PADI OW QA Question

[kafkaland]

I recently did the OW course as a referral. The Theory / pool portion through the LDS, and the checkout dives on vacation in Central America. The first part was very good, and meticulously done. At the time, the checkout dives just felt sloppy, but it seems like some PADI standards were violated, and I'm curious where on the scale of seriousness this ranks.

Among the things I noticed were that we didn't do the alternate air ascent (poor planning of the dives), and that we went to 64ft. on the last dive and were asked to log it at 60ft. Also, we didn't have our own timing device or computer, only the instructor had one. He actually showed us his at the bottom - that's how I know that it was 64 (the analog gauge didn't seem that accurate). And when I later went through what he put in our log books as times and surface intervals, and calculated the pressure groups using the table (with the correct depth of 64 rounded to 70), it turned out we overshot the no-deco time by two minutes. But then I'm sure we were still good per his computer (if the times are accurate) as it would have given us credit for not being at full depth the entire time.

After finishing the checkout dives, I waited for a month for my c-card, then followed up with PADI, they hadn't received any paperwork, then the dive shop that I did the checkout dives with. They told me that the instructor isn't with them any more, and they couldn't find my picture any more. So I emailed them another one, and they put it into PADI's electronic system. I still haven't received my card yet a few weeks later. I wonder if they had also lost my address.

I also got a QA survey from PADI - is that routine and they send it to every newly qualified diver, or does that mean they have received complaints about the instructor and follow up with more of his students? I answered their questions honestly, but I'm not sure how I feel about this. I don't want to ruin his instructor career by reporting these standard violations, but on the other hand I don't think that kind of sloppiness has any place in diver training.

 

[tursiops]

Getting a QA survey from PADI after an OW class is really quite normal; i think their goal is actually to send one to everyone!
Answer honestly, as you did. Not to worry, even if it totally ruins his career....that is better than totally ruining or killing a new diver.

 

[Goodtime Adventures]

I agree. The QA process is there for a reason, to make sure standards are being met & new divers are equipped with all the skills they need so that divers - and especially new divers - are safe on subsequent trips. You did right to answer honestly, and if you're instructor gets pulled up on his omissions, all the better. It much more preferable to be pulled up on standards now before bad habits become commonplace, than have someone get in to trouble resulting in injury/death later if its not dealt with.

So as you know, you should definitely have done an assisted air source ascent on one of your training dives. And perhaps even more omissions of skills on other dives that you're not aware of. So don't feel bad, you absolutely have done the right thing.

 

[TSandM]

It is definitely a violation of standards, if you did not have a depth gauge and timer of your own. And as has already been stated, you should have done an alternate air ascent in OW. Although the QA form is standard, please do fill it out and report these things. If the instructor is no longer with PADI, most likely nothing will come of it, but if he was associated with a dive shop, some feedback might get to them.

For your sake, I hope the instructor was current with PADI when you did your class. If he was not, PADI may not issue you a card, as you were not taking a PADI class.

 

[Hawkwood]

It's a long shot, but do you have the name and instructor number for that person on any if your paperwork?

Both of those should be in your logbook where he signed off on your referral page as well as the 4 open water dives.

From the name and number, we can check his status.

Some paperwork must have been processed from his side, otherwise how would you have received a QA survey from PADI?

Are you sure the QA survey request was as a result of completing your open water dives and not from the class and pool done through your LDS?

Bill

 

[kafkaland]

It's a long shot, but do you have the name and instructor number for that person on any if your paperwork?

Both of those should be in your logbook where he signed off on your referral page as well as the 4 open water dives.

From the name and number, we can check his status.

Some paperwork must have been processed from his side, otherwise how would you have received a QA survey from PADI?

Are you sure the QA survey request was as a result of completing your open water dives and not from the class and pool done through your LDS?

Bill

Yes, I do have the instructor number on the OW course record, but he didn't bother to fill out his contact info. With that, I have looked him up on the PADI system, and he is rated as OW Scuba Instructor. Eventually, after weeks of prodding from me, the instructor's ex-dive shop filed my paperwork with PADI for the OW cert, even though the instructor is no longer associated with that dive shop. Apparently when he left (or was kicked out?) something got lost. And I got the QA survey shortly after the dive shop submitted their filing, and it was specific to the open water portion of the course (how deep did you go on dive four, etc.) It looks like all is on track now even though I still don't have my card (PADI now offers me to by a 'replacement card'), just a bit more painful that it should have been.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Wait a minute, you never got a card in the first place. Now they want you to pay for a replacement? Time to screw the emails and call them. Ask them why you should pay for their screw up.

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Hawkwood]

A simple phone call will clear that up.

Someone is assuming you are looking for a replacement card and not an original. The shop may have checked off "replacement" on the form when they submitted it.

Call them, it's much better than an email.

 

[Peter Guy]

It does sound like your OW dives didn't totally comply with PADI standards for you are required to do an air-sharing ascent.

Regarding the 64 feet -- yes, that is a standards violation and why most instructors try (desperately try) to keep students on the uphill side of them AND above 60 feet. Do mistakes happen occasionally? Yes. Is that the worst thing in the word? IMHO, no.

Your dive also shows the inflexible nature of tables and how they don't really provide you, the diver, with accurate information concerning your N2 loading. As it has been several years, I'll confess to having taken a couple of students "way into deco" per the tables because we spent the last 15-20 minutes of the dive swimming back to shore underwater looking at critters in eel grass (maybe 15 feet deep) rather than going to the surface. BECAUSE we had gone to 60 feet (actually, about 52 feet), it was "cold water" and it was the second dive, per the RDP, they had "gone into deco" although the average depth was probably about 18 feet and all the computers (and each had one) were always clear.

For me, as an instructor, as a result of your training and experiences, do you feel comfortable planning and executing a simple dive in warm water similar to what you dove? IF the answer is yes, great -- then carry on and continue with your diving and training. If you don't, carry on and continue with your training and diving.

 

[boulderjohn]

Do call PADI--that should take care of any confusion.

As it was explained in our last regional instructor meeting, PADI sends QA questionnaires to most scuba students. The exceptions are mostly students of instructors who have been very active for a long time and have a proven track record, but even their students will be queried from time to time.

Although a lot of things went wrong in the aftermath of your course, a lot of that can be attributed to understandable mix-ups related to that instructor leaving the shop. Either he or the shop could be at fault for the mix-up. For example, he might have handed everything over to someone who then slipped it into some pile to be discovered later.

Although you don't say where you did the course, I am guessing it was on some vacation in a resort area. In my early days of scuba, I took my OW, my AOW, and my nitrox certifications in different sites in Mexico and the Caribbean. In each case, my instructor handed me the paperwork and told me that everything would be much better for me if I took it home with me and mailed it in myself. I was once vacationing in Belize with some friends, and they sent some postcards out to some other friends in the United states. The earliest any of those cards arrived was 3 months later.