Fyi

[MikeFerrara]

jhelmuth once bubbled...
Please accept my apologies then for misinterpriting what he said. I read it as... "I can't see..." and "I'd be worthless as a rescuer".
I did not intend to sound harsh, but was really trying to understand why divers who have problems will dive anyway (or get certified for that matter). That was one example which was a part of the story (one of the buddy divers lost his mask and bolted to the surface to breath - why? because he couldn't breath without the mask, or open his eyes underwater because they were too sensative?)
I know of a few people who have a problem with breathing through their nose when the mask is removed, but they still get certified. I would hate to be in a situation where I am having to rescue, or be rescued by someone who has a problem with something like that. Mostly because I am not expierenced with people who have those issues (my buddies are limited and though we are all around the same skill level, we are also well rehearsed and know what we are and are not capable of). Not having enough experience and "listening" to many of the posts on this board with regard to the "life-and-death" association to a lack of some particular skills, combined with this story (not the only one which is similar to other posted/linked on this board) cause me to ask those of you who are experienced what is a real concern and what is not.
Is this type of thing worthy of concern, or do people here exagerate their concern? Do we tend to be more lenient in our opinions if a person is a DM, than if they do not have such a designation? Is that reasonable?
This is not a challenge. I am asking a hard question becasuse I do get confused at times from what seem to be confliciting views which are sometimes only conflicting because of who they reflect upon (obviously that is not the norm - but it happens).
PS - so that you and anyone else will know, I have only 50 dives to date and have 10 months of certification

I have seen lots of divers that I think would drown or embolize rushing to the surface if they got their mask knoacked off. And yes they manage to get certified. In my early days of teaching when I believed what I was tought and judged skill mastery the way I was tought I probably certified a few.

Speaking for myself I'm more critical of some ones skill if their a pro. I mean a person can dive with poor skills if they want but a pro sure shouldn't. ooops gotta go.

 

[zeN||]

Test results on the body are not in, she may have suffered a medical event which compromised her cognitive skills, and or developed into a fatal event, which may account for her erratic behaviour, in shallow depth, with other buddy divers around her, in only 5 feet of water zeN||

 

[PhotoTJ]

You cannot train someone who is prone to panic not to panic. And people can be smart as a whip, and not have a lick of common sense.

Combine those two, and you have someone who is going to die before their time. They will drop french fries in their car and freak out, or something equally silly.

Unfortunately, some of these people will pick diving as their hobby.

My sympathies, but when I read accident reports, I'm rarely surprised.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Ya know, it always bothers me when people draw conclusions based on one news story and absolutely no evidence.

Seems that a lot of you have already decided that this tragedy was the result of incomplete or incompetent training. You may be right ... but nothing in the story really supports that conclusion.

First off, based on the story (which was most likely written by a non-diver under deadline pressure) I'd have to say it's more likely a case of poor judgement ... from the choice of dive site to the method of descent to the rescue attempts ... followed up by a heavy dose of stress that caused people to react without really thinking about what they were trained to do. I suspect that this is a case of three divers deciding to do a dive that exceeded the limits of their training. Once they found themselves in trouble, they were too stressed out to really stop and apply what they had been trained to do.

No matter how good an instructor may be, nobody can teach good judgement. Most times it comes with experience ... sometimes it never comes at all. In every human endeavor there are people who do things that go against everything they were trained to do, and sometimes they pay for it with their lives. And no matter how good your training, you'll never know how effective it is to you personally until you're tested in a real situation.

Stop, think, then act ... it's a mantra that's in every OW manual, no matter who's course you're talking about. Some people understand what it means ... some never will, no matter the best efforts of the most thorough instructor.

One has to wonder if those of you who immediately decided this was a training issue take the same approach with other activities. When someone on the highway cuts you off, or does something stupid and causes an accident, do you immediately conclude that their driver's ed was deficient ... or do you chalk it up to a random act of stupidity?

And finally, for those who throw out there that we should be trying to learn from events like this I have a question ... what do you really want to learn? Are you perhaps actually looking to justify something you already assume to be true?

Think about it ... 'cuz I've seen way too many of these kind of tragedies get dragged off on tangents that ultimately prove to be very incorrect ... and in the end nobody learns anything except that they made the wrong assumptions.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[MikeFerrara]

PhotoTJ once bubbled...
You cannot train someone who is prone to panic not to panic. And people can be smart as a whip, and not have a lick of common sense.

Combine those two, and you have someone who is going to die before their time. They will drop french fries in their car and freak out, or something equally silly.

Unfortunately, some of these people will pick diving as their hobby.

My sympathies, but when I read accident reports, I'm rarely surprised.

Any one can panic. However, I believe that the point of panic can be altered with training and experience. I think people panic when they perceive a situation that they can't control which seems desperate. I've seen people panic because of water in their mask. Practice and experience managing this reduces it from a panic inducing event to a routine pain in the rear that doesn't phase the diver. The same with entanglement or a free flowing regulator. If a diver has confidence in their ability to cope they are less likely to panic. All that said every ones tolerance levels for new situations is probably dofferent.

In diving we need to unlearn all of out instincts. As land dwelling air breathing mamals we aren't born with a single instinct that will do anything except get us killed under water. We need to replace those instincts with learned behaviors that come with education, practice and experience. No doubt every one has a different aptitude for it.

Give a person a short class that doesn't include much practice and experience and the divers safety for their first X number of dives is dependant on being lucky enough to not have a problem.

Most dives just don't present any problems. That's a good thing because in my experience there are a whole bunch of divers that can't handle one.

 

[Custer]

NWGratefulDiver once bubbled...
Ya know, it always bothers me when people draw conclusions based on one news story and absolutely no evidence.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

<snip excellent post>

And we all know how remarkably accurate the newspapers are.

 

[PhotoTJ]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...


Any one can panic. However, I believe that the point of panic can be altered with training and experience.

No doubt every one has a different aptitude for it.

We seem to agree fundamentally, (unusual!), but here is where we will diverge. (As usual )

I don't think you can train someone with the two combos I mentioned, (low panic threshold, lack of common sense), to go against them. The example I would give is white-knuckled flyers. They have learned to deal with flying through force of will, but they cannot really function while on a plane.

There are just some people who shouldn't be diving, who don't have the sense to know it.

I may be a pessimist, but some people can't be trained.

 

[MikeFerrara]

NWGratefulDiver once bubbled...
Ya know, it always bothers me when people draw conclusions based on one news story and absolutely no evidence.

Well it bothers me that there isn't ever any evidence other than the news articles. Does that mean that we shouldn't take what info we have and act on it if there isn't anything to lose? I mean if we wanted to use cercumstantial evidence to justify less training or a change that would mean huge expense or put some one in jail then there would be a risk in guessing wrong. In these excersizes all we can do is take some basic facts (women dies shallow in kelp and her two buddies are unable to help) and speculate from there. Unfortunately when I speculate I don't have any trouble believing it happened the very same way as some others that I did witness. We will never have conclusive evidence from a dive accident. We never have and we never will. So? We just go on saying that the number who die are statistically insignificant and if only a few die on shallow weenie dives it's ok. You do it your way and I'll do it mine.

Seems that a lot of you have already decided that this tragedy was the result of incomplete or incompetent training. You may be right ... but nothing in the story really supports that conclusion.

Decided? No. I thought we covered that. Some of us speculated that. We don't need a jury of 12 to agree to discuss the possibilities we think are likely. I think there is lots in the story that support that conclusion. 1, planned to meet at the bottom. 2, 1 of the other divers goes up 3, one of them looses a mask and has to go to the surface. Here's the biggie now. She died after being entangled at 5 ft. She had enough gas to hang out for hours without her life being in danger. Ever seen some one spit out their reg or knock it out of their own mouth? I have. I guess there is a chance that the story is bull but every word in the story supports it. Every single one.

First off, based on the story (which was most likely written by a non-diver under deadline pressure) I'd have to say it's more likely a case of poor judgement ... from the choice of dive site to the method of descent to the rescue attempts ... followed up by a heavy dose of stress that caused people to react without really thinking about what they were trained to do. I suspect that this is a case of three divers deciding to do a dive that exceeded the limits of their training. Once they found themselves in trouble, they were too stressed out to really stop and apply what they had been trained to do.

Poor judgement, poor plan, stress preventing thinking. I guess you just said everything I've speculated. Of course the dive exceeded their training/experience. I would submit that it's not possible to die if that isn't the case unless God calls you and you have a heart attack. I question whether a 30 ft quarry dive exceedes the training of many. I think you hit the nail right square on the head. Training is geared for supervised tropical dives in many cases. The book says diving is safe and our training assumes so. The minute a problem like a free flow or a stupid weed wraps around a leg we're exceeding our training. In some cases if a diver has their mask knocked off when their not kneeling on the bottom they are exceeding the limits of their training.

No matter how good an instructor may be, nobody can teach good judgement. Most times it comes with experience ... sometimes it never comes at all. In every human endeavor there are people who do things that go against everything they were trained to do, and sometimes they pay for it with their lives. And no matter how good your training, you'll never know how effective it is to you personally until you're tested in a real situation.

Can we teach judgement? Well we can teach the knowledge that leads to it. We can, but do we?

Stop, think, then act ... it's a mantra that's in every OW manual, no matter who's course you're talking about. Some people understand what it means ... some never will, no matter the best efforts of the most thorough instructor.

Now here is a subject. The text does contain this line. How many students really know what it means? See my last post. It requires that we replace instinct with learned behavior. I don't believe that happens in the time it takes to read a book that's written for a 10 year old and 5 hours in a pool kneeling on the bottom.

One has to wonder if those of you who immediately decided this was a training issue take the same approach with other activities. When someone on the highway cuts you off, or does something stupid and causes an accident, do you immediately conclude that their driver's ed was deficient ... or do you chalk it up to a random act of stupidity?

You yourself said you thought they were exceeding their training. Sorry but if that dive exceeded their training they would have been better off buying something out of a gumball machine. Now driver training there's a good comparison. Driver training is a joke. Both my kids went through all their training and never went off the rural roads. They never saw traffic. Have you read the written test. It's an insult to even have to take it. If you breath you can drive. If you breath you can dive

And finally, for those who throw out there that we should be trying to learn from events like this I have a question ... what do you really want to learn? Are you perhaps actually looking to justify something you already assume to be true?

Yes. I really would like to some how get people to take a look, to stop passing it off as bad luck or a statistical abnormality that's insignificant with no reason and no one at fault.

Think about it ... 'cuz I've seen way too many of these kind of tragedies get dragged off on tangents that ultimately prove to be very incorrect ... and in the end nobody learns anything except that they made the wrong assumptions.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Name a single time when that has happened. One!
I conclude as you, they were exceeding their training. . So were the divers Ive seen hauled away after a free flow. The question is...should that have been beyond their training? Of course, odds are the medical explaination will be accidental drowning.

I suppose if they come back and say that she had a hear attack or stroke then we made some wron assumptions. Even so our assumptions about the ones who couldn't get her to the surface may still be close enough for government work.

 

[MikeFerrara]

PhotoTJ once bubbled...

We seem to agree fundamentally, (unusual!), but here is where we will diverge. (As usual )

I don't think you can train someone with the two combos I mentioned, (low panic threshold, lack of common sense), to go against them. The example I would give is white-knuckled flyers. They have learned to deal with flying through force of will, but they cannot really function while on a plane.

There are just some people who shouldn't be diving, who don't have the sense to know it.

I may be a pessimist, but some people can't be trained.

I don't want to shock you too much but I agree. However, I believe that a good class will do a pretty good job of spotting those folks and not certifying them. We certify nearly every one. I also believe that many that can be trained are not. How do the ones that can't get trained get a card? There are shops and instructors lining up to GIVE it to them that's how, IMO.

 

[PhotoTJ]

Mike and I agree!