Student lost - Seattle, Washington

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If only you were there this wouldn’t have happened!
Really, it could have been any GUE instructor to save the day rather the pieces of pure pond scum from RSTC agencies that comprise 99% of scuba instruction. Students don't even get sick in their presence.
 
Really, it could have been any GUE instructor to save the day rather the pieces of pure pond scum from RSTC agencies that comprise 99% of scuba instruction. Students don't even get sick in their presence.

Oh I must have missed some information. Do we finally have a report to read rather than speculating on what happened?

Whats the hate with WRSTC agencies? Do good instructors only exist in unaccredited agencies?
Usually is crappy instructors that give crappy instruction. Not sure what an agency accreditation org has to do with this.
 
Oh I must have missed some information. Do we finally have a report to read rather than speculating on what happened?

Whats the hate with WRSTC agencies? Do good instructors only exist in unaccredited agencies?
Usually is crappy instructors that give crappy instruction. Not sure what an agency accreditation org has to do with this.
My comment was an ironic reference to post #37.
 
Two instructors keeping track of 7 lights? That's reasonable to you? Not to me considering how poorly trained many divers are. No problem if GUE rec 1 divers. But WRSTC agency divers? Seen too many bad things.

Ah, then allow me to redirect my comment to the #37 OP :)

I find it HORRIBLY distasteful to use the loss of a student in your own dive community to further your opinions on the toxic agency infighting we have in the scuba community at large.
If you do have any factual information about what happened that night, I'm sure we would all appreciate it, as I'm not yet going to attribute blame to even the instructor until I have factual evidence to believe the instructor was at fault.

According to your signature, you are an assistant instructor trainer for SSI, which last I checked is WRSTC.
I really hope you are using your position as someone who is mentoring and bringing up WRSTC instructors to improve the quality of divers in our area.
 
Slight diversion from what we all agree is a tragic and sad loss of life in our beloved sport. In baseball and golf, it's called the Yips. Now we know that in gymnastics it's called the "Twisties". The sudden loss of the ability to throw or putt straight or the fear of twists. The last few student deaths discussed on this sight have caused me much angst. Now at 66, I'm wondering about teaching and my abilities. I still think I'm a good, attentive teacher, but when conditions get bad, less that 10 feet of visibility, I am becoming more concerned for my students and my teaching. It's a quarry and we average 24 feet on the post skills tours except of one deeper dive so they just need to go up if separated, but I'm still more nervous. The big shops that populate the quarry just go down, do the skills on the platform, swim around the platform then come up, stay on the surface for awhile, go back down and repeat. I just can't do that. However, this last weekend was honestly just 3 feet viz. There is no way I could have taught more than 2 students and I wouldn't trust giving 2 to a DM for the tour. i was there not to teach but to get my wife some 7mm wetsuit practice before Galapagos and run through nav, out of air and SMB deployment with her. I could not see the wall she was swimming along, just her and then all else was grey. Anyway, I'm struggling with my limits and what case load is expected of me. Obviously, if I'm not comfortable, I'm not doing it, but sometimes I think reading these stories is freaking me out.
Thanks for letting me vent.

Rob
 
We don't know the cause yet. But. When it comes to the instructors not just missing whatever event incapacitated the diver, but losing the diver completely and having no idea where to find her? When an instructor has done that, I'm pretty sure they've messed up.

We don't have any facts around why she didn't resurface, we only have the fact that she couldn't be found at all that night and wasn't discovered until the next morning... which is not good news for the insructors. It implies that she wasn't even close to the group when they realized something was wrong.

It's hard to think of a good excuse for that, though as a fairly new diver I would certainly be interested in hearing from people who have seen how people get left behind. There's got to be an explanation.
 
We don't know the cause yet. But. When it comes to the instructors not just missing whatever event incapacitated the diver, but losing the diver completely and having no idea where to find her? When an instructor has done that, I'm pretty sure they've messed up.

We don't have any facts around why she didn't resurface, we only have the fact that she couldn't be found at all that night and wasn't discovered until the next morning... which is not good news for the insructors. It implies that she wasn't even close to the group when they realized something was wrong.

It's hard to think of a good excuse for that, though as a fairly new diver I would certainly be interested in hearing from people who have seen how people get left behind. There's got to be an explanation.

I 100% agree and expect that there is probably some fault that belongs on the instructors, but my point was that we should reserve final judgement until we know all the details.

I could sit here and speculate all day about what happened, but Id rather wait for details to come out before agency bashing.
 
My student and I had a good look at the Honey Bear and it occurred to me then that it would be possible to wedge yourself under the stern. But there'd be no reason to try.

I've tried and stuck my head in there as far as I could go. Very hard to get into any significant trouble with the honey bear that any old piece of junk underwater couldn't cause.
 
Slight diversion from what we all agree is a tragic and sad loss of life in our beloved sport. In baseball and golf, it's called the Yips. Now we know that in gymnastics it's called the "Twisties". The sudden loss of the ability to throw or putt straight or the fear of twists. The last few student deaths discussed on this sight have caused me much angst. Now at 66, I'm wondering about teaching and my abilities. I still think I'm a good, attentive teacher, but when conditions get bad, less that 10 feet of visibility, I am becoming more concerned for my students and my teaching. It's a quarry and we average 24 feet on the post skills tours except of one deeper dive so they just need to go up if separated, but I'm still more nervous. The big shops that populate the quarry just go down, do the skills on the platform, swim around the platform then come up, stay on the surface for awhile, go back down and repeat. I just can't do that. However, this last weekend was honestly just 3 feet viz. There is no way I could have taught more than 2 students and I wouldn't trust giving 2 to a DM for the tour. i was there not to teach but to get my wife some 7mm wetsuit practice before Galapagos and run through nav, out of air and SMB deployment with her. I could not see the wall she was swimming along, just her and then all else was grey. Anyway, I'm struggling with my limits and what case load is expected of me. Obviously, if I'm not comfortable, I'm not doing it, but sometimes I think reading these stories is freaking me out.
Thanks for letting me vent.

Rob

I’m in the same area as you. I was at Haigh yesterday. Buddies and I had some things to work on so we spent the dive on the deep side platform, the big one to the right of the road bed. 2-3ft viz. Couldn’t see the platform from the surface. I made sure both buddies had their lights turned on as that helped us see each other. The second dive was on the Flamingo. Viz was much better at 40-45ft. Maybe 10-15ft. We were going to do a wall tour on the deep side for our second dive, but trying to get down by Ark Park was awful.
 
I knew I'd trigger a few, particularly one individual (he never ceases to disappoint as he reacts like I'm insulting his wife whom I'm sure is a very nice lady).

And yes I do work inside agencies to address risk factors. And I publicly sound the alarm.

Maybe all of you who think a 7:2 ratio with mostly inexperienced divers is safe are much smarter than me.

I'm looking at the system that is common in the WRSTC.

Those who don't like my comments should add me to their ignore list
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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