On Criminally Inept Instructors, or The Successful Application of the Nutcracker Maneuver.

[Vicko]

A few observations or questions:

I am surprised that if the diver wants or needs a personal dive guide ... that the dive guide allowed the diver to enter the water on a deep dive with 60 meter depth attainable w/o removing some of the 17 lbs of excess lead.

I am also confused how a pre-dive check was skipped by the DM and the customer progressed to trying to dive with his air turned off. and BC empty.

He did not splash at that point, anybody I'm supposed to be DM-ing doses not leave the boat until I personally check their valves, that is why I caught it before he turned in to an anchor.

I am also confused by the description that the OP (DM) enters the water without his gear on at the same time the customer does. Why? He goes on to describe how the customer was wide eyed and never had seen that before? If the customer was in the water watching this, how would the DM be able to help the customer without all his gear on, especially if the guy has his tank off, BC empty and "at least" 17 lbs of excess lead? How is it that the circumstances allow the customer to get all his gear on before entering the water, but not the supervising DM? The description of events is confusing to me?

I have a bad back, and I prefer not to splash with my tanks on, in the water it takes me under 10 seconds to be ready to dive down so it's not a big issue. His bcd had integrated weights and I did not check the pockets before the dive (my bad I guess, people usually don't like me going over their personal equipment with so much detail) . He did not jump off with a closed tank, I caught it and fixed the issue on the boat just before he splashed. It may be a good idea to have me in the water first just in case but I prefer to be the last man in the water so I can check everyone and help by passing equipment to the customers (also a part of why I put my gear on in the water, I tend to jump around the boat a lot to get the cameras or torches and stuff).

Why does the DM signal to thumb the dive (due to rapidly developing problems) and then allow the customer to begin an immediate and rapid descent to 28 meters without making physical contact? He continues to fail to make physical contact until the diver makes it to 15 m, why?

It is hard for me to cheer the decision to punch the guy in the balls, especially when there were seemingly so many opportunities to intervene before that became a potential response.

Why would the DM not simply vent the customer's BC on ascent, if he had ditched some of his excess lead, then the ascent should have been controllable by simply venting the BC - which would be possible if physical contact had been maintained?

I did not allow him to sink, I just could not reach him in time, it took me around 30 seconds to get to him before I could inflate his BCD (at that point his inflator was in my hand). Then to ask him if he is OK I let go of the inflator and he dumped his weight pocket and inflated the BCD. I could not reach his inflator or dump valve on his shoulders in time to stop the rapid accent so I just tried to prevent the barotrauma.

 

[WarrenZ]

. I could not reach his inflator or dump valve on his shoulders in time to stop the rapid accent so I just tried to prevent the barotrauma.

That is called Doing What Works.

Was he doing the continuous inflate thing while ascending Inflator in hand or did was it floating loose?

 

[BreeAbyss]

I have a question, I'm not a DM and I'm super tired right now so maybe I misread but how was he definitely qualified for a 30m dive with current and a deeper bottom when all his dives were only to 10-15 m? Wouldn't you want to do a checkout type dive with him first? He doesn't really seem qualified. Why didn't you check his weight before going on or at the surface? Maybe you might have noticed he had quite a bit of weight on?

 

[Diver0001]

What I don't understand is how you got from this:

we dive. 3 meters, his eyes are starting to dart around, not panicking but obviously not comfortable.

to THIS:

I manage to stabilize him but we are at 28 meters, and I see that he will panic very very soon.

If you saw that he wasn't comfortable in 3m of water then you should have made the dive shallow, shouldn't you? You seemed to predict well enough at which point he was about to panic but you took him there.....

To me, that's a problem.

I think you learned (or could learn) an important lesson here, which is that not everyone was trained well, if at all (I've even heard about people carrying forged PADI passes without having taken training). So when you see something that gives you alarm bells then act on that BEFORE someone flips out. That's the best approach.

R..

 

[Texasguy]

Oh, no. Diving solo is dangerous. One must have a buddy. Just a buddy. Any buddy. Anybody at all...

 

[Akimbo]

Gut punching was literally standard procedure in US Navy diving and submarine rescue training when a student didn't exhale. One of my shipmates had been a safety diver at the training tower in New London.

 

[Scuba Scott]

I was wondering if this thread would be something similar to the warhammer maneuver. It wasn't.

Anyway, glad it worked out for you.

 

[HazeGray]

I was wondering if this thread would be something similar to the warhammer maneuver. It wasn't.

Anyway, glad it worked out for you.

How in over a month has no one asked what the warhammer maneuver is. Or am I just the only one that doesn't already know what it means? Please elaborate.

 

[Wookie]

How in over a month has no one asked what the warhammer maneuver is. Or am I just the only one that doesn't already know what it means? Please elaborate.

You have to google it yourself. I don't want to get booted from the board for explaining it, but there is a complete instructional video. Google Warhammer maneuver.

 

[Dish]

I recommend not viewing the instructional video. This is something that you can't "un see".