it is the little things that can get you!

[mako1]

wife and i went with a group to fl. to get our advance cert. 6 others in the group were getting thier rescue diver or master diver, as well as a master diver and instructor. during one of the test for a rescue dive, where one girl was playing an out of air panic diver and the soon to be rescure diver was to calm her down give her air and bring her to the surface(from 30ft). well everything went well until the student put the aqualug octo, in the panic diver's mouth up side down. as you know it does not work upside down. so the panic diver try to take it out and the student held it in and then we really had a panic diver!!! up they went fighting like mad. everyone watching thinking that the panic diver is out to win an oscar for best actor!! till we got to the surface and found out is was no acting!! if you do any such training there should be and hand signal to end all training discussed by all before hand, everyone was fine, but it could have been much worse. good luck and be safe
mike

 

[wcl]

Very true.

Also, since there will be plenty of simulated emergencies, it is also wise to have a distinct, clear signal for "this is a real emergency, not a drill ...".

Having the abort and no-drill signals help prevent simulated diasters from becoming real ones!

Cheers,

Walter

 

[Chaseh]

she should have ripped his mask off.

JK

 

[simbrooks]

Sounds like there was a bit too much instruction going on there, how many courses was one instructor teaching? As for the reg thing, it will breathe upside down, but nowhere near as well. Was the "pretend OOA" diver actually OOA or just panicked due to the "reg problem"? As for cease action for a drill, not sure what that might be - particularly if they were really OOA and were being donated to at the time.

 

[baitedstorm]

she should have ripped his mask off.

I bet they would hve let go if she had

 

[Tollie]

Actually… where was the Instructor when this was going down? Under no circumstances will I let students pull OOA drills on their own… any time we do an OOA I’m right next to the team ready to intervene. Please don’t take this as a judgment about the teaching situation… we don’t have enough information but to put two students in such a situation seems to be asking for a problem.

 

[simbrooks]

Actually… where was the Instructor when this was going down? Under no circumstances will I let students pull OOA drills on their own… any time we do an OOA I’m right next to the team ready to intervene. Please don’t take this as a judgment about the teaching situation… we don’t have enough information but to put two students in such a situation seems to be asking for a problem.

I know you have liability during instruction, but if two students cant pull off an OOA by the end of OW, no matter during a rescue class then there needs to be some remedial done! We dont know the whole deal of the situation, but they shouldnt have to rely on the instructor by this stage of diving.

 

[BigboyDan]

I know you have liability during instruction, but if two students cant pull off an OOA by the end of OW, no matter during a rescue class then there needs to be some remedial done! We dont know the whole deal of the situation, but they shouldnt have to rely on the instructor by this stage of diving.

Agreed.

Also: did the OOA simulater still have her working tank/rig on her body during the simulation? Why didn't the student let go of her after she violently resisted? (If I were the student, I would have guessed that there was something wrong with her ability to breath from my rig, why didn't he?) Lucky that they started at 30'.... Frankly, I would have gone for his mask as well.

 

[DennisW]

I've played panicked diver before. The student would lose his/her mask, I would get their primary. They would work for their card if I was the "victim". But you are right, it's the little things that can get you. Usually it's a chain of little problems that on their own aren't much of an issue, but you chain them together and bad things happen. Same thing when you fly. My wife and I have a three strike rule. Three things go wrong for a single flight or dive, and we call the flight or dive.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Some regs breath fine upside down and some give nothing but water. Either way all you have to do is flip it around obviously...or if you need a breath right away all you have to do is press the purge while you breath. In this same fasion you can breath just fine from a reg that's missing an eahaust diaphragm or has a leaky main diaphragm.

Not being able to cope with being handed an upsidedown reg is just another one of those subtle hints that divers aren't comfortable with basic skills and aren't learning to do them correctly. Under normal circumstances you don't need to put the reg in the divers mouth, you simply extend it holding it by the hose so the purge is accessible.

It also points out a blaringly obvious problem with the brain dead equipment configuration that's so popular in recreational diving which goes hand in hand with the hosed up procedures used. IMO, that's why this happens so often.

When donating a reg from your mouth, you grab it by the hose, rotate your wrist so the mouth piece is pointing down (so it doesn't free flow) and extend it. It comes foreward right side up and ready to use. If the diver just grabs it out of your mouth, they're grabing something they can see so they get it right side up.

Of course kudos for not letting it go and passing the diver without more time in the water. The most profitable thing to do is to give the cards out and move on to the next group and there's sometimes pressure on the instructor from his employers to do just that...so big pat on the back there. And don't misunderstand me...a major part of teaching diving is teaching divers to deal with emergency situations calmly and constructively. We make judgements along the way. We attempt to correctly apply what we've been taught and sometimes we've even been taught junk but you do what you can with what you have.