shakeybrainsurgeon
Contributor
I have heard the complaints of some that PADI's open water course is too short. I am reminded of my own profession --- neurosurgery --- which used to require ten years of training beyond medical school but was reduced to five or six in the 1970s and further curtailed in the 1990s by laws limiting the number of hours a trainee could work per week. Old-timers graoned that people like me, trained in the 1980s, could not be as good as those with twice the training. In fact, the quality of surgery is higher than it ever was...
For those who say the short courses are dangerous, where is the proof? Recreational diving gets safer by the year, despite the exponential rise in divers and the shorter training courses. Advocates of miltary-style 8 week certication courses should review DAN's annual reports of diving fatalities: virtually all deaths arise from 1) coexisting heart disease; 2) grotesquely poor physical conditioning; 3) highly experienced divers doing risky things; 4) atrocious stupidity; 5) freak accidents. None of these causes can be cured by extending courses from a weekend to four or eight weekends.
Examples from 2005: a woman with Alzheimers gets confused on an OW dive and drowns; a morbidly obese asthmatic dies from a heart attack during an AOW dive; a man dives alone in a quarry with half a tank of air and drowns; a woman with uncontrolled panic attacks does indeed panic, on the surface, sinks and drowns. These deaths would not have been prevented by better training. Anyone dumb enough to dive alone with a half-empty tank will not become a genius after four more weeks of mask-clearing exercises.
The problem here seems not so much a lack of training but a lack of screening. PADI relies on the honesty of trainees in fillling out medical forms when, instead, it should REQUIRE medical clearance for all trainees over forty. Right now, medical clearance is required only if the trainee admits to some disease or risk factor voluntarily. And people lie --- how else to explain a woman with Alzheimer's in an OW class???
Also, instead of just requiring a 200 meter swim, PADI should require trainees to run one mile under twelve minutes. If the goal of training is to prevent deaths and accidents, then excluding the physically unfit or cardiac-challenged will do more than extending the training format.
Finally, there should be some provision for recertification, even for those diving regularly. Most deaths occur in people who were certified when young and healthy, but keep diving despite the onset of diseases that put them at risk in the water. I see people donning wetsuits who need motorized carts in the supermarket. Again, increasing the length of training will not stop these people from breathing their last breath from a regulator.
Personally, other than the above changes, I think the current training regimen seems adequate for the vast majority of us who just want to do reef dives under fifty feet...
For those who say the short courses are dangerous, where is the proof? Recreational diving gets safer by the year, despite the exponential rise in divers and the shorter training courses. Advocates of miltary-style 8 week certication courses should review DAN's annual reports of diving fatalities: virtually all deaths arise from 1) coexisting heart disease; 2) grotesquely poor physical conditioning; 3) highly experienced divers doing risky things; 4) atrocious stupidity; 5) freak accidents. None of these causes can be cured by extending courses from a weekend to four or eight weekends.
Examples from 2005: a woman with Alzheimers gets confused on an OW dive and drowns; a morbidly obese asthmatic dies from a heart attack during an AOW dive; a man dives alone in a quarry with half a tank of air and drowns; a woman with uncontrolled panic attacks does indeed panic, on the surface, sinks and drowns. These deaths would not have been prevented by better training. Anyone dumb enough to dive alone with a half-empty tank will not become a genius after four more weeks of mask-clearing exercises.
The problem here seems not so much a lack of training but a lack of screening. PADI relies on the honesty of trainees in fillling out medical forms when, instead, it should REQUIRE medical clearance for all trainees over forty. Right now, medical clearance is required only if the trainee admits to some disease or risk factor voluntarily. And people lie --- how else to explain a woman with Alzheimer's in an OW class???
Also, instead of just requiring a 200 meter swim, PADI should require trainees to run one mile under twelve minutes. If the goal of training is to prevent deaths and accidents, then excluding the physically unfit or cardiac-challenged will do more than extending the training format.
Finally, there should be some provision for recertification, even for those diving regularly. Most deaths occur in people who were certified when young and healthy, but keep diving despite the onset of diseases that put them at risk in the water. I see people donning wetsuits who need motorized carts in the supermarket. Again, increasing the length of training will not stop these people from breathing their last breath from a regulator.
Personally, other than the above changes, I think the current training regimen seems adequate for the vast majority of us who just want to do reef dives under fifty feet...
