Student lost - Seattle, Washington

[stuartv]

It was a night course not OW

I am still struggling why her light was not visible on the surface. Even if it were comparatively weak this is not deep at all. And lights are easily seen here even in poor vis from much deeper than the honeybear. If her light failed and that triggered some sort of panic that is obviously a different story

The SDI standards for Night/Low Viz training require a light and a backup light. I would think that other agencies would require the same thing. This is not a comment to start an agency fight. I have only trained with SDI/TDI, so I'm naming the agency simply to say that it is the only agency standards that I know.

I have taught some Night/Low Viz dives. It is not a required skill to make the students handle a "failed light". This thread does make me give some thought to whether I should incorporate that into the start of every Night/Low Viz dive #1 from now on. In other words, at the start of the first Night Diver class dive, make sure each student can successfully deploy and use their backup light before proceeding any further with their dive.

 

[rjack321]

I have taught some Night/Low Viz dives. It is not a required skill to make the students handle a "failed light". This thread does make me give some thought to whether I should incorporate that into the start of every Night/Low Viz dive #1 from now on. In other words, at the start of the first Night Diver class dive, make sure each student can successfully deploy and use their backup light before proceeding any further with their dive.

This seems like a good take home even if ultimately unrelated to this accident.

Its actually shockingly common to take a backup light out or remove it from your harness. Then try to turn it on. In a cave course the second you remove it while off you'll "drop it" and its lost for the remainder of your exit. Turn on the light first then deploy is the lesson there. Considering how often experienced cave course students mess that up until they learn the hard way, i can imagine AOW students making all kinds of mistakes in the dark trying to deploy a backup light.

 

[Stratum0]

The SDI standards for Night/Low Viz training require a light and a backup light. I would think that other agencies would require the same thing. This is not a comment to start an agency fight. I have only trained with SDI/TDI, so I'm naming the agency simply to say that it is the only agency standards that I know.

I have taught some Night/Low Viz dives. It is not a required skill to make the students handle a "failed light". This thread does make me give some thought to whether I should incorporate that into the start of every Night/Low Viz dive #1 from now on. In other words, at the start of the first Night Diver class dive, make sure each student can successfully deploy and use their backup light before proceeding any further with their dive.

PADI Standards checking in.
This is probably a PADI class given the shops around here, so I hope these standards are helpful to the discussion.

For the night specialty, a light and a backup light are required, but there is no performance requirement for switching to a backup light.
For the AOW night adventure dive, only a primary light is required. A backup and marker/chem light are only recommended (page 92, 2021 instructor manual).

It is suspected that the class in question was an AOW class, in which case if that was true, the students would only require one light.

Backup lights and the use of them are discussed both in the AOW adventure dive manual and KRs, along with the night specialty guide and KRs.

 

[stuartv]

That's because some of us think AOWs are a bit of a joke and the whole series of courses should be in the OW course, like it used to be.

And I'm basing that on the inexperienced divers that I've taken out at cove 2 with less than ~50 dives or so, and I don't think anyone should be doing that with less than a 2:1 ratio of inexperienced/student to experienced/instructor ratio.

Just because someone has an OW card doesn't mean they're really capable of safely diving without supervision, it just gives the training agency a liability defense.

I've participated in that conversation a number of times over the last few years, including as recently as last week.

My opinion is that the way things are currently done is fine - as long as they are done to standards, of course. The statistics seem to support my opinion. The industry does not have (as far as I know) a significant problem with new OW divers - trained to current RSTC standards - that are going out and getting hurt because modern training is producing unsafe divers.

We may be producing relatively unskilled divers, but that is a different issue. They are (generally) skilled enough and have been instilled with sufficient knowledge that they can go diving without getting hurt (generally). I suppose the knowledge that they come away from OW training with includes enough to sway them towards diving with operations that by-and-large take them to benign dive sites and keep them safe as they get their sea legs (so to speak) and then (hopefully) go on to more advanced training and more advanced diving.

If the statistics show that modern OW training is not turning out divers that are going out and getting hurt (in any significant numbers), then why "should" OW training be changed to take longer and be more expensive?

If someone can point me at information that shows we do have a legitimate safety problem with training done to modern standards, I would sincerely like to see it. Training standards are a balancing act between safety and accessibility. Of course we COULD make standards tougher, requiring a higher level of diver skill before getting an OW card - which would, in theory, mean we produce safer divers. But, if that makes an insignificant impact on actual safety/accident stats and at the same time it DOES result in a negative impact on participation because it makes diving less accessible, then I would not be in favor of that approach.

 

[OrcasC205]

I am still struggling why her light was not visible on the surface. Even if it were comparatively weak this is not deep at all. And lights are easily seen here even in poor vis from much deeper than the honeybear. If her light failed and that triggered some sort of panic that is obviously a different story

The last possibility is why I think the student to instructor/dm ratio is important to understand in this case. One instructor keeping an eye on one or two students and seeing a light go out or missing is a lot different than two instructors trying to keep track of seven lights (or even 1:3 and 1:4).

 

[boulderjohn]

That's because some of us think AOWs are a bit of a joke and the whole series of courses should be in the OW course, like it used to be.
.

Lamont,

Just as an FYI, the idea that a former OW class was divided in half to create OW and AOW is a common myth, but it is not true.

In the mid 1960s, The Los Angeles County program was concerned that too many divers were quitting diving soon after certification, and they decided to create an advanced program that would focus on some additional skill but primarily introduce divers to different kinds of dive experiences through different kinds of dives in the hope of piquing their interest. NAUI, which grew out of the Los Angeles program, followed suit for the same reason.

You can find a full explanation in this history of NAUI: http://deepadventurescuba.net/assets/uploads/files/nauihistory.pdf

 

[stuartv]

PADI Standards checking in.
This is probably a PADI class given the shops around here, so I hope these standards are helpful to the discussion.

For the night specialty, a light and a backup light are required, but there is no performance requirement for switching to a backup light.
For the AOW night adventure dive, only a primary light is required. A backup and marker/chem light are only recommended (page 92, 2021 instructor manual).

That's a good point there.

For SDI, required equipment for Advanced Adventure Diver (the direct equivalent of PADI AOW) is, basically, whatever the required equipment that is specified for Dive 1 of each of the 5 specialties. So, if doing a Night Dive as part of the Advanced course, since the Night specialty requires 2 lights, the student would still be required to have 2 lights in the Advanced course (for that 1 dive).

Night/Low Viz is not a requirement for SDI Advanced. Deep and U/W Nav are required and the other 3 are elective. But, if Night is one of the electives, then 2 lights would be required for the Night dive (as it should be, in my opinion).

 

[stuartv]

This seems like a good take home even if ultimately unrelated to this accident.

Its actually shockingly common to take a backup light out or remove it from your harness. Then try to turn it on. In a cave course the second you remove it while off you'll "drop it" and its lost for the remainder of your exit. Turn on the light first then deploy is the lesson there. Considering how often experienced cave course students mess that up until they learn the hard way, i can imagine AOW students making all kinds of mistakes in the dark trying to deploy a backup light.

Funny enough, I read that on SB back when I first started diving. Always turn on your light BEFORE you unclip it from your harness. The importance of that stuck with me from my very early days as a diver and I have very rarely failed to do that ever since. Thank you, SB, for making me a better diver!

I think this also highlights why some gear configs are "better" or "safer" than others. Many gear configs result in the only "convenient" way to carry a backup light being to have it in a pocket, where it is not clipped to anything. Go to take it out and fumble it as it clears the pocket opening and it is gone. Turned off and dropped. A BP/W really does lend itself well to having lights with bolt snaps attached to them and then clipped to the BP/W harness where it is very easy to get a hand on it and turn it on before unclipping it from the harness.

In my case, when I do use a light, the vast majority of the time it stays clipped to my harness even while in use. I turn it on and can point it wherever I need to without unclipping it. And I can "drop" it any time, without fear of losing it. When teaching OW in viz like we usually have in Lake Jocassee, I usually turn my light on and let it hang down from my shoulder strap to point at the bottom, just to make it easier for my students to easily tell where I am or which one I am in a group or 3 or 4. My lights are single cell, so not long, so they don't drag on the bottom or anything like that, even when dangling.

 

[explore_DMC]

There is a thread on facebook describing this as 1 group of 4 divers (1 an instructor), and 1 group of 3 divers (1 an instructor). The groups were diving separately and presumably not in the same spot within the site. The second group allegedly has the instructor, 1 student(?) and the victim.

If visibility was as good as reported, both groups could potentially be visible with light contact and draw one diver away to the wrong group. My gf did this on a night dive a few years ago while traveling, but I was able to see her swimming off and followed her to the (incorrect) boat.

Regardless...to training standards...you cannot train every scenario. What prevents someone from just ascending to the surface in this scenario? Other than being overweighted which is normal for nearly every new diver (edit: and excessively overweighted seems normal in Seattle).

 

[Hojo in SC]

I don't care how many lights you have when going down for your first night dive, at least when visibility is less than ideal. I went down for my first night dive in AOW and I didn't have a ton of dives under my belt. I lost the instructor and (one other student) because they descended faster than I did. I tried to swim head down to catch up, then realized that I was not going to do a search for 60 seconds, instead I decided to go up. Problem was I had no idea which way was up, I almost went into panic mode. I won't go into detail but I didn't think I would make it to the surface, actually put my hand on my regulator to hold it in my mouth and kept saying to myself don't panic and spit out the regulator.

My point, night dives with less than ideal visibilty should be done with almost a hand in hand descent.