I can't even express how much that disgusts me. Don't give a fig if standards allow or not, the point is that we as instructors should be teaching divers so they can plan and execute dives without us in conditions similar to those we trained them in.
That includes dive planning for altitude if we are teaching at altitude. Again, this is my view of a basic moral and ethical issue , not a meet standards thing.
Apparently there's now some thought that discussion like this is off topic, but I don't think it is. Earlier in this thread I said that virtually all of my experience with classes--and I've had a number of them, spread among three agencies--involves pencil whipping people through them. Kind of going over things, and then signing off. Several times no predive safety checks, and so forth. I'd just about bet my house that Linnea Mills had the same quality level of training. Everyone does (except, apparently the students of a handful of instructors on Scubaboard). I think the people who were supposed to be watching over Linnea Mills were criminal in their recklessness. But I also don't think it's an extreme stretch from the status quo to her experience.
Frankly, I'm sick of the people going on about PADI standards (or whatever other standards) being just great, and so the whole system is great, except maybe for a few bad apples. Analogizing, this reminds me of my experience in Scouting, as a Scoutmaster among other things. The BSA says no troop can do anything outdoors without a BSA travel permit, and in the permit application the adult leaders have to list everything they will do, and then confirm that the adults have had specific BSA training in each of those activities. The leaders always check the boxes. The BSA thinks it gives the organization legal cover because whenever something goes wrong they can say that either someone violated standards (which happens probably much more often than not) and therefore it's not the BSA's fault, or the adult leaders followed standards and those standards are obviously good ones that are covering all the bases, and stuff just happens. I mean, they standards are written down, and they look great on paper! Nope. BSA training for adult leaders on, say, climbing, is a joke. I've never understood how the BSA can waive their standards at a court and expect anyone to do anything other than laugh. There's no connection between the standards and what happens in real life. Scouts don't die in massive numbers because each outing turns out to be a miracle. Who'd have thunk? Scouting might be proof that God exists! Well, that was too long a paragraph.
Anyway, the dive industry standards seem a lot the same to me. Standards aren't as relevant to me as real life results. The whole industry, as I said earlier, seems half baked. I've mentioned my experience in classes. I've also been in dive shops in Mexico and Egypt and in various western states of the US. Almost all are not well oiled machines. They make me cringe. Maybe one good one in LA, one good one in San Diego, one or maybe two good ones in Puget Sound, a decent one in Oregon and a decent one in Utah, and the rest in those states may have nice people (although they're more likely to have inept people) but they're struggling to do basic things like run a website that tells customers what's going on, or stock their shelves, or whatever else. Goodness, I know some people are trying hard, and it's an uphill road, but given this overall situation are student fatalities really a surprise? It's surprising there aren't more. The standards expected of students are low to begin with, and when real life is worse, there's no excuse for agencies to be waving their standards binders and saying they've done all they could be expected to do. Do better.
Earlier someone was blaming Linnea Mills for not knowing what she was doing. That's the best we can do? Are we really that far gone?
