PADI tables finally going away?

[HowardE]

Case in point... a lady brought in her Veo 250 to a shop recently and complained that the alarm seemed to stick at times. They hooked it up to the shop PC only to find that she had accumulated a 23 minute deco obligation. Rather than being broken, her PDC was crying for her attention on the dive. A quick look at both dives one and two and it was oh-so-obvious that she would be in deco. You can blame the PDC, but it was only doing it's job. Me? I blame the instructor that was SO short sighted and SO stuck on teaching tables that he NEGLECTED to teach her how to use her ultimate instrument of choice: the PDC. He set her up for failure by not teaching her how to use that PDC. Shameful.

How do you know she even had a dive plan?

You can only blame instructors to a point. 23 minute deco obligation? That's just not having a clue. Can you blame instructor who may have taught them the right way? Or should you blame the diver - for not even considering that diving causes you to accumulate nitrogen?

 

[WD8CDH]

The only batteries that the tables need is for the dive light.

 

[The Chairman]

How do you know she even had a dive plan?

You can only blame instructors to a point. 23 minute deco obligation? That's just not having a clue. Can you blame instructor who may have taught them the right way? Or should you blame the diver - for not even considering that diving causes you to accumulate nitrogen?

The instructor made NO ATTEMPT to teach her how to use a PDC. That's just negligence on the instructor's part.

It's a matter of burying our collective heads in the sand. Look at the numbers of PDCs flying out of a shop's door. They are being used by a LOT of divers and yet we expect them to learn about bubble graphs and alarms all by themselves to the point of competency. That's lunacy or negligence: take your pick.

 

[HowardE]

A quick glance at a dive table lets you know the NDL. Like you've never seen a PDC deliver "unwarranted deco"?

How do you know it's "unwarranted deco" unless you look at a dive table?

I'm not against computers. I dive my computer (2 of them).

 

[The Chairman]

A quick glance at a dive table lets you know the NDL. Like you've never seen a PDC deliver "unwarranted deco"?

How do you know it's "unwarranted deco" unless you look at a dive table?

I'm not against computers. I dive my computer (2 of them).

I looked at both of her dives for that day. A smallish lady diving 100s to 85 FSW two dives in a row. The PDC gradually added the deco obligation: it wasn't a fluke like I have experienced where you are SUDDENLY hit with 4:53 of deco obligation as you descend.

The shop owner originally showed me this to make his case why you can't trust PDCs. It turned into him agreeing that the student was never taught how to integrate their PDC into their diving.

I have no problems with peeps who know/dive on tables. Like I said, it's a personal choice. I do have an issue with peeps diving gear that they have little/no training on and very little experience to boot. If a shop sells PDCs then they should feel OBLIGATED to include how to use them in their classes. In fact, they would probably see an increase in their PDC sales should they do so. It's a win/win for them.

 

[The Chairman]

FWIW, even after blowing off a 23 minute deco obligation the lady was fine with no obvious symptoms of DCS that she can remember. She might have been clueless, but at least she was lucky as well.

 

[gndpdr]

why blame the instructor for her failure to read and understand the manual for her computer? if she didn't know what it was telling her she should of never attached it to her body period

 

[The Chairman]

why blame the instructor for her failure to read and understand the manual for her computer?

Indeed, why have instructors at all? Just give these peeps all the equipment manuals to read and blame them for anything that happens.

Learning to operate a piece of gear and how to integrate it into your diving are two different endeavors. Knowing which button lets air in or out on a BCD does not qualify you to use one.

 

[boulderjohn]

Indeed, why have instructors at all? Just give these peeps all the equipment manuals to read and blame them for anything that happens.

Learning to operate a piece of gear and how to integrate it into your diving are two different endeavors. Knowing which button lets air in or out on a BCD does not qualify you to use one.

I'm a reasonably bright guy with a solid education. I will testify that the few computer manuals I have looked at sorely tested my reading skills. It was a lot to absorb, and the sequencing of information was borderline silly. Computers can do a lot of things for you, and many of those things are not used much, similar to most of the functions on a modern word processing program. Manuals tend to present a flood of information in ways that make it difficult to sort out the essential from the superfluous. Too much information is the same as too little information, for it becomes too difficult to find out what you really need to know. In information theory, the concept is that the key message is lost in the "noise" of the presentation.

In contrast, a competent instruction program will work through a logical sequence of concepts, making absolutely certain that key messages are communicated without that distracting noise.

 

[ScubaSteve]

I do not see how we can lay all blame on the Instructor of this woman. I was taught using tables but have dove a computer for the last 300 or so dives. I can still read table and use them....but when I was trained I was trained only on tables. If I now go out and get bent from ignoring a computer (or failing to properly learn to use it) that was acquired long after my instructor ever knew me, how can that possibly be the instructor's fault?