SSI Emergency buoyant Ascent : Training Video

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johndiver999

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Just happened to see this video. Not an old one, it seems. I was surprised that they are actually teaching and practicing an emergency ascent while the diver is quite buoyant and with no means to control the buoyancy. I guess that is a good thing, but I never saw that with PADI training.

However, does any one understand why they shut the divers air off underwater?

Also the hand signals seemed very strange to me. Seemed like some sort of dance, if I saw a buddy giving signals like that I would think one or both of us are narced. I really could not understand most all of those signals.

Is this standard in current SSI training? Is this produced by or specifically for SSI? In other words, is this what they sanction?
 
I must suggest I have never watched a training video, and found this quite frightening so thank you.
Is this the sequel to Cyborg or the human version of marionation in action for Thunderbirds Returns

Cool is the ability to be on her back horizontal a great skill when followed by surfacing upside down

What is that bobbing in and out up and down holding the nose stuff on the surface dance all about.
 
My notes:
  • I mostly understood 75% of the hand-signals, however there are a LOT of hand-signals going on. Too much information too be communicating, especially for an Open Water student.
  • I don't know why the tank was shut off. That part I don't remember from any training.
  • I think it's current SSI training, although most of their videos tend to have voice-over that puts you to sleep. The did go over CESA, however I don't remember actually practicing CESA or a bouyant ascent. Maybe we did it in the pool? Hard to remember precisely, I took OW back in 2019.
 
Hand signals were:
  • You
  • Look at me
  • Out of air
  • Drop weights
  • Go up
  • Ok?
  • Unknown arm tap
  • Other diver look at cameraman diver
  • ok
  • Lift up BCD inflator
  • Neutral Bouyancy
  • You.
  • turn valve
  • Unkown signal
  • ok
  • look at SPG
  • out of air
  • Uknown hand-signal
  • Unknown hand signal
  • Point at surface
  • Look up, breathe out
  • Ok
I would think an instructor had explained the entire process on the surface at least once or twice. And then what you see here is a similar explanation with hand-signals or visuals as they do the skill they're demonstrating.

The hand-signals are not something you'd see in normal diving. Perhaps out-of-air, or go-up. The rest are just an attempt to communicate a fairly lengthy concept to a student underwater, which the student should already understand, but this is a sort of repetition.
 

Just happened to see this video. Not an old one, it seems. I was surprised that they are actually teaching and practicing an emergency ascent while the diver is quite buoyant and with no means to control the buoyancy. I guess that is a good thing, but I never saw that with PADI training.

However, does any one understand why they shut the divers air off underwater?

Also the hand signals seemed very strange to me. Seemed like some sort of dance, if I saw a buddy giving signals like that I would think one or both of us are narced. I really could not understand most all of those signals.

Is this standard in current SSI training? Is this produced by or specifically for SSI? In other words, is this what they sanction?
Yes, I remember doing this skill just like that, including starting on the knees…
Valve gets shut off by an instructor to get simulated out of air (feel 2 breaths getting harder and then none). Afterwards instructor turns air back on, because this is a simulation. The only thing that should be different, if I remember correctly, standards call for an instructor to maintain contact with the student all they way up during this skill.
 
I filled in the blanks for you. Seriously, some training videos are good, some are a little over the top funny.

Hand signals were:
  • You
  • Look at me
  • Out of air
  • Drop weights
  • Go up
  • Ok?
  • Unknown arm tap (we'll get nachos later)
  • Other diver look at cameraman diver
  • ok
  • Lift up BCD inflator
  • Neutral Bouyancy
  • You.
  • turn valve
  • Unkown signal
  • ok
  • look at SPG
  • out of air
  • Uknown hand-signal (the helicopter has oxygen and leather seats, wait for them on the surface)
  • Unknown hand signal (a helicopter? Awesome!)
  • Point at surface
  • Look up, breathe out
  • Ok

That's my .02 for today. I'll see you in the helicopter.
 
Unfortunately I had to do an emergency ascent during a dive in Cozumel last February. Luckily it was 6 minutes into the first dive of the day. Ripping downcurrent on Punta Tunich wall swept a companion down the wall and we were at 120 feet in the blink of any eye. I was able to reach her and then did the emergency ascent. Not a fun dive.
 
First of all PADI does not do this exercise. They do the CESA, but not the buoyant ascent.

Valve gets shut off by an instructor to get simulated out of air (feel 2 breaths getting harder and then none).
For PADI, this is done twice in the pool, and this description is what is supposed to happen. In my DM and AI days, I played the student in many a demonstration of this, and it never happened that way once. Every time it was done, I was breathing just fine and then got nothing at all. There was no warning. In contrast, when I have breathed tanks down (intentionally), the last breaths are indeed harder, and it is usually more than 2 harder breaths. The purpose of this is to teach the student to recognize that the feeling of a tank running low so the student can take appropriate action prior to running out completely. That action could be a direct ascent to the surface. Done at the first realization that the tank is running low, a diver should be able to make it to the surface without running out of air at all. That happens when a tank is running low; it does not happen (at least in shallow water) when a valve is turned off.
 
There is an interesting history here.

Several years ago I was trying to learn something about the history of teaching emergency ascents, so I searched the Rubicon archives extensively. What I learned was that it was not part of standard instruction from the start. I read many published papers from the early 1970s, mostly from Australia, in which instructors shared thoughts on how to teach emergency ascents.

One of those papers announced the idea of turning the student's air off so the student could feel the decreasing air flow (no looking at gauges!) and then begin the ascent when that loss was felt. (No turning the air back on.)

I assume the regulators used a half century ago were indeed harder to breathe when the air was turned off. I personally have never seen it with modern regulators.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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