partner. New partner's should go over procedures before diving, and the rusty diver might learn a little (or the less rusty diver may opt out of the dive). Probably not that much different than diving with a newbie, but the old rusty diver might be very comfortable under water...

I realize that not everyone is as serious about diving as I am, and they may never be competent given their limited diving, but I would hate to see them categorized with more serious divers, and then have my diving privileges affected as a result. I suspect I was as safe as a newbie on my second dive after picking back up diving, past that on the third.

As a seperate issue though, some of the stuff I learned in 1980 is now outdated. Would a refresher course to bring me up to modern beliefs be warranted? Probably so, but I chose to refresh myself without a class (I audited my son's naui class DVD), and I continue to research modern techniques.

 

[Web Monkey]

Divers may need to show the dive op a C-Card and log book to go diving.

They always have to do battle with Darwin.

Terry

I recently assissted with a Rescue class. There was one student that OBVIOUSLY did not remember the basics of scuba. He fumbled around with his tank and BC untill he finally got it all turned the right way. Later I found out that he had not been diving for 9 years. He actually HAD forgotten all the basics. Should these people be able to enter a higher level class or even be able to use their c-cards? How would this be monitored?:06:

 

[AndyNZ]

Should these people be able to enter a higher level class or even be able to use their c-cards? How would this be monitored?

Well, assuming that it's a PADI class.... the instructor is personally responsible for "screening and evaluating candidates prior to enrolling on the course". It doesn't matter a damn whether you work for a dive centre or independently, the instructor carries the can.

So let's assume a situation where an incident occurs during the course and the student becomes injured. It's likely that the instructor will be found professionally negligent if they didn't do a reasonable pre-assessment and took the student into situations that they could not cope with.

Of course, a good lawyer will be able to turn this around and blame the original certifying instructor as well and get two lawsuits running at the same time...... :11: