If you are a new diver, please read this

[RonFrank]

In my view, gas management, and gas planning are somewhat interchangeable terms, but I understand the distinction. In the context of this thread, gas management happens topside and attempts to determine SAC rate, dive depth, and available air in an effort to plan the dive from an air standpoint. Unfortunately for a new diver, most of the variables may not be available to do a good job of this.

For the new diver Gas management happens during the dive, and uses more basic concepts like start to surface at XXXXpsi.

However planning is only as good as the plan, and may not predict what DOES happen during the dive.

We could take this all a step further, and suggest that new divers should not be in the water without an experienced buddy. The new diver may TRY and plan their gas management, but the bottom line is that if both divers run low on air before they can surface, neither has the experience to rescue.

I am betting had this woman been with an experienced diver, she would have been fine. But I guess that is not possible to know for sure.

 

[Blackwood]

Seems to me that it would be an easy thing to add another course after open water and advanced to teach gas management.

 

[masterof0]

Actually now that you mention it there are several "advanced planning" concepts that could be bundled into one specialty. Something like this would probably become a popular course and would probably take a lot of the thunder out of the anti-Padi rhetoric.

R..

Naw, they will just start accusing PADI of coming up with another course to make more money....

 

[RonFrank]

Because PADI was the primary force in reducing diver training from 40 to less than 20 hours and eliminating from the cirriculum items I see as critical, especially gas managment, buoyancy control and diver rescue. PADI is also the "leader" in the idea that if you can do all the skills once or twice you've "mastered" them and never need to revist them, a bankrupt idea that has been shown to be wrong.

I've never met a PADI instructor that stated OW skills are mastered in the OW class. In fact just the opposite. Instructors are the first to caution new divers to practice, and use caution.

New divers are also not all created equal. My buddy Dan rescued a new diver while he was a new diver. He had maybe 15 dives, and saved the guys life (fresh out of OW).

It would be valuable to know what depth these divers were doing. Maybe it is in the thread already, and I missed it.

 

[Ursus]

Although I am a new diver, I am big advocate of continuing education and knowledge. I understand that the classroom doesn't surplant actual experience, but rather it is the preperation or refinement for actual application. My preference would be for more detailed and focused training. Diving has risks. I have no problem delaying my certification for a few extra courses/days/hours that would result in me being a better educated and prepared diver. Based on my experience and observations of others, I was leaning toward taking Tech Diving Courses in order to learn some key fundamentals...

I participate in a number of other hobbies that require a considerable amount of effort, training, and equipment. Comparatively speaking, diving has the lowest threshold, and yet some of the greatest risk while participating. It seems to me that before you can go Nitrox or AOW, you should have a solid understanding of dive planning / air consumption. Create a specialty class for this as well as a well designed dive computer course and you have something that makes a real impact.

 

[RonFrank]

I went back and found:

• The diver was not a NEW diver, but her experience was not listed.
• The divers were at a depth of 100 feet before attempting to surface.
• Peter IS allowed to teach gas management. However as an IDC student, the wording becomes important if ONLY for the IDC.
• Gas management is currently taught in OW training. They cover SAC rates, effects at depth, and turnaround times. Not possible to determine how well this info sinks in, but it is taught, or suppose to be taught. This is in line with my PADI OW training from the past.
• There is likely more to this story than what has been presented.

I think the point made is valid, new students NEED to learn gas management. However other factors should also be considered in this incident including some of the facts which we do not have.

Other factors to consider is why did the diver not drop their weight? Where was the divers buddy during all this?

Without more facts, it's difficult to know exactly why this accident was not prevented.

 

[Teamcasa]

There is a group of older divers that were certified by pseudo or real Navy seals, forced to do pushups with a set of doubles on their back, swim the English channel, do a search and recovery in LA harbor at night and pass a 1000 question test, that feel that with any less training you will certainly die. They also dived without BC's or SPG's. They just relied on a J Valve and a watch. Thankfully, those days are gone.

The reality is that PADI and most other agencies provide enough training to allow a diver to decide if diving is right for them. We all know that only a small number of newly trained divers continue to dive on any regular basis and most of them have gone one to further their training and dive education. We also know the divers that only dive on vacation in some nice warm tropical locale with a DM sheparding their every move, for them OW training is also sufficient.

Diving is indeed a safe activity and with the basic training one gets in OW, puts them on the right track. Sure, some people are knuckelheads and head for the Andrea Doria after they have their Ccard. Hopefully, they survive before Darwin taps them on the shoulder.

If you are a new diver, study the books, listen to mentors and dive with seasoned veterans of the sport. You will soon discover the value of continuing your diver training. You may even decide to dive the Andrea Doria after you realize the level of training necessary to make that dive safely.

 

[bill-da-ho]

Blackwood, you've taken that one sentence out of my post and chose to comment on it as if it were the gist of the entire post. Maybe I wrote it wrong but my point is/was:
You can have gas managment training in OW, just have another course to expand and practice it more. for an example, in OW class, we were exposed to navigation just briefly, if we want to progress and take AOW, you have to have more navigation training, and so it should be with each level of training you get, no matter the intructional agency. So it is not putting the cart befor the horse, it is a continuation of training.
I dont pretend to have all the answers, this was just a suggestion.
I am glad this was posted, as a new diver, it made me think of all the things I dont know yet, and all that I have to learn.

 

[mongodives]

Gas management, dive planning whatever you want to call it. If diver's new and old would just plan their dives and dive the plan a lot of the accidents we read about wouldn't happen.

A simple plan that covers planned surfacing pressure, max depth, turn pressure and time that the planned surfacing pressure and tables allow and talking about what to do if something goes wrong is well within the ability of the entry level diver from ANY agency.

Are you one of those who puts the gear on and goes? If so a little planning will save your life one day.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Someone who makes it to the surface and then is unable to estabish positive bouyancy while weaing fully functioning scuba gear (even if the tank is empty) did not die from a failure to understand gas management.

To say that she got so panicked from having no air is still a weak argument.

I could make an equally plausible claim that she dies because she did not have a buddy that was attentive and qualified.

Or I could say she died because she wasn't wearing a pony bottle.

Or I could say that she died because she had no ditchable lead or maybe (probably) was over weighted or that she wasn't wearing a weight belt configured to be easily ditchable.

From what little has been presented in the thread, it sounds like the diver died because she couldn't work her BC/weighting system.