"Piece of Paper Syndrome"

[TSandM]

I think it's quite possible for people to teach things about diving without going through an instructor course. People who have had good training themselves can turn around and pass that along -- if they truly mastered and understood the training that they got. They won't have, perhaps, quite the repertoire of incident avoidance and coping techniques that someone with instructional training has, but not all instructors get the same quality class or come away from their class with all the things that were in it.

However, I think that taking someone onto a complex and potentially lethal piece of new equipment with no advance education, and then leading them not into a simple and relatively short dive to test their comfort with the gear, but into a dive with an hour's deco obligation (which is enough that you can't blow it off and expect to come out whole) is irresponsible. This is the kind of thing you'd probably learn enough NOT to do, if you took formal rebreather instructor training. (Although, I think, most of us would be smart enough not to do it, anyway.)

When I did my "try dive" on a rebreather, I had been sitting in for a week on the above-water sessions, and the dive was to 15 feet, and I had my (non-instructor) buddy in the water doing NOTHING but monitoring me, and the whole thing had been cleared by HIS instructor, who was on the boat, and had worked with me in the past. I don't think that was unduly foolhardy. I think what the OP did was.

 

[Thalassamania]

Guess what. I'm a fighter pilot. Every unqualified person I've ever flown with has been offered the stick. I'm still here.

Amen. Back in the mid 1960s I'd never flown anything more exciting than a Cessna 337 when a friend of my Dad offered me a check ride in his TP-38L. He was there with me (he was not a flight instructor, though my Dad was) and I did the whole 9 yards, take off, touch and goes and landing included. If he'd been a idiot I'm sure my Dad would never had let it happen, but he wasn't and somehow we both survived. For that matter, beyond the scientific diving course at Cal and my IQC/ITC at Michigan, I don't think that I've taken any other formal training, but I've had some great mentors, some with papers and some without.

 

[RJP]

I have a dive buddy (we've been friends for 40 yrs) , who's not "technically" an instructor, but he's a Sat-Rat on the Hibernia Oil rigs. He showed up at the house one day, with 2 Draeger Re-breathers, Kirby-Morgan dive hats (complete with voice-gear) , and said "Come on, we're gonna do some "Real" Wreck diving today. Off we went to Brockville to dive the wrecks.

Being used to 1 hour dives; it was totally new to me, to be doing 1 hr Decompression stops!!!! He monitored me (including that I was comfortable), my gear, and our dive times using his skills that he's learned over the years.

So bottom line...

Bottom line is that you both were diving with a fool for a buddy.

 

[Jeff Toorish]

Jeff. Stop and think about this for a second. It is very possible for someone that does not have "a piece of paper" to be more qualified and a better instructor than someone with "a piece of paper." That's his point.

What he did was not "incredibly dangerous" and it was his decision to make. And he made an observation while doing it that he felt safer on this complex dive than he felt with "professional" instructors.

I dove for YEARS without being certified, all over the world. When I finally decided to get my card, I got out of the pool from my first confined water session and an instructor that was doing lifeguard duties came over and said, "You've dove before and you've done it a lot. You are way too good at this to be a new student." I just smiled and shrugged. It made me really appreciate the instruction I got from the diver that taught me, who was not an instructor. Still the best instruction I've ever received.

Diving a rebreather without proper training is, in fact, incredibly dangerous. There are numerous cases of dive professionals dying in pools because they tried a rebreather without training.

Is it possible for someone without certification to be a good teacher or instructor? Sure --but of course we won't know because that person was never verified by a certifying agency.

I do know this, we have certifications for a reason, and the reason is safety.

In my opinion, you are thinking about this completely wrong.

Jeff

 

[Jeff Toorish]

Let's get something straight here. The only reason I need to go get instruction and get certified is so that a dive shop is going to be willing to rent or sell me their services. My certification reduces their liability.

That is very dangerous thinking --training is about safety, that's why you need instruction. You get certified, the piece of paper, so you can show you have been trained, nothing more. This illogical ranting against training is like saying there is no benefit in education.

I find it disturbing.

 

[Thalassamania]

... Is it possible for someone without certification to be a good teacher or instructor? Sure --but of course we won't know because that person was never verified by a certifying agency.

I do know this, we have certifications for a reason, and the reason is safety.

In my opinion, you are thinking about this completely wrong.

Jeff

Are you saying that the possession of certification means that they do know Jack? I would not bet my life on that either.

Let's get something straight here. The only reason I need to go get instruction and get certified is so that a dive shop is going to be willing to rent or sell me their services. My certification reduces their liability.

That is very dangerous thinking --training is about safety, that's why you need instruction. You get certified, the piece of paper, so you can show you have been trained, nothing more. This illogical ranting against training is like saying there is no benefit in education.

I find it disturbing.

While you may find it disturbing, I think that Herk_Man is spot on. The fact that you have a C-card means that you have a C-card, it is not evidence that you actually learned anything or that you actually remembered anything, so what use is it? Well ... reducing the LDS' liability is one use.

BTW, as far as who pays if you die and your heirs successful sue your mentor (as opposed to your instructor) ... that's what homeowner's liability policies are for. Mine pays off about five times what your dive instructor's policy would.

 

[BarrelRoll]

Politics as usual...

Analogies thrown around, straw man points made and refuted, then a man who is actually a professional in the analogy being used tells them they're being reactionary boobs and they attempt to discredit his arguments.

He's a fighter pilot, he has more than 500 dives. Could someone just issue him a piece of paper already so people will listen to him?

I personally hate this piece of paper mentality we live in these days. My dad was a special forces Marine in the 60s and 70s, dove the Red Sea, all sorts of sniper and survivalist training, and he taught me a HUGE number of things before the age of 10 that this nanny-state mentality won't even allow me to learn at 30. (obviously, I could for the low low price of $XXX.95...)

I see time and time again people on this board saying, "Dive within your limits, and do what you're comfortable with."

He's been diving with his buddy for 40+ years! His buddy is a professional on a level that 99% of instructors will NEVER be! I'd say he was comfortable, and rightfully so.

Maybe the detractors here won't be happy until they're paying $100 a year for a state issued punch card for SCUBA dives... Or maybe they just want to charge someone to take their class, I don't know. But there's something other than common sense and good intellectual risk assessment driving the responses here.

 

[Thalassamania]

It all breaks down to know your mentor.

 

[Gambitt]

I think I've spread my "thanks" to those who understood what I was trying to describe. (If I've missed one, pls PM me )

I'll add a couple of points here, and then I'll let it rest.

1) Just to clarify, Kirk and I have been Friends for 40 years... Seeing as neither of us is over 43, it would be difficult to have been diving together for 40 yrs.. (unless it's a PADI cert). We have been diving together for over 10 yrs, but that was due to MY late start.

2) He did spend the night before the dive, showing me how the gear worked, and what to expect and what to to in a worst-case scenario. Yes, I had "never seen the gear before", but I have read up thoroughly on the concepts involved. (Kinda like you do, before your first open-water)

3) When the rigs hire a new diver, who do you think they trust to "instruct" them? Some newbie with a "piece of paper" or a guy who has worked the rigs for years?

My point was, and still is; that there are lots of divers out there, who while they don't have that "Piece of Paper", can still teach a new diver the proper and safe techniques involved in diving.

OH! I forgot to add.. Show me ANY Padi form, where you are required to list your "Species" on the paper...

 

[Superlyte27]

3) When the rigs hire a new diver, who do you think they trust to "instruct" them? Some newbie with a "piece of paper" or a guy who has worked the rigs for years?

Certainly not your buddy. A new diver on an oil rig already has 720 hours of insruction from a professional training ADCE facility.

If he's diving rebreathers and SAT, then the diver showing up on his oil rig has already been a tender for probably 2 years and a diver for at the very least another couple of years. By the time they've reached your "SAT RAT" buddy, they've been professionally trained by a commercial diving outfit, spent thousands of hours underwater as a professional diver. Have tended for thousands of hours for commercial divers and SAT divers.

Saturation boats are the last tier in a very tough hierarchy. I've never seen or heard of a "new diver" on a sat boat. Maybe a new employee.