Instructor Requirements- continued...

[jbd]

This is the $100,000 chicken or egg question, isn't it. Not only OOA but a whole raft of things......

R..

I think you can have have a strictly OOA situation and you can have a situtation that is strictly buoyancy control issues. I do think though that a diver with buoyancy control problems is at higher risk of having an OOA problem also due to high air consumption both respiratory and constant inflate/deflate activities.

 

[Scubakevdm]

It's on the bit that Mike likes to quote about 60% of fatalities involving buoyancy problems and 30% involving OOA.


R..

I think you are misunderstanding me, and misunderstanding the DAN report as well. I would like to go on record as saying that think that it would be really great if students were taught better buoyancy skills.
The report states that 60 percent of the fatalities had procedural buoyancy issues, but that these issues were not neccesarily the cause of the fatality. This caused me to wonder exactly what role buoyancy control did play in each of the fatalities, so one by one, I read the case reports... like I said, starting at page 110. After reading the reports, I was surprised.
Also, since you mentioned it, how about the caver that got stuck and they couldn't get him out for two days? OOA. The guy entangled in kelp... OOA. You can teach gas management all you want in either of those cases, but that's not what failed. So, although Mike has very noble intentions, and lots of experience, I invite you to explore the actual report for yourself, and to help to make some meaningful changes to both diving instruction and to this thread.

 

[jbd]

... I was surprised.

What were you surprised by?

 

[jbd]

I think you are misunderstanding me, and misunderstanding the DAN report as well. I would like to go on record as saying that think that it would be really great if students were taught better buoyancy skills.
The report states that 60 percent of the fatalities had procedural buoyancy issues, but that these issues were not neccesarily the cause of the fatality. This caused me to wonder exactly what role buoyancy control did play in each of the fatalities, so one by one, I read the case reports... like I said, starting at page 110. After reading the reports, I was surprised.
Also, since you mentioned it, how about the caver that got stuck and they couldn't get him out for two days? OOA. The guy entangled in kelp... OOA. You can teach gas management all you want in either of those cases, but that's not what failed. So, although Mike has very noble intentions, and lots of experience, I invite you to explore the actual report for yourself, and to help to make some meaningful changes to both diving instruction and to this thread.

I read through most of the case histories in that link. What I got from it was that rapid ascents, some coupled with breath holding, caused most of the fatal injuries. There were indeed health problems although I don't see the direct connection with some of the problems listed. I was surprisd by the numbers that had pulmonary emphysema as pre-existing medical conditions. My experience working with these kinds of patients leads me to think that they should not be diving.

 

[Scubakevdm]

I read through most of the case histories in that link. What I got from it was that rapid ascents, some coupled with breath holding, caused most of the fatal injuries. There were indeed health problems although I don't see the direct connection with some of the problems listed. I was surprisd by the numbers that had pulmonary emphysema as pre-existing medical conditions. My experience working with these kinds of patients leads me to think that they should not be diving.

I was also surprised by the number of pre-existing medical conditions. I was surprised by the role procedural buoyancy problems played in the fatalities. These people didn't die because they couldn't hover... they died because they failed to achieve positive buoyancy at the surface, because their inflators didn't work, their BC's wouldn't hold air, and because they made rapid ascents because they panicked.
If you tell me "You can change one attribute of all of these people's training, then we'll run the tape back and give them a second chance. What's it gonna be?" My answer is not to hone their buoyancy skills. (Though that is a nice thing to do for people if you love diving) My answer is to rip their masks off. Yank their regs out. Turn their air off. Teach them how to work through panic.
My other answer would be to have a mandatory medical screening like they do in Australia.

 

[scubadoguk]

I was also surprised by the number of pre-existing medical conditions. I was surprised by the role procedural buoyancy problems played in the fatalities. These people didn't die because they couldn't hover... they died because they failed to achieve positive buoyancy at the surface, because their inflators didn't work, their BC's wouldn't hold air, and because they made rapid ascents because they panicked.
If you tell me "You can change one attribute of all of these people's training, then we'll run the tape back and give them a second chance. What's it gonna be?" My answer is not to hone their buoyancy skills. (Though that is a nice thing to do for people if you love diving) My answer is to rip their masks off. Yank their regs out. Turn their air off. Teach them how to work through panic.
My other answer would be to have a mandatory medical screening like they do in Australia.

We Brits had a very similar system of dive training for many many yrs till PADI had took hold and other issues within the actual club, I HAD to have a medical from a doctor on a list of approved doctors not a GP of my choosing, we did months of lectures and snorkeling and was allowed only then to do our scuba training.
Of the people who started the drop out rate was huge, like that of DM's and Instructors now within PADI, but this was the basic training, we did all the scary ditch and dons and breathing not only off ABLJ (B.C) but no reg off a valve and so on we did rescue training to a high standard, physics and physiology deco and so on, all in all a great course and highly recommended to all you guys because you all love scuba.
I think we would not have the sport we have now if we did our courses like this, I have enough trouble keeping them on a schedule for a few weeks and lord knows there would be no one in class if it lasted 6 months, PADI may be a punch bag here but its got many of the guys here into diving, what road you choose to follow is up to you but so far no one has come up with a better course and been able sell it to anyone.

 

[opiniongirl]

Here here to that. All in all, we are talking about approximately a 0.03% injury rate - pretty darn good, although it is always better lower.

You can't put the blame on such accidents all on one thing - looking at the reports, it's usually not one single thing, but rather a chain of events.

And apart from making an open water class 8 months long (which would definitely reduce OW deaths as no one would take it), it would be interesting to see the continuing education ratio of these instructors. No, it's not a sales job, IMO...if an instructor can't impress upon divers the need to continue their learning, they need to work on their instructional skills.

It's not a worldwide buoyancy problem, it's not a world-wide lousy instructor problem, it's not that everyone has a heart attack underwater problem, etc - it's a compilation of all of these issues. But by examining (yearly) the DAN reports, I've found the majority of the issues to be:

- a lot of solo diving
- a lot of divers obviously going beyond their limits
- a lot of divers medically unfit to dive
- a lot of instructors doing stupid things
- a lot of inactive divers

 

[scubadoguk]

Here here to that. All in all, we are talking about approximately a 0.03% injury rate - pretty darn good, although it is always better lower.

You can't put the blame on such accidents all on one thing - looking at the reports, it's usually not one single thing, but rather a chain of events.

And apart from making an open water class 8 months long (which would definitely reduce OW deaths as no one would take it), it would be interesting to see the continuing education ratio of these instructors. No, it's not a sales job, IMO...if an instructor can't impress upon divers the need to continue their learning, they need to work on their instructional skills.

It's not a worldwide buoyancy problem, it's not a world-wide lousy instructor problem, it's not that everyone has a heart attack underwater problem, etc - it's a compilation of all of these issues. But by examining (yearly) the DAN reports, I've found the majority of the issues to be:

- a lot of solo diving
- a lot of divers obviously going beyond their limits
- a lot of divers medically unfit to dive
- a lot of instructors doing stupid things
- a lot of inactive divers

Many a good instructor can't sell a class
I have seen many go mad trying to figure out why their classes are not doing well, its a bit more than impressing on the student why they should, students see no reason too continue they feel they learn all they need there and then. Open water in itself is the means to the end.

 

[jbd]

I was also surprised by the number of pre-existing medical conditions. I was surprised by the role procedural buoyancy problems played in the fatalities. These people didn't die because they couldn't hover... they died because they failed to achieve positive buoyancy at the surface, because their inflators didn't work, their BC's wouldn't hold air, and because they made rapid ascents because they panicked.
If you tell me "You can change one attribute of all of these people's training, then we'll run the tape back and give them a second chance. What's it gonna be?" My answer is not to hone their buoyancy skills. (Though that is a nice thing to do for people if you love diving) My answer is to rip their masks off. Yank their regs out. Turn their air off. Teach them how to work through panic.
My other answer would be to have a mandatory medical screening like they do in Australia.

What I noticed, was all the deaths in which autopsy found air embolism to be the cause of death even when the person made it back to the surface and even back onto the boat and suddenly went unconscious.

Setting aside the pre-existing medical conditions that IMHO created an artificial OOA scenario which created the panic that you mention, I think buoyancy control is still the key issue. Here's how I see that coming about as an issue. People without good buoyancy control skills struggle through the water and often have trim problems. They are commonly overweighted. They sink too fast and can't clear their ears, creating pain. They can't stop their descent and they can't stop finning, which is their only means of some semblence of depth control. Their arms are flailing. Their adding and removing air constantly to the BC. In other words they are out of control and nearly exhausted. This scares them to no end and as you noted they panic and bolt for the surface upon which they get an embolism or blow a lung.

Lets look at the diver that was taught excellent buoyancy control during his OW course. First they are properly weighted to dive. They have good trim and are able to move through the water easily. All gear and body parts are streamlined. They can move up or down in the water column in 4 inch increments with the ability to stop at each 4 inch move. Consequently they have the time to clear their ears so they don't have pain. They need only add very small amounts of air to the BC during the descent. They don't even have to fin unless they want to so they are relaxed and not anywhere near being exhausted.

Make really good buoyancy control the central core of the training course and lets look at what you can do with the students. The next outer layer(1st from the core) of training consists of the student doing mask clearing including remove and replace while neutral and trimmed while hovering or swimming, regulator skills the same thing. Dealing with entanglement, which is where I would have them remove and replace their gear mid water simulating that they removed fishing line from the scuba unit. Turning off their air and have them turn it back on(after thorough training and working up to this point) while their buddy is either sharing air with them or is ready to share air if needed. All done neutral either swimming or hovering.

The next (2nd from the core) involves introducing task loading in which problems are introduced by the instructor while the students are on a dive mission. This starts with flooding the mask or removing it fom the student. Remove the regulator from their mouth. Remove a fin. Turn off the air. Entanglement. Initially you start with one at a time and then move to 2 problems at once then 3 then four at a time. The whole time the students are maintaining good buoyancy control(nope not perfect but good). This means they don't break the surface and they don't touch the bottom but the instructor is looking to see how well they stay within a much smaller range than the depth of the pool.

In other words (much fewer words) these divers are in control of their dive. There is no reason for them to be scared or panic and they know it.

As I see it, buoyancy control is the central issue, which is why it was the central core of my course.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I think you are misunderstanding me, and misunderstanding the DAN report as well. I would like to go on record as saying that think that it would be really great if students were taught better buoyancy skills.
The report states that 60 percent of the fatalities had procedural buoyancy issues, but that these issues were not neccesarily the cause of the fatality. This caused me to wonder exactly what role buoyancy control did play in each of the fatalities, so one by one, I read the case reports... like I said, starting at page 110. After reading the reports, I was surprised.
Also, since you mentioned it, how about the caver that got stuck and they couldn't get him out for two days? OOA. The guy entangled in kelp... OOA. You can teach gas management all you want in either of those cases, but that's not what failed. So, although Mike has very noble intentions, and lots of experience, I invite you to explore the actual report for yourself, and to help to make some meaningful changes to both diving instruction and to this thread.

The DAN report , IMO, needs to be considered as raw data only. It's true that when they say that buoyancy control problems are reported on 60% of the dives that result in fatalities they are not saying that the buoyancy control problems were the direct cause of the death...that's usually drowning, embolism or whatever. Also note that in the many cases (maybe the majority) there isn't an eye witness to the actual fatality. Buddy seperations often go along with whatever the original problem was.

What the report does for me is to kind of draw a picture of one group of divers who of the most likely to have an accident...little recent experience, little training and poor skills.

Lets face it. divers with good skills just don't get hurt unless they have a heart attack or their really pushing the envelope.

I was also surprised by the number of pre-existing medical conditions. I was surprised by the role procedural buoyancy problems played in the fatalities. These people didn't die because they couldn't hover... they died because they failed to achieve positive buoyancy at the surface, because their inflators didn't work, their BC's wouldn't hold air, and because they made rapid ascents because they panicked.
If you tell me "You can change one attribute of all of these people's training, then we'll run the tape back and give them a second chance. What's it gonna be?" My answer is not to hone their buoyancy skills. (Though that is a nice thing to do for people if you love diving) My answer is to rip their masks off. Yank their regs out. Turn their air off. Teach them how to work through panic.
My other answer would be to have a mandatory medical screening like they do in Australia.

Boyancy control isn't required to dive at all. You can walk on the bottom and live through it. Look at some cases of panic though. What does buoyancy control do for the diver? It allows them to manage a task and/or problem with loosing control. What causes panic? It hapens when a person feels they have lost control.

Ask a student to manage a free flow on a platform. No problem right? They are required to do it in confined water (PADI). Now ask them to do it while maintaining depth and position while maintaining contact with and awareness of a buddy. First off, many divers who haven't ever done it midwater will just shoot to the surface anyway just because of their breathing and all the bubble comming up into their face. This is actually one that we see alot around here although most live through it.

On this board there is a thread about one of our members who had a free flow during an AOW deep dive. In an attempt to share air, the student, the instructor and the buddy unintentionally ended up on the surface (from like 80 ft). Her computer gave an ascent rate of like 160 ft/minute. All three were unable to manage the tasks at hand while controling their position in the water.