Spiegel Grove??

[Sideband]

If I told you about my Nitrox checout dive, you would be astonished, my instructor did not even check me out, he joined me up with a group of hunters and they were busy lobster hunting off Palm Beach, so I never got any skills training underwater from my instructor. In fact the second dive, I got totally seperated from the group and aborted my dive on my own because I have never learned to dive by myself, I am not trained on Nitrox to be by myself, I should of saw that as an indicator on how the instruction of my instructor was a little bit relaxed then what I am use too.

There are no "skills" on a Nitrox cert. dive. There is, plan the dive and then dive the plan. That's it. Do that 2 times. There is no "solo nitrox diver" certification so I don't know what you mean by, "not trained on Nitrox to be by myself". The Nitrox cert is 99% classroom. In some cases, including mine, it is 100% classroom. I did no dives for the cert. at all. Those that do have to dive very rarely ever dive with an instructor. All of this leads me to think you want and expect a lot more "hand holding" than should be required past OW. The only way to get past that is to go out and get some dives in that fall within your comfort zone. A LOT of dives. Diving one or 2 days a year does not even maintain the skills you have let alone prepair you for additional task loading.

Joe

 

[lamont]

What a complete cluster...

This incident is very simply explained by nitrogen narcosis, hyperventilation, CO2 buildup, CO2 narcosis and panic operating in a viscious cycle. The junk about medication and panic disorder is really an attempt to shift blame entirely onto casemanager when the fact is that it could happen to anyone. If you don't believe this could happen to you, come diving up here where I can just about guarantee that with 45 degree water, no ambient light at 90 feet and where 20 foot viz is often considered excellent, you'll experience a paranoid narc after a few dives. Maybe the meds exacerbated it, but we'll never know, while we can be pretty sure that everything which occured was explanable just from a CO2 hit and an out-of-control panic response.

And personally I wouldn't dive with casemanager or anyone who was in the water with him that day. Nobody noticed he was having trouble, nobody noticed when he had a fast ascent, nobody got to him at the abbreviated 20 foot stop. That indicates poor awareness of dive buddies or students and poor reaction to an incident in the water. The response to the accident does not begin on the dive boat, it begins in the water. Why would I trust that LJinFLA or the instructor could have responded to me any better than casemanager if I'd had a stuck inflator, or bad gas, or oxtox, or a CO2 hit or a heart attack in the water? If I'm in distress in the water I want help, I don't want people in the water with me whose first sign of trouble to them is going to be that I'm not there anymore. I don't want people who blame me for having problems in the water and watch while I manage to kill myself. I don't want dive buddies who just look at me with deer-in-the-headlights while I drown. Every single person in the water on that dive who was an instructor, DM or casemanager's buddy failed to respond. Pointing out the meds that casemanager was taking, blaming casemanager for going into a panic, or blaming him for his poor response on scubaboard is just trying to avoid taking any responsibility on their part for the in-water portion of this accident.

There's blame to go around for everyone involved here. And attacking the other party publically as both casemanager and LJinFLA have done is non-productive and avoids taking responsibility for all of the failures that occured on that dive. It is good to strive to be more independent and self-reliant, but unless you're actually solo diving your buddies or team members have a responsibility to you. They need to notice problems and act, or else you are just solo diving and there's no benefit to the buddy system.

And I won't rehash casemanager's failures on that dive or with the issues I have with his response, they seem to be the pretty obvious things that everyone has focused on.

 

[OWSI176288]

Hurray!!!! This was starting to remind me of a Simpson’s episode where Bart keeps saying “ouch...quit it; ouch...quit it, ouch...quit it” over, and over, and over.

Thank-you Lamont, you said it much better then I ever could of.

 

[casemanager]

awesome resonse, thank you, theres someone out there who knows something about scubadiving

 

[Hammerhead]

Hurray!!!! This was starting to remind me of a Simpson’s episode where Bart keeps saying “ouch...quit it; ouch...quit it, ouch...quit it” over, and over, and over.

Thank-you Lamont, you said it much better then I ever could of.

Yeah, remember that episode - how very apt LOL

Seriously, Lamont's post hits the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned.

The blaming of CM is justified to a degree, but what happened underwater as regards the attention of the other divers / DMs / Instructors should not be allowed to escape scrutiny & criticism.

I consider my own diving skills to be fairly well developed, but I am (at least I hope I am ) aware that things can still go wrong for which I have not planned. In these circumstances ANY diver needs to be comfortable that there is a degree of assistance and support from the onset of that problem.

IMO that seems to be lacking in this case.

Casemanager, as posted earlier, if you are checked out and cleared for further diving, please go back to basics for a while. Also - I think this applies to anybody - do not be afraid to talk to those diving with you about potential problem solving and problems you may be likely to encounter.

my 0.02 bar.

 

[Scuba]

awesome resonse, thank you, theres someone out there who knows something about scubadiving

I've been thusfar sympathetic to your situation and thought you were starting to duely consider some of the good advise given here. I still think so based on some of your other posts. But the comment above is troubling. It is totally unwarranted. It is very unapreciative of all who have given good information out of a selfless desire to help you and others reading this. Information, by the way, that explains in a much more thorough way SCUBA diving issues at work in this incident, than those which appear to please you the most. No need to repeat again what has already been repeated many times. Based on your comment above, I'm not at all sure if you place a higher priority on self analysis and consideration of new ideas - or in the search for absolution. If this response is due to the heat you have taken here, thats fine, personal issues have a way of getting to us. I hope this is the case here.

lamont,

While I tend to discount panic disorder, don't undersestimate the affects of medication. Many of these medications contain narcotics, thus the effects are like the other narcotic agents you describe, they can vary in intensity, in the symptoms produced, and in the interaction with other substances with every dosage.

And personally I wouldn't dive with casemanager or anyone who was in the water with him that day. Nobody noticed he was having trouble, nobody noticed when he had a fast ascent, nobody got to him at the abbreviated 20 foot stop. That indicates poor awareness of dive buddies or students and poor reaction to an incident in the water.

There's blame to go around for everyone involved here.

This is totally unwarranted. If by involved you mean those directly involved in the class it's one thing, but you appear to be blaming those not directly involved in the class. He needs to watch out for himself and his buddy. His buddy needs to do likewise. The instructor needs to watch for his students and they for him. Any other instructors or DM's PARTICIPATING in the classs also have their specific duty of responsibility, which may not necessarily be to all involved - depends. No one else in the water has any responsibility to dedicate their dive to watch for everyone else. If they happen to notice something amiss, I personally feel they should help if they can. This did not occur here. Let's not blame everybody in sight without a good reason to do so. I will say that a class dive should only be conducted with class participants. Whether this was made clear or not remains unknown. But in a boat dive there are bound to be many divers all around with no responsibility but to themselves and their buddies.

 

[Ayisha]

It is good to strive to be more independent and self-reliant, but unless you're actually solo diving your buddies or team members have a responsibility to you.

That's true, but you have a responsibility to them also, right? That takes at LEAST one person to ensure that they are watching and staying with their buddy. So what about in this case where NEITHER buddy was watching or with their buddy? Casemanager looked for his buddy when he NEEDED him - neither buddy appeared to know where their buddy was or what was happening.

So, if you've put yourself in a position of doing a deep dive with a buddy that you're unfamiliar with, and your buddy is unavailable to you (not there, unable, etc.), what do you do - helplessly drown or get hurt? No, you use the skills you've learned and practiced. Deal with the buddy later. Think of how to prevent it from happening again, and with your next buddy, discuss not just the dive plan, but a buddy plan.

In fact the second dive, I got totally seperated from the group and aborted my dive on my own

Casemanager, there is another incident from your experience of you being separated from the group. Just like in this thread on the SG where you said the instructor and other divers were all looking at the wreck (on a wreck dive, nonetheless) instead of at you. So how will you prevent it from happening again?

TAKE A 3 MONTH TRIP TO HAWAII AND HIRE THAT INSTRUCTOR WHO MADE ME FEEL SAFE AND SECURE

CM, you are still looking outside yourself for comfort. So what if that instructor isn't there? Are you not going to ever dive again? What if that instructor is just human and not as infallible as you may think? Probably the only way that you are going to be truly comfortable is to develop confidence in yourself. You can do that by practicing skills in the pool, in shallow environments, with buddies you trust, by learning to be a good buddy, and diving often. The most valuable course I believe I ever took was the Rescue Diver course, where you learn to rescue others as well as self-rescue. I think that was a turning point for me in having confidence in myself and increasing my buddy and situational awareness.

Good luck!

 

[casemanager]

drift diving with 10' VIS

 

[lamont]

This is totally unwarranted. If by involved you mean those directly involved in the class it's one thing, but you appear to be blaming those not directly involved in the class.

Reread what you quoted with the emphasis on with him and poor awareness of dive buddies or students.

 

[lamont]

That's true, but you have a responsibility to them also, right?

Yes, buddy team failure involves the entire group.

Casemanager's side of it is the kind of thing I meant by this statement:

And I won't rehash casemanager's failures on that dive or with the issues I have with his response, they seem to be the pretty obvious things that everyone has focused on.