Non professional divers taking very young children diving (even in a pool)

[oldschoolto]

It's only six pages if you set the setting right ..

Jim...

 

[Solacequest]

So I'm a newb on this site, but this is kinda a fun thread so here goes... Tstormdiver posted about Nonpro divers doing instruction, gotta say it depends totally on the diver, I've known some dive masters I really can't believe have not killed anyone yet, and a few divers that have experience similar to mine of just spending a lot of time underwater in weird situations that I have much more confidence in. I don't think it's about not having the right card per se, it's whether this gramp could do it safely. Personally the CYA question was the last thought to enter my mind (But then again that is specifically WHY I've never gone for my Master or Instructor, I don't want the responsibility) I'm a registered Maine Guide for kayaking and I see ppl like this guy all the time, they don't know what they don't know, and THAT is dangerous. Anyone that is not comfortable enough in the environment to have it effectively the same as sitting in the living room, really can't be paying attn to teaching it safely, and give the attention to the kiddo they need. I have gotta take the character assessment Of Tstorm, it's a judgment call. It really doesn't sound like this Gramp has a solid skill base, whenever I see ppl heading out to paddle in a boat that is not safe or w/o proper equip, I always TRY to talk to them, as Tstorm did. it rarely works (except when I find them on an Island, a mile from the mainland, lost in the fog, and they are asking how far a walk it is to the parking lot.."Not too far...If you're Jesus")The sad thing is most have the idea that they are very skilled, because they have never run into a situation they could not handle, and they have been fine. But teaching is out of that prior experience base, usually. I'm sure there are a LOT of ppl on here that could safely teach w/o having the "proper" cert, But in this case good on you tstorm for not aiding and abetting. I always think in terms of "What if?" what if that broke old reg starts freeflowing in the 5 yo's face and they freak, What if it Fails Closed and they panic, what if they death grip the inflator and don't exhale? what if they do a couple pool dives and now think a shallow OW would be fine, but accidentally drop a weight belt 30 feet down and have not practiced free ascents? personally I've never met a 5 yo that I would trust that much. I think that a HUGE part of teaching safely, with or without the proper credentials, is considering all of these eventualities, (as well as all the other ones I haven't thought of, (another reason I wouldn't want to do this) and being prepared for them. There is an AWESOME book called Deep Survival: who Lives, Who Dies and Why, One of the key factors in sports disasters is a false sense of security, the landscape changes and the dead one doesn't get the memo in time. Every time something goes fine, and you have a great time, you get more and more confident, and more and more certain that what you are doing is O.K. I would not trust that this guy is situationally aware enough to know when he crosses the line.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

10 kids in one year got run over buy parents backing up. solution???? legal mandate camera on all vehicles 2015 and later. So you can do that but you cant disable a phone from sending in a moving vehicle knowing that using it has caused thousands of deaths. I guess the kids aren't safe when the village is addicted to cell phones.

Backup cameras don't do squat when a child has crawled underneath a car.

 

[DaleC]

Paragraphs are your friend...

It's funny that in a thread about not knowing what you don't know people are so quick to make decisions based on what they don't really know.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

Paragraphs are your friend...
It's funny that in a thread about not knowing what you don't know people are so quick to make decisions based on what they don't really know.

To be fair though in this digital age - you can not wait to get all the facts to make a decision because then the paradigm would have shifted... And everyone else would have expressed their opinion before all the facts have come out.

You gather enough facts to fit your comfort level and make a decision based on what you think you know... Then the fun begins.

 

[Bob DBF]

I have gotta take the character assessment Of Tstorm, it's a judgment call. It really doesn't sound like this Gramp has a solid skill base...

Anyone can make any judgement call they want, and from the short and negative interaction, I have no basis to determine his skill level, as it was never tested.

The title of the thread, Non professional divers taking very young children diving (even in a pool), I asked twice in this thread, and received no answer, if she would have rented the tank to a "dive professional"? That leaves me with the impression that she would rent the tank under the same circumstances to an instructor or DM when they would be also be violateing training standards, something that Gramps would not be doing.

If it was my business I may have made the same call, but would not make the call just for a "non-professional".



Bob
-------------------------------------------------------
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

 

[Lorenzoid]

A long time ago when I had to work for a living, my duties included safety officer so I do understand risk assessment and mitigation. And I respect your right to make your own risk decisions. My gripe is when someone who is not in a position of authority tries to decide to make those decisions for me. Their store, their rules. But . . . .

From my perspective as a relatively inexperienced diver, a dive shop employee is in a position of authority. Unlike some of you, I am not certain I am smarter than the average tank monkey. I may be smarter than some and less smart than others. Okay, maybe not some teenager working for a summer behind the counter kind of tank monkey, but the owner or manager or an instructor--I would give them the benefit of the doubt, knowing that they are industry professionals with more experience than I have. If I were to walk into a dive shop and announce my intention to do something scuba-related that I had never done before, especially something involving other, non-trained people, I would respect what I perceive as authority in their opinion of whether it's safe for me or not.

You and others here may be a different story entirely, with more experience, more knowledge, etc., than I have about the relevant factors in taking a kid on scuba in a backyard pool. I can appreciate how you may not see a dive shop or even an instructor as being in a position of authority.

I actually look forward to the day when I reach a level where I find myself complaining about the damned tank monkey and Ray makes me eat my words. I'm getting there, slowly.

 

[DaleC]

I guess the general question we can debate is not whether the customer did or did not have the requisite knowledge to engage in his activity but is whether the shop has a mandate to determine that when renting a tank.

The first we can't answer because we simply don't have enough information. The second we can argue because it involves opinion related to perceived general practices within an industry.

That's why my take is that the usual shop mandate is to determine whether the renter is certified, the tank is in hydro and vis'd and stops there.

On the net everyone may think it's ok for a shop to overstep industry standards... until it happens to them. Like when I was on a road trip and the shop refused to fill my steel tanks because of perceived sustained load crack issues with 6351 aluminum. Fortunately I found a second shop with common sense but my whole dive trip plans could have be foiled by that professional stupidity.

 

[Lorenzoid]

A wise shop should not dig for information beyond the industry standards (c-card, etc.), and a wise customer should not offer any beyond that.

 

[scagrotto]

gotta say it depends totally on the diver ... I see ppl like this guy all the time, they don't know what they don't know

None of us knows what we don't know. One of the things you seem to not know, and you're far from alone, is that you don't have a clue about grandpa's competence or knowledge. The only thing anybody knows about his diving ability from reading this thread is that he has very little recent experience actually going diving. This will apparently come as a shock to a lot of people, but that doesn't tell us anything about his knowledge, his competence, or his judgment. We don't know if he made 100 dives or 5,000 before the last 10 years. Something else we don't know is what he meant when he said he wanted to take his grandkids diving in the family pool. He might have just been planning on letting them swim around on the surface while breathing from the reg, he might have been planning on letting them sit on the bottom of the shallow end, or he may have been planning on actually teaching them to dive.

That all means that nobody here has any idea of how competent or incompetent he'd be at whatever he might have done.

I think it is likely something could happen

It's an absolute certainty that something could happen. I see no evidence that the chance that something would happen is significant.

I'm inclined to think that most divers who think they're competent should think they're capable of safely giving a basic lesson in a pool, but that doesn't mean that everybody is capable of safely receiving that lesson (young kids being among the obvious problems). Every diver should know not to hold their breath, and every diver should know that even experienced divers may panic and bolt. That should translate into being aware of possible problems while introducing somebody to scuba.

Based on posts in this thread it seems that extremely few people have been seriously injured or killed as a result of scuba introduction by a non-professional, but a fair number of people have died while being supervised by professionals. Of course that's largely just a numbers game, since far more people get their introduction from professionals. Similarly, far more brand new divers spend time with non-professionals as buddies than get introduced to scuba in a pool by non-professionals. If you think you're competent to safely accompany a new diver with a brand new OW card, what's so different that makes you think you couldn't have safely given them a 30 minute intro in a pool?