Incident During OW Training- What do you do?

[SparticleBrane]

You'd be surprised.

Way "back in the day" NAUI required students to do a CESA from 60ft.
Personally I think that doing it from 45ft with your air turned off and no LP hose is a great idea. It would appear to be a good simulation of being out of air and actually having to do a CESA.
Remember, the best way to train for something is to make it as real as possible.


Chris--I was under the impression that while NAUI has minimum standards, you are allowed to exceed them?


Edit: Remember--an instructor who is with students doing a CESA should always be WITH the student on the ascent, no more than an arm's reach away. This way if the student has a problem the instructor can help them, AND to make sure that the student is not breath-holding--ie, direct control. In this situation (45ft no air no LP hose), you should be able to reach your tank valve anyway (you should be able to reach your tank valve!) If the instructor is doing their job correctly, you should have two possible places to get air--the instructor and being able to turn on your tank valve. Also, if this were a true CESA you might still be able to get occasional small breaths off of your regulator, as the air inside the hoses also expands upon ascent--a great reason to leave it in your mouth during a CESA.

 

[TheRedHead]

Yes, indeed, I was able to get another breath of my reg. And the instructor was right there. Best of all, I discovered what a real OOG felt like. My instructor said he would punch me in the stomach if I held my breath - and I believed him.

 

[SparticleBrane]

I will do some research on the standards and will get back with you on this.

 

[cerich]

I will do some research on the standards and will get back with you on this.

By all means read the "Details Of Selected Skills" on page 2.118, it's at the top. That is EXACTLY how the skill is to be performed. Because it is one of the higher risk skills we teach it is written out in this section of standards so there can be NO mistake on how to perform.

By exceeding standards we are talking about, more dives, longer classroom, more repetetion of skills,etc. ... NOT playing US NAVY Seal instructor with civilians who just want to learn how to dive.

Best,

Chris

 

[cerich]

You'd be surprised.

Way "back in the day" NAUI required students to do a CESA from 60ft.
Personally I think that doing it from 45ft with your air turned off and no LP hose is a great idea. It would appear to be a good simulation of being out of air and actually having to do a CESA.
Remember, the best way to train for something is to make it as real as possible.


Chris--I was under the impression that while NAUI has minimum standards, you are allowed to exceed them?


Edit: Remember--an instructor who is with students doing a CESA should always be WITH the student on the ascent, no more than an arm's reach away. This way if the student has a problem the instructor can help them, AND to make sure that the student is not breath-holding--ie, direct control. In this situation (45ft no air no LP hose), you should be able to reach your tank valve anyway (you should be able to reach your tank valve!) If the instructor is doing their job correctly, you should have two possible places to get air--the instructor and being able to turn on your tank valve. Also, if this were a true CESA you might still be able to get occasional small breaths off of your regulator, as the air inside the hoses also expands upon ascent--a great reason to leave it in your mouth during a CESA.

I'm honestly almost at a loss for words that you feel this is an acceptable means to do a CESA.

Why don't you give me a call (or Chad your rep for NAUI) and we can discuss.

 

[Thalassamania]

To the best of my knowledge NAUI NEVER required an ESA from 60ft.

 

[stevetim]

Great add for the 'you absolutely have to have your own dive equipment' crowd.

Nothing about that story is your fault. If you aren't certified at that point, the DM is 100% responsible for your safety and the seaworthiness of the equipment(along with the dive shop).

 

[Christi]

You'd be surprised.

Way "back in the day" NAUI required students to do a CESA from 60ft.

I'm sorry, but how would you know what they did "back in the day"? You are 20 years old! Hardly a veteran.

I'm not a NAUI Instructor, but I HIGHLY doubt they ever required a CESA from 60 feet in OW training.

I am in total agreement with cerich, and will go further and say that I REALLY hope that you are not an instructor. You could end up killing someone with that macho attitude. This is basic OW training for people that want to learn to dive safely...not guerilla dive training. I'm sorry, but I have no tolerance for this king of thing.

Clear and serious violation by any agencies standards...regardless of whether the student executed perfectly or not.

I will do some research on the standards and will get back with you on this.

Considering that cerich is a NAUI Course Director...I'm sure he is completely aware and current on the standards. I think he's covered it for ya buddy.

 

[Christi]

How many dive operators replace reg mouthpieces with steril new mouthpieces after each rental period / renter use?

John Pennekamp State Park includes the cost of new, unopened plastic wrapped snorkels in the cost of snorkel trips. Why don't dive operators do the same thing with inexpensive mouthpieces on rental regs?

Don't assume that operators don't. That is routine for us. Very occasionally it's possible to be overlooked...but SOP with my shop is to completely replace the mouthpiece after each person. If the same person is using it all week, they keep the same mouthpiece.

Since patrons of dive shops sign the liability release forms, does that mean they cannot sue no matter how criminally negligent the dive operator is in causing them harm? If a buddy catches some sort of bodily fluid born disease from using a rental octo in an out of air situation, does that mean he is SOL and cannot sue for pooor hygiene practices of the shop?

Of course they can sue. Anyone can file a lawsuit for anything. Most states are beginning to have some semblance of penalties for filing of frivoulous suits...but that is an entirely different discussion. The process then becomes one of duty of care, breach of care, negligence, damages, burden of proof, etc. Of course I am speaking in very broad general terms here...so no flames for not going into a full legal explanation.

Catching a bodily fluid borne disease would be highly unlikely and tracing the source back to a rental regulator would also be very difficult.

With the liability waiver signed, is the diver prevented from reporting such circumstances to PADI or other certifying agency in order to avoid being sued for breach of the liability release?

Absolutely not. The two things have nothing to with each other. In fact, your first step SHOULD be to report these things to the agency. "to avoid being sued for breach of the liability release?" I'm not sure I follow that part of your question.

Could diving with rental gear be more dangerous than going to a tatoo parlor where the artist replaces his rubber gloves between patrons and sterilizes / uses sterilized equipment?

Doubtful...but then again I know nothing about tatto parlours and their processes or sterilization.

Is this a non issue simply because we cannot see the organisms that remain on rental regs? or is this a non-issue because no organisms survive between rentals?

I'll leave this to one of the scientist types...I can't explain it inteligently

and last but not least, how does the dive shops effectively get chunks out of a rental reg that was exposed to underwater vomiting?

it's happened on very few accasions, but these regs are taken apart, completely serviced and cleaned before put back into use. At least that's what I do.

 

[Christi]

I was doing a BC drill were you roll out of the BC, re-buckle the shoulder strap, then pull the BC back over your head and buckle everything back together.
- As soon as I rolled out of it I took my reg out so I could un-twist my air hose (as was instructed).

I am still perplexed by this. If you remove the BCD from your right, you should never have to take the reg out of your mouth. You roll out, set the tank in front of you...the reg in your mouth the whole time...this is why we teach the roll out to the right method. Unless I am totally missing something here. I've also never know the BCD underwater removal exercise to call for putting it back on over the head...maybe that's a NAUI thing. To put it back on, you can also "roll" back into it by wrapping your arm around the back of the tank to keep the unit from floating up while trying to "redress" yourself.

When I put the reg back in my mouth, I pulled for air and got a mouth full of water. I coughed, tried again, and got the same result. As I mention above the bottom visibility was bad, and my BC apart, so I had trouble finding my octo.
- I ended up giving the "no air" signal to my instructor and swimming to him to get air.
- We reassembled my kit and once I had it back on, I was able to get air from my octo and we did a controlled ascent.

I commend you for keeping your cool and not bolting to the surface. You did EXACTLY theright thing by swimming to your instructor "buddy" in that case...but why did you have to swim to him? He should have been RIGHT there, no more than an arms reach away...and should have donated his octo as soon as he saw you were without a reg in your mouth and having trouble.

So here's the problem. Once we got back on shore I inspected my regulator. Upon inspection I noticed that my mouthpiece had split where it connects to the secondary. I could almost fit 2 fingers in the hole. So it makes sense that it would pull water. I also noticed that the entire mouthpiece was dry rotted.

not acceptable, and again I commend you for keeping your cool. I'm glad you were not injured and that all of this didn't prevent you from finishing!

If everything you say is accurate, then I thing this absolutely warrants a report to NAUI. He sounds like a poorly informed, poorly prepared, and poorly trained instructor which makes him dangerous.