Reconsidering whether I want to be a divemaster

[barefootek]

You seem to have had a lot of advice, but maybe I can give it from another perspective. Most of the ones giving advice seem to be instructors or already certified divemasters. I just finished the last of my requirements for my divemaster earlier today and was going to post something about my experience when I ran across your post. Personally, I think most have been way to critical of you without questioning the instructor.

First of all, it sounds like you were unfamiliar with the dive site you were diving and the instructor did not give you a proper briefing. That is his mistake, not yours. Next, it sounds like you were unaware of how poor the visibility would be and therefore, unaware of the proper equipment you would need. Once again, that is his fault not yours. If visibility was that poor, he should have made sure that everyone was equipped with a light whether student or instructor.

Most importantly, if he was aware of the student being low on air, he shouldn’t have continued with the skills putting you in a very precarious situation. DEFINITELY HIS FAULT and not yours. Here we consider 1000PSI low on air and 500PSI out of air and that does not seem uncommon for other places that I have dove. That way you avoid a true OOA situation. I think that having an actual out of air situation on a training dive is absurd.

Before you question yourself for not stepping in, consider this. Since you were doing a deep dive, that the diver was not certified for, you should not have been leading him to begin with. That would fall under the instructor’s responsibilities and you attempting to override his decisions regardless of how poor they seem to be is taking on a huge legal responsibility. You could make a decision for yourself and leave, but if you had urged the student to come with you and something would have happened then you almost certainly would have been looking at a malpractice issue. I’m not necessarily saying that it might not have been a good idea, but doing so wouldbe taking on a liability that would be “legally” questionable.

I know that we are only hearing your side of the situation, but I am amazed that people are not questioning the actions of the instructor more. It sounds to me like you kept your composure, and made the best of a bad situation. The only decision that I think you should be questioning is your choice of instructors. We are all going to make some mistakes along the way,but we should not put ourselves in situations where those mistakes may be critical. You are questioning things about the dive and wondering how you ended up in a situation where mistakes could have become catastrophic. I think that by questioning things, you are trying to figure out how to avoid putting yourself in a similar situation again in the future. Sounds like the actions of someone well qualified to be a divemaster to me. Actually, getting your divemaster and later instructor’s certifications might be the better way than backing out.Then you are responsible for making your own decisions and not trying to correct or cover the poor decisions of others that are “more qualified”.

Opinions, may be like buttholes, but certain rear ends are definitely better than others. Therefore, my opinion is that if you are close, finish the divemaster and then cut ties with that instructor. If you still have more to go, consider changing instructors. I think that most could empathize with your situation and do what they could to accept what they could from your previous work. Any cost difference, I would urge for this instructor to pickup, although I am sure they would not be very receptive to. You never know, maybe he has done some self-evaluation after the dive also. As you advance in any career you will learn that evaluation of yourself and others is very important.You have evaluated the dive and identified some improvements you can make. Just remember that some of the improvements may be in the evaluation of the actions of others.

One other thing I wanted to address was the idea of questioning a safety stop low on air. I have always been of the understanding that doing a safety stop should take priority over coming up with any air inyour tank. Safety stops make a huge difference in the likelihood of DCS especially after a deep dive. Therefore, once again in my opinion, well done for keeping cool and doing one under stressful circumstances.

 

[TSandM]

Safety stops don't make a "huge" difference. They are OPTIONAL . . . except in a very few cases where the diver has done a deep dive and come very close to NDLs, where at least the PADI tables call it a "mandatory safety stop". Keeping someone underwater when they are critically low on gas, just to do an optional stop, is not good judgment.

I work in the medical field. Doctors give orders to nurses and respiratory therapists and the like -- and although one would like to believe it otherwise, sometimes those orders are wrong. Nurses have to cope with a job where they are formally subordinate to the physician, but where they are ultimately responsible for the patient, and if the doctor is asking them to do something wrong, they have to figure out how to avoid doing that. Sometimes it means asking the doctor, "Did you really want me to do this?" If the doctor says yes, but the nurse thinks it's really wrong, she has to figure out how far she wants to push things, realizing that there may be professional repercussions either way.

DM is similar. You are subordinate to the instructor, and the instructor may be an idiot. The result of working for an idiot may be a poorly organized or frustrating day, or it may be putting a student at serious risk. You have to decide how far you want to push things, realizing there will be fallout either way. It's my personal decision that I don't do something I think is putting a student in danger -- if I have the opportunity to question it on land, I will do so, but if it occurs underwater, I will do what I think is right and hassle it out later. Since I live with the instructor I normally work for, that can be awkward on occasion (And no, he's not an idiot, and I can't ever remember him putting a student in danger.)

 

[Hawkwood]

To go further on TSandM's comment.....both the student and the DMC are certified divers as such, they can and should act accordingly as the conditions dictate. Erring on the side of caution allows one to "thrash" it out later.

I had a discussion with one our DMC's regarding his experience over the weekend helping with an AOW class at the same location. He was leading a tour after the skills - his comment to me? "Nothing seemed to go as planned" - yup.

 

[boulderjohn]

I work in the medical field. Doctors give orders to nurses and respiratory therapists and the like -- and although one would like to believe it otherwise, sometimes those orders are wrong. Nurses have to cope with a job where they are formally subordinate to the physician, but where they are ultimately responsible for the patient, and if the doctor is asking them to do something wrong, they have to figure out how to avoid doing that. Sometimes it means asking the doctor, "Did you really want me to do this?" If the doctor says yes, but the nurse thinks it's really wrong, she has to figure out how far she wants to push things, realizing that there may be professional repercussions either way.

Excellent analogy, one that I believe is the crux of the matter in this thread.

 

[nimoh]

I am a new divemaster, and although I haven't run into a similar situation as yours, I have thought about similar scenarios.

It seems to me that there were a lot of issues here. I think the first one started long before the dive when the instructor decided that this student was ready for a deep dive in low visibility. What if this diver had been paired with another OW diver, rather than a DMC that has rescue training?

Another issue I have is that instructors I work with have a policy that any course dives under 60 feet require a good quality dive light, and I think this is a good policy.

I won't go into my thoughts on the LOA situation, and continuing the skills at 700psi, since I think it has been well covered.

I also think that most of the issues were caused by the instructor making poor choices leading up to the situation you found yourself in, however there is one decision you made that I question. In my area most of our training dives are done at a handful of local sites, and I have been diving at all of them several times. I would never consider being a divemaster at a site where I have not been diving before.

 

[Diver0001]

You are not ready to be a DM. At this level why do you need looking after? You should be aware of the need for your own redundant air supply, have your own suitable lights, be prepared to handle low to zero vis, and your responses to an OOA or low on air student should be instinctual. This part of the reason I feel that DM classea should not be sold. DM's should be selected based on their already exemplary skills, knowldege, and decision making. Battery dying now more in a few hours

Sent from my DROID X2 using Tapatalk 2

I find this unnecessarily harsh. The OP is becoming aware of issues/risks that he SHOULD be becoming aware of and asking himself if he's ready for that. There is EVERYTHING right about that.

From his story it sounds like he's not ready to fly solo yet to me either. He became slightly overwhelmed by conditions (a red-flag for a DMC) and found it difficult to think on his feet when the plan started to deviate...... However what I find very encouraging is that he's thinking about his mistakes, which is a very positive and healthy first step.

Learning can be seen in roughly 4 stages: unaware/incompetent, aware/incompetent, aware/competent and unaware/competent.

The OP's story just tells me that he moved in some important ways from stage 1 to stage 2. Like I said he's not there yet but demanding people to be in stage 4 before they even begin is... well... asinine, actually.

R..

 

[Jaydubya]

I would never consider being a divemaster at a site where I have not been diving before.

Very true. And in my DMC training we had to do our deep dive practical in the same location the AOW students do their deep dive.

Familiarity doesn't help much. This location is cold and almost zero vis (once the students silt it up which they always do) and it's not much more than 60 feet deep. I have no qualms about decompression diving to 250 plus in current and seas with sharks swimming all around, but I HATE doing that AOW deep dive. I hate, hate, hate it and hate it some more. We did it it 3 students at a time, plus the instructor, a DM, and a DMC. We have a one to one staff to student ratio, but it's all you can do to see the person you are with. I don't worry about myself but I sure worry about the students. It's nothing but stress. Personally, with a pefectly good ocean next door I think it's a horribly bad idea to do the AOW deep dive in the local mud hole.

 

[nimoh]

I find this unnecessarily harsh. The OP is becoming aware of issues/risks that he SHOULD be becoming aware of and asking himself if he's ready for that. There is EVERYTHING right about that.

From his story it sounds like he's not ready to fly solo yet to me either. He became slightly overwhelmed by conditions (a red-flag for a DMC) and found it difficult to think on his feet when the plan started to deviate...... However what I find very encouraging is that he's thinking about his mistakes, which is a very positive and healthy first step.

Learning can be seen in roughly 4 stages: unaware/incompetent, aware/incompetent, aware/competent and unaware/competent.

The OP's story just tells me that he moved in some important ways from stage 1 to stage 2. Like I said he's not there yet but demanding people to be in stage 4 before they even begin is... well... asinine, actually.

R..

I understood Jim's post to mean that the OP shouldn't be learning these thing while working as a DM. A DM should know things like how to inflate a student's BC when they can't do it themselves, that a stage bottle is charged and then stored with the valved closed, proper gas planning (and more importantly, minimum gas). The time to learn these things is before becoming a DM.

I don't think the DM class is designed to teach a person how to be a better diver, although it generally happens along the way. The DM class is designed to teach a diver how to help teach a class.

When I am working as a DM, I try to avoid learning new things (even though I usually do). I don't DM at sites that I have never dived before, I don't go to depths I have never been to before, I don't go in conditions that I have never been in before, and I don't try out new gear.

 

[supergaijin]

I believe Jim lapenta's post to be blunt but not overly harsh.
The 'master' in Divemaster does imply mastery of more than basic diving skills. A zero-viz ascent is difficult- but shouldn't overwhelm a divemaster worthy of the name. Bringing up one other diver adds to the difficulty- imagine having a couple more.

The OP is a DM trainee. This experience is one of the (hopefully) few 'Oh crap' moments that all divers get in their first thousand dives or so. Sadly not enough DMs and instructors experience these moments before getting their cert. Many are hardly out of confined water themselves before trying to teach/assist others.

It sounds like the OP will be analysing the hell out of this episode. This is a good thing if it leads to becoming a more grounded professional. Best of luck.

 

[Diver0001]

I understood Jim's post to mean that the OP shouldn't be learning these thing while working as a DM.

Maybe he did mean that but the OP isn't a DM, he's a DMC.... he's still in training. Writing off someone because they still have things to learn and then going on to say that he should never have been selected to learn because he has too much to learn (which is in essence what Jim said to him, whether he meant to or not) is an attitude that I can't support.

People need to have the opportunity to learn. That means making mistakes and getting constructive feedback about it. Is he ready? No. everyone here, including me agrees about that and how the OP's own instructor chose to deal with debreifing this dive isn't under discussion. But what *IS* clear to me is that the learning IS happening..... that much is clear by what he said and the fact that he made a post about it here.... The gears are engaged.

But to just tell someone in training that they're useless because they have a lot to learn is poor style in my book.

R..