How Angry Should I Be at this Instructor?

[tbeck3579]

1. The 1 minute rule to surface
2. Get buoyant
3. If you are cold surface immediately
No to #3 If he would have paid attention in his Dry-suit class/pool he would have know to add a bit of air !!!!!!!!

1. The 1 minute rule to surface
2. Get buoyant
3. If you are cold surface immediately
No to #3 If he would have paid attention in his Dry-suit class/pool he would have know to add a bit of air !!!!!!!!

Okay, you failed test #1 on your PADI OW, lol, only kidding. However, when I miss a question online PADI makes me go back and review the material. There is quite a bit about getting cold, this is only a very small snip:

I'm thinking from the conversations here divers are quite used to getting cold; as if it's all a part of diving. I have unfortunately been in cold water and it took about 2 minutes before I could not get myself out without help -- it really was that fast. I should also tell you it was a VERY STUPID teenage dare to go swimming. Being a good swimmer I took on the dare. I honestly could NOT climb back into the boat. Why do we do such stupid things when we are teenagers?

 

[EastEndDiver]

OK so a PSD is a dangerous undertaking and requires skills I get that.........how does someone with a small amount of dives qualify for such a position that's the thing I don't get..sounds to me that PSD's should be highly trained and experienced in varied underwater situations with a lot of dives under their weightbelt.

 

[Neilwood]

Just for a note - the "Public Safety Diver" title that is attached to the OP is due to the forum - if he has joined the group on this forum he is tagged as one whether he is or not.

 

[Kevo88]

I was looking into public service diving not too long ago, just to satisfy my curiosity. There are a lot of fire departments that train non diving firefighters for the job. They'll take them from basic open water cert through all the requisite training. This seems more common in areas like the Midwest, where the qualified candidate pool is much smaller.

 

[tbeck3579]

It's seriously nasty dangerous work. Things like "In this pond, which has visibility of less than 4 inches, I want you to go find the car that drove onto the water yesterday, enter the car (which is upside down) and remove the body of the 3 year old somewhere inside and bring her up before we pull the car out with a wrecker." So you are dealing with tight overhead spaces in zero vis, water contaminated with gasoline and oil, biological contamination and finding a dead child and removing her.

It sounds like it is often a paid job in Police Departments or Fire Departments. Where did the OP go? I wonder if he is working toward that or is diving for fun. Chicago, on Lake Michigan, there would be need for many people in that position. Hats off to the OP for being a firefighter, and certainly if he is working even harder toward PSD. I don't think you could pay me enough to do either job. Very dangerous. You do put your life on the line for others every single day. There are a lot of good people in this world!

 

[sunnyboy]

I always love how we "eat our own" on this board. So a person has a lousy course experience and we immediately "pile on" blaming him for the experience.

Yes, descending to the bottom and kneeling is now considered "bad form". But it's not that long ago it was SOP, and still is for a lot of jurassic instructors.

There are also many threads over the years (some quite recent) covering the psychology of "being taught" in SCUBA. That time when even seasoned divers defer to the instructor because a) I'm on a course and b) the instruct must know what he/she is doing, right?

There is that time where we hesitate because we assume some event is part of the course. Not all instructors are good communicators, and some are terrible.

So this fellow (the OP) was told "WAIT" and is now left on the bottom, presumably shivering. Sure, he's cerfiied, but he's also taking training in something *he has never done before*. Why is he supposed to have this superior knowledge that he should bail and not wait? As was stated, the "instructor" "forgot" to tell them to surface if he abandoned them for over a minute. Yet I can guarantee that this same doofus "instructor" would have tore the OP a new one if he'd surfaced after 1 minute, just when doofus "instructor" was about to return to the student. The OP can't win in these situations.

So I vote for "it was crappy instruction" in this case, and give the OP the benefit of the doubt on staying when told to stay.

 

[boulderjohn]

So this fellow (the OP) was told "WAIT" and is now left on the bottom, presumably shivering. Sure, he's cerfiied, but he's also taking training in something *he has never done before*. Why is he supposed to have this superior knowledge that he should bail and not wait? As was stated, the "instructor" "forgot" to tell them to surface if he abandoned them for over a minute. Yet I can guarantee that this same doofus "instructor" would have tore the OP a new one if he'd surfaced after 1 minute, just when doofus "instructor" was about to return to the student. The OP can't win in these situations.

Absolutely.

He was doing what the instructor told him to do. I would have done the same thing. I would not have assumed I was in a lost buddy situation.

When I was a DM assisting in a class, the instructor had me kneel in front of him so he could demonstrate something (don't remember what). Suddenly my regulator was ripped out of my mouth. I thought, "Hmm, I guess the instructor wants me demonstrate being calm under these circumstances. Funny he didn't brief me." Not sure what to do, I continued kneeling and blowing a tiny stream of bubbles. Eventually the instructor gave me my regulator, and we went back to the demo. Later he explained what had happened--he had seen something with a student on the side that needed immediate attention, and he had swum over quickly. In doing so, he had somehow hooked my regulator hose and yanked the regulator out of my mouth. He was surprised when he looked back and saw me blowing bubbles.

No, when an instructor tells a student to do something, that student will normally wait for new instructions.

 

[tbeck3579]

I always love how we "eat our own" on this board. So a person has a lousy course experience and we immediately "pile on" blaming him for the experience.

I was looking through the smiley's for the little scuba diver I used on a different post and I found this one. I immediately thought about your post

 

[Marie13]

I was looking into public service diving not too long ago, just to satisfy my curiosity. There are a lot of fire departments that train non diving firefighters for the job. They'll take them from basic open water cert through all the requisite training. This seems more common in areas like the Midwest, where the qualified candidate pool is much smaller.

There were a couple of firefighters in my OW class who were in just that position (suburban Chicago).

 

[Chavodel8en]

I would be upset at the instructor.

Yes, normal protocol is wait X minutes (or look around X minutes) then ascend. But when the instructor signaled "Wait" he was changing protocol a bit. As someone pointed out, the student is now in a no-win situation. How long should he wait?

And to folks criticizing the OP for waiting 14 minutes. He didn't put himself in any additional danger. Hes a bit more resilient and patient than I would be. I would likely have given the instructor 10 minutes max. But that's not a fault of the OP.

The sloppiness is that the instructor should have somehow let you know - probably in briefing -- how long you should wait. He could have also signaled - "Wait 5 minutes"

In the instructors defense, in that kind of viz, once he swam off, it would have been difficult to find you again. But in low viz situations, going over lost buddy protocol is especially important.

I guess this is a reminder to always cover lost buddy protocol, as it almost always changes a bit in different circumstances - viz, topography of the site, etc etc. Perhaps the OP could diplomatically remind the instructor about this.

And since the OP mentioned tangentially being on his knees, I'll point out tangentially - unless youre hugging the bottom for some reason, you really should be neutrally buoyant, even if youre just waiting around for 15 minutes