Pace of Cave Diving Instructional Progress

[LiteHedded]

These are just as ignorant and meaningless as the original guidelines.

Who's training guidelines? (rhetorical)

Who sets the arbitrary limit of 100ft END? There are divers I would not think twice about diving to 150' on air in a cave with, and some I wouldn't go past 70' on air... so what? Where is your ppO2 rule? How about CO?

Rather than putting diving solo on the list, how about "Diving with an idiot"? That rules a lot of people out from solo dives... and look how many of your "solo deaths" are now ruled out...

Who decides what is "proper" gear? Anything with a "H" on it?

Here is my take:
Exit - A known, personally and recently verified, unambiguous route to fresh air, followable without the use of sight.
Reserves - Enough gas to get you out despite major gear failure AND significant delay.
Redundancy - Buoyancy, lights, gas supplies, etc. Quantity depends on reliability and consequence. (this covers Solo diving)
Knowledge - Know the dive plan. Know everything needed to complete the dive. Know every knowable contingency.
Experience - Have experience in planning similar dives. Have experience in completing similar dives. Have experience (even if simulated) dealing with knowable contingencies.
Competence - Be able to easily perform the skills required to complete the planned dive and knowable contingencies.
Gas - Appropriate for depth (O2, N2, He, CO, CO2).

I do and yes. anything else is stroke****.

 

[TSandM]

As a physician, I can't really support periodic "dive medicals". You could certainly cull people with medical issues which were out of control, like diabetes or hypertension, or morbid obesity -- but there are some obese people who are not walking time bombs, and I've cared for very slender people whose first warning of their heart disease was a cardiac arrest. In fact, a resting EKG detects very little silent coronary atherosclerosis, so unless you are going to treadmill everybody who wants to dive and is above a certain age, you're going to miss a lot of potential problems. Use of personal common sense would be better than medical exams, I think.

 

[diverdoug1]

These are just as ignorant and meaningless as the original guidelines.

Who's training guidelines? (rhetorical)

Who sets the arbitrary limit of 100ft END? There are divers I would not think twice about diving to 150' on air in a cave with, and some I wouldn't go past 70' on air... so what? Where is your ppO2 rule? How about CO?

Rather than putting diving solo on the list, how about "Diving with an idiot"? That rules a lot of people out from solo dives... and look how many of your "solo deaths" are now ruled out...

Who decides what is "proper" gear? Anything with a "H" on it?

Here is my take:
Exit - A known, personally and recently verified, unambiguous route to fresh air, followable without the use of sight.
Reserves - Enough gas to get you out despite major gear failure AND significant delay.
Redundancy - Buoyancy, lights, gas supplies, etc. Quantity depends on reliability and consequence. (this covers Solo diving)
Knowledge - Know the dive plan. Know everything needed to complete the dive. Know every knowable contingency.
Experience - Have experience in planning similar dives. Have experience in completing similar dives. Have experience (even if simulated) dealing with knowable contingencies.
Competence - Be able to easily perform the skills required to complete the planned dive and knowable contingencies.
Gas - Appropriate for depth (O2, N2, He, CO, CO2).

Ummmm, interesting first post. Welcome to Scubaboard?

---------- Post added May 16th, 2012 at 04:00 PM ----------

As a physician, I can't really support periodic "dive medicals". You could certainly cull people with medical issues which were out of control, like diabetes or hypertension, or morbid obesity -- but there are some obese people who are not walking time bombs, and I've cared for very slender people whose first warning of their heart disease was a cardiac arrest. In fact, a resting EKG detects very little silent coronary atherosclerosis, so unless you are going to treadmill everybody who wants to dive and is above a certain age, you're going to miss a lot of potential problems. Use of personal common sense would be better than medical exams, I think.

As a physician, I see periodic medicals of everyone being of benefit. Recommending that anyone participating in divng get a yearly physical exam just makes good sense. As a hyperbaric physician, I see a number of instances where earlier intervention by a phsician might have mitigated or eliminated a dving accident. Case in point, in January I treated a diver for AGE who had a large ASD. You could not miss the pulmonic SEM and fixed splitting of S2 when auscultating the heart. This was confirmed by echo. The AGE incident may well have been avoided, had this woman had a physical exam prior to diving. Also, when you mention "personal common sense", I am sure every physician knows that this is frequently lacking when an individual is tempted to ignore symptoms they are having. But sometimes it just takes a little helpful questioning by a physician who is on the ball to "discover" these symptoms.

 

[ucfdiver]

As a physician, I see periodic medicals of everyone being of benefit. Recommending that anyone participating in divng get a yearly phsical exam just makes good sense. As a hyperbaric physician, I see a number of instances where earlier intervention by a phsician might have mitigated or eliminated a dving accident.

Well, there's a difference between a voluntary physical, where you're open with the doctor and the doctor is giving honest feedback and mandatory physicals such as those used for pilots. I think Pilot medicals are about as trustworthy as Asian massage parlors with the model winking on the billboard. I've seen advertisements for "quick medicals" put up on Pilot and Flight attendant lounges at airports.

 

[boulderjohn]

Well, there's a difference between a voluntary physical, where you're open with the doctor and the doctor is giving honest feedback and mandatory physicals such as those used for pilots. I think Pilot medicals are about as trustworthy as Asian massage parlors with the model winking on the billboard. I've seen advertisements for "quick medicals" put up on Pilot and Flight attendant lounges at airports.

Any such requirement spawns an entire industry designed to evade it. We have legal medical marijuana in Colorado, provided you have a prescription. I recently heard that in some dispensaries, the cost of the prescription is listed on the "menu" of options for purchase. I could write an entire essay on the way teachers get the graduate school credit required for renewing their certifications.

 

[LiteHedded]

brb driving to colorado.

 

[ISE]

Who are any of us to tell anyone else they need a physical before diving a cave? Don't dive with someone who doesn't meet your requirements. Don't certify someone who isn't up to your standards. Otherwise, shut up and dive.

Every single one of us knows if our buddy tweaks out in a cave, they are toast. If you can't drag them out and get yourself back to the surface, LEAVE THEM. If you can't get yourself out of a cave, DON'T CAVE DIVE. Simple.

 

[diverdoug1]

I don't think that the physicals should be mandatory in the sense that your cert. would be revoked by the SCUBA police if you did not have one. Just like cave divers who violate the rule of thirds don't get their certifications nullified. But, it would be a valuable safety guideline.

 

[PfcAJ]

ISE, what's your real name so I can be sure never to dive with you?

Aquanaut Mailing List Archive Service

People can save their buddy, read that account.

 

[TSandM]

Diverdoug, I agree with you that some problems would be picked up by a single physical examination, if such were required to dive. Undiagnosed hypertension, diabetes, or ASDs could be picked up that way. I'm just trying to say that, if coronary artery disease is a big cause of death in divers, a yearly physical isn't going to pick up a lot of the people at risk. Although some, in retrospect, were having symptoms (and we might catch those) the rest were not -- and again, a physical exam and even resting EKG are not going to pick up a lot of those people. Shoot, I had a guy in my ER the other day who came in complaining of a little chest tightness on exertion -- not enough to keep him from golfing, just enough to make him sit down to rest a bit more often than usual. He had a stone cold normal EKG, and according to the cardiologist who cathed him, the worst three-vessel disease she had seen in 20 years of practice.

It would take some kind of a study, I think, to decide whether a yearly or bi-yearly physical alone would catch any folks who were headed for a cardiac event in the water.