Moral dilemma

[nereas]

I'm as brave as I have to be and extremely, probably to a fault, of the students in my charge. I am also big on self preservation and survival. If I'm injured or worse then I am of very little or no use to anyone that needs my help. I'll do my best to help before, during, and after the fact but I WON'T take the bullet for you. I don't know you that well.

Hah! You cannot be both brave and also place self-preservation ahead of any other principle. One or the other. Not both. Decide.

 

[nereas]

A dead DM/instructor is of absolutely ZERO value to a diver in need of help, right?
Self preservation and bravery is two things that goes together, but there is a fine line between bravery and being foolhardy, which DONT go together with self preservation.

Hah! You cannot be both brave and also place self-preservation ahead of any other principle. One or the other. Not both. Decide, as well.

 

[nereas]

As a practicing DM I've learned it's a battlefield out there. Most of the issues I see are directly related to training "gaps". You just don't know what the hell you're going to run into when you show up to help out a class. If you have a big class with multiple issues at the same time and are maxing out the Instructor/DM to student ratios then things can get out of hand. To be honest I hate assisting with those "cluster......" classes. But I do my best and have learned everything and anything can and will happen. You just have to know when to take charge of the situation and deal with it. Multitasking is a must in the bigger classes. After awhile you realize the rules get bent a little sometimes. It's not planned. But **** happens. As a DM you have to be prepared to step into your Instructor's shoes for a bit until the issues get under control. Of course this is all dependant on the Instructor/s you are working with. In some classes the DM does not do a heck of a lot. The Instrucor is on top of his game. In other classes I've felt like I wanted to whack the guy in the head. Fun stuff.

Me too!

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Having been in this situation several times as a DM it really depends on the student in question. I've had panicky ones who were not allowed to touch their inflator on the way up. Others who for some reason just seemed to shoot off towards the surface and not paniced but just not paying attention. I try to stay close enough to catch them but if I'm not able to in no way am I going to risk injury to stop them. I don't like to do it but will sometimes dive heavy if I think a student may do one of the above. That way I can catch em, dump my air and hopefully get control of them. I do however always follow them to the surface, make sure they are ok, discuss what happened with them and may, if I'm not ok with their answers, abort the rest of the dive and take em to shore. It comes with experience and working with alot of different types of people. After a while you can read most of them before they even get in the water or very shortly after like during the buoyancy check. But as others have said if I become injured my self I'm of little or no use to the initial victim. This is basic rescue class stuff here. You do not risk injury to yourself. This is difficult when it's a loved one but sometimes hard decisions have to be made. The DM's, AI's, and Instructors who can are the ones I want to dive with. I'm not comfortable with glory hounds. glory hounds who get hurt themselves are of no use to an injured victim. And yes a DMC has no business escorting or supervising an uncertified diver in the water.

 

[sea nmf]

As most indicated, chances of DCS were slim. An air embolism was more likely, from which you could have protected yourself.

All turned out well, but I'm curious. Did you discuss this with the student and can you share the students reaction to your discussion? Situations like this offer the very best lessons, if you survive unharmed.

 

[muddiver]

What I have learned is that it also depends on the depth you are working at and what level of training the students are at. If you are doing a 100' deep dive evolution for an advanced SCUBA Diver certification and a student goes ballistic at 80', he's on his own. I will follow at a safe pace to make sure the student is ok at the surface. With brand new Open Water students at 40' or less it is a good idea to try to control them like you attempted to and assist in regaining neutral bouyancy for them, then proceed to the surface safely do defrief the situation.

As stated previously, I like to try to get the student to grab onto my rig, by planting their hands on my shoulder straps after getting their attention. If you should ever run across a truely paniced student you will quickly realize that you do not want to be with in arms reach of them at any time! A dive leader without a mask, regulator and a student standing on them is as useless as a casualty dive leader. Usually that is not the case and with good eye contact one can get a stressed student to slow down and follow your signals, and control.

I have not had the luxuary yet of having to physically control a students autoinflator yet, but I think that is a good idea along with Jim's advice to dive heavy, dump, get their hands on your rig straps and you control their bouyancy while asceding.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

Here's a similar story but from another angle. I took 4 AOW students on their first deep dive and I brought along a DM candidate I had trained to AOW then recommended he get some real life, out of class dive experience before he go on with advancing to his ultimate goal...instructor. Instead of doing as I asked he went to the local shop to start toward his DM rating. Feeling an obligation to ensure he was the best DM he could be even though I correctly suspected he wasn't up to the task I let him help with my AOW class and gave him my strongest buddy pair for the deep dive. I brought along an extra diver, one I KNEW was good enough to be a DM though he couldn't afford to take the class.

During the descent I can hear a free flow and I check every tank around (my group plus some tech divers) and don't see any bubbles. We get to 70 feet and the DMC indicates a problem but I can't figure out what he wants, it looks like he can't find his pony reg so I show him it's still on his shoulder. The next signal he gives me is "ear squeeze" so I tell him and my extra diver to buddy up and turn my full attention to the 4 students. Evidently as soon as I turn away from him he discovered the free flow I had been hearing was the reg in his mouth, it had a partial free flow but the way he breathes neither of us could tell that. The reg erupts into a full free flow and the diver I assigned to buddy with him almost got a hand on him through the cloud of bubbles before the DMC panicked and shot for the surface. He says he switched to his pony and that started to free flow as well but only one tank was empty on the surface. I didn't see any of this happen as I was focused on the 4 students in my care. My extra diver opted not to chase the DMC to the surface, he made a controlled ascent while watching the DMC and when he noticed the DMC was moving on the surface he made his safety stop as well. Luckily no harm came to anyone though the DMC felt like he couldn't breathe on the surface so called for help and someone on the surface jumped in and dragged him ashore. When I came to the surface after finishing the dive the first thing I saw was the fire dept. helmets and the DMC sitting on the edge of the quarry on O2. Luckily he was not injured and was able to join us for the night dive where he lead the group so fast we got split up and a doubles diver who had come along for safety threw up from the exertion of trying to keep up with the speed demon while wearing double 130's.

BTW he had the nerve to ask why I never turned back to check on him after I indicated he and the other diver should buddy up. Hmmmm, let's see...you're a DMC with a buddy and I now have FOUR students in my care on their first deep dive...who's going to get my undivided attention? The individual is no longer part of our program though he did go on to get an instructor rating and taught for the local shop.

You just never know who the solid divers in a group will be.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[diverdowndh]

I just finished my ResQ class and the rule was very clear - you cannot save or help anyone if you are hurt yourself. If you allow a student to do something to harm you, well... In ResQ they tell you to grab a panicked diver and try to slow them down but not to expose yourself to a runaway ascent. Yes, in a classroom I can see that you need to make sure uncertified divers do not get hurt but I do not see why, in your example, you should follow her to the surface. You clearly state that you emptied her BC and got her under control, and if she did it again after seeing you do the opposite then, wow, I would be hard pressed to go after her.

OTOH, knowing that you weren't really exposed to much of an ascent or much danger of DCS, that doesn't seem like too much risk and you probably slowed her down and lowered her possibilities of getting hurt in the process. I would say that as long as you don't risk yourself getting hurt then, of course, stay with the student. Otherwise.... take it case by case.
my 2 cents....

 

[Gombessa]

Rather than blaming the poster...maybe you should flame the instructor who allowed the "power-inflating" student in the water?

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but is this really a fair comment to make? The OP mentioned these were OW students (i.e., uncertified), presumably on instruction or check-out dives. "Panic" is something you can teach about, but it's by nature unexpected and it happens even to experienced swimmers and divers (there are a number of posts here from people who who experienced various levels of panic following a reflex due to inhalation of water, on the surface or submerged).

I don't think OW instructors can realistically be expected to ferret out students who panic from those that don't--at best they can screen what they can, teach the facts and procedures, and provide a safe, supervised environment where any such problems can be safely dealt with. That student could have been a star pupil in the classroom and contained water dives; if so how can any reasonable instructor say she's not ready to move on to the OW portion?

If that student was allowed to go back into the water (or be certified) by the instructor without first clearing up the panic/inflate issue, or if she clearly didn't know what a power inflator was or understood the theory behind gas compression at depth, THEN we could talk about blaming the instructor. I just don't see how there's nearly enough information here to make that call.

 

[String]

Rather than blaming the poster...maybe you should flame the instructor who allowed the "power-inflating" student in the water? Additionally, we do not know if the instructor taught this new DM candidate in-water safety protocols with panicky students. There seems to be gaps in instruction here. A new DM candidate is not an instructor.

Im blaming the instructor for allowing an unqualified person to supervise unqualified divers. A DMT is not a divemaster. They arent trained and ready enough to count as an assistant and directly aid unqualified divers. Big breach of safety standards there.

Cant blame the DMT for not knowing what to do - the start of the course he hasn't been trained enough.