Moral dilemma

[Gombessa]

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.

In my limited experience, this isn't at all uncommon. Two of the four shops I dove with who were also having OW classes had "trainee" divemasters accompany instructors in order to make the "x number of divers per instructor" quota advertised (one of them was introduced casually as "the DM for the dive" but as I was chatting with him he said he was in his candidacy or internship or something). They didn't do any of the drills/teaching, but your point about training definitely comes into play.

It's one of those situations you can get away with 99% of the time, but when that 1% hits the fan, the resulting mess is splattered far and wide.

 

[dvr4lyf]

Like the others said, every situation is different but the odds of you getting DCS here are small. I always tell my students "You're better off bent than embolised so BREATHE and deal with the situation as best you can."

When you caught her power inflating the first time you should have taken the inflator away from her and taken charge of buoyancy management. You might have been able to reassure her with an "up" signal and keeping her eyes focused on yours. You also need to make sure your diver is breathing; don't let them ascend holding their breath even if it means punching them in the gut to force an exhale. The trick is to notice the signs of the panic cycle when they start and to intervene before the diver is no longer capable of self-control or rationality.

Having been the near panicked diver myself (I freaked about everything when learning to dive and didn't pass the check-outs my first try) I can tell you it's reassuring to know someone is in control of the situation and they are taking you where you want to go even though it seems like it's taking forever.Ber :lilbunny:

I second that thought!!!!! Nothing could be more calming than knowing someone else is in control, but I guess it takes some practice to be able to assess, reassure,and direct all at once.
Good luck with your course!!
I will hopefully be working on my DM in the spring.

 

[Air On]

Who taught her that you hit the magic elevator button to go UP in the first place!

If they covered gas expansion in class...
If they taught them to use their FINS and not inflate the BC...
If they trained what to do, even in a panic it should have been swim not inflate...

Then she wouldn't have been riding the inflator button in the firstplace.

I have to admit when we did rescue dives in OW class. We were supposed to buddy up and surface doing buddy breathing... Surface by swimming not using the BCs.

Well my victim to rescue (a PADI DM trainee, visiting the NAUI class) wasn't kicking at all and was heavier then I am. So after a few moments of hard finning, I hit the power inflator to compensate. That allowed me to SWIM us to the surface controled, not just float up on an expanding bubble.

The class instructor's first comment was "WHO HIT THEIR POWER INFLATOR!" I responded that "I did, he wasn't assisting in the swimming and I couldn't lift him without adjusting my bouyancy." At that point the Victim chimes in "I was supposed to be swimming?" "Yes" I say "It wasn't unassisted diver rescue if we are buddy breathing." The class instructor then compliments me for quick thinking and good problem solving.

The instructor since then durring sport dives paired me with divers she knew were hazards to themselves... Because she knew I'd keep an eye on them.

You don't have to be a DM or Instructor to have a clue and be able to rescue people. Your a scuba diver... You should be ready to rescue yourself and your dive buddies every time you enter the water!

You did a great damn job!!! The choises to made were absolutly correct! You both lived and no one was injured. You might do things differntly next time, but you took charge and helped out when it was needed.

For all we know the rest of the class was stressed and the instructor needed to work keeping them calm.

 

[Ber Rabbit]

I second that thought!!!!! Nothing could be more calming than knowing someone else is in control, but I guess it takes some practice to be able to assess, reassure,and direct all at once.
Good luck with your course!!
I will hopefully be working on my DM in the spring.

That experience was many years ago, I certified in 1993 and can still vividly remember the problems I had while learning. I started teaching in 2002 and if you had told me, while I was taking the OW class, that I would be an instructor in 10 years I would have told you that you were nuts but here I am. My specialty has always been the nervous students, the instructor I DM'd for (my original instructor) handed the "problem children" off to me in the pool regularly because she knew I understood how they were feeling and could sympathize and help them through the fear. She was at a bit of a disadvantage with some of them because she had always been comfortable in the water she didn't know what the fear felt like. She could reassure and coax but when I took them I could describe what they were feeling inside. "How did you know?" was a common question We used the feelings as a starting point, once we found what triggered the feelings we could change the reaction to them.

You don't have to be a DM or Instructor to have a clue and be able to rescue people. Your a scuba diver... You should be ready to rescue yourself and your dive buddies every time you enter the water!

This is a point a lot of people miss. I pick the people I would like to eventually see DM for me out of my OW classes and I start grooming them right then and there. I've found that divers who are skittish at the beginning and overcome that then develop the habit of watching out for their buddy AND the rest of their classmates make great DM prospects.
Ber :lilbunny:

 

[String]

In my limited experience, this isn't at all uncommon.

[/QUOTE]

Its not uncommon. I've seen it happen as a matter of routine at certain busy resorts in areas around the world. DMTs introduced as "divemasters" who then guide qualified divers, do DSDs and escort totally unqualified divers on the tour portion etc.
A lot of places do seem to be unable to differentiate between Divemaster and DMT. The main reason i suspect is divemasters want paying, DMTs do it free as internship so free labour.

...and yes you can have a DMT who the instructor knows is excellent in the water. That isn't enough though, if the ***** hits the fan then ISNT the time to find out they weren't quite that good (or insured).

 

[String]

Who taught her that you hit the magic elevator button to go UP in the first place!

If they covered gas expansion in class...
If they taught them to use their FINS and not inflate the BC...
If they trained what to do, even in a panic it should have been swim not inflate...

Then she wouldn't have been riding the inflator button in the firstplace.

Disagree with that. This is an unqualified trainee here. People at this level have not dived enough to develop muscle memory or enough to suppress natural urges to bolt and so on. Nothing to do with training, its entirely to do with lack of exposure to diving and lack of experience diving. To these people getting on the surface is the ultimate goal when things go wrong. In full scale panic rational thought goes out of the window and they fall back on their old reactions to get there even though this isn't what we train.

If this was a qualified diver or on a higher level course then i may agree with your comment about it being training however an unqualified trainee is too "raw" to have developed the correct thought processes.

 

[Mr.X]

Disagree with that. This is an unqualified trainee here. People at this level have not dived enough to develop muscle memory or enough to suppress natural urges to bolt and so on. Nothing to do with training, its entirely to do with lack of exposure to diving and lack of experience diving. To these people getting on the surface is the ultimate goal when things go wrong. In full scale panic rational thought goes out of the window and they fall back on their old reactions to get there even though this isn't what we train.

If this was a qualified diver or on a higher level course then i may agree with your comment about it being training however an unqualified trainee is too "raw" to have developed the correct thought processes.

Absolutely! Scuba trainees do not usually have the requisite psychomotor skills at such a raw stage to make "truly" informed decisions regarding s__t hits the fan scenarios. They will typically rely on what they know - get to the surface at all costs.

X

 

[diver 85]

Your 'mentor' might have been simply trying to make a point & you took it literally ie @ some time in the future you may be directly responsible for someones life/death situation...Have another talk with him concerning your options in that same situation .........In reality, that exact situation was not that big a deal---after all neither of you ended up dying nor having to spend time in a chamber which is what ultimately counts, right??...

 

[diverdowndh]

I would like to stick my neck out a bit... I keep hearing things like "he/she is a DMT and doesn't know enough to make decisions".
That is bunk. The All-Knowing PADI course does not instantly make you a saviour to all diverkind... I firmly believe if you are a ResQ or DMT or anything above your basic OW class, you are probably gonna survive because you hopefully have learned a few things about A) breathing compressed gasses at depth, and B) interacting or watching other divers around you. Just because this guy is a DMT does not mean that when he finishes his PADI DM exams he will instantly be illuminated and deified. He is almost certainly a really good diver, a smart person, and asked a really good question.
I know that the implication was that the Instructor is the ultimate person in charge but c'mon, I'm sure a DMT can make a good decision, and did in this case. Hopefully this does not upset anyone! Certainly not my intention!

 

[String]

I know that the implication was that the Instructor is the ultimate person in charge but c'mon, I'm sure a DMT can make a good decision, and did in this case.

But cant be guaranteed to - thats the whole point of supervision. They haven't be assessed or trained enough to guarantee they'll do the right thing. They make a good diver, may not be a good diver yet, may make the right call, may make the wrong call.
Especially in this case the OP said it was the first weekend.
Instructor is EXPECTED to do the right thing, has trained for it and is insured and covered for it. A DMT isnt.

If you just allow any diver to instruct or supervise others as you think "they're probably a good diver" it defeats the whole point of training and also extremely dangerous to make assumptions like that.