"Term limits" on certifications

[Chad_Ordelheide]

I don't believe that I am failing to recognize that other divers will come to my aid. I question, though, whether I am responsible to those divers who might come to my rescue. The above statement might come off way wrong, but if I fly my plane into your boat, I take away your personal choice as to whether or not to be placed in danger. If I get into a bad spot diving, and would die if you don't come to my aid, you are still able to make the choice to assist me or not, as you see fit. If a certification were to REQUIRE me to assist a fellow diver in such a predicament, I would question the wisdom of obtaining such a certification. Indeed, what certification could you hold that would obligate you to help, no matter the risk?

Ethically? I think that placed in such a situation, I would attempt to help the distressed diver until I felt that further rescue attempts would place me at significantly elevated risk. If your ethical standards require more of you, you have my respect and appreciation. But in the end, your ethical standards are your own choice, and I can't agree with requiring more of others because you require more of yourself.

Most respectfully,

David

Agree 100%. Don't make my decisions for me! If I choose to follow a sinking diver to 400 feet...I guess thats my choice :06: If he decided to jump in with 50 lbs and no BC, well then I guess that his/her choice! At least we are all making our own choices

 

[ParamedicDiver1]

I have a license to fly an airplane. It is issued once for life just like my PADI c-card the difference is that in order to fly I need three things

1) The license
2) Recent experiance, That is a certain number of take offs and landsing within the last 90 days
3) A valid medical certificate (good for up to a year)

Applying the airplane model to scuba would be straight forward.

About #2. If I lack recent experiance I then hire an instructor to go with me untill s/he signs me off as being compentent to fly again..

The main problem I have with this analogy is that the pilot's license is a LICENSE. This is a government-regulated license. I am adamantly against any more government interference specially when it involves a recreational hobby. The minute you stat adding government involvement...up goes the cost of our sport. I know people are tired of seeing people getting hurt or dying while diving, but I seriously doubt this would improve matters more, people die from all sorts of things including dive related incidents, it happens. If we, as individual divers, are not willing to take the steps necessary to dive safely, then we will pay the consequences. As far as those of us that try to help or rescue those that do not dive safely, that is a choice we make and we have to make the call when it happens.

 

[mels_2]

my husband just told me that an experienced diver (with around 27 yrs of diving under his belt) was practicing buddy breathing over the weekend and never came back up. This was in Vermont not sure of the whole story yet. Maybe some one here has more info. My father-in-law pointed out to him as we are new divers and he was concerned for our safety.

 

[drbill]

can i ask why it makes a difference if the person is obese or not? A paniced person regardless of ones wieght or experience would take you down.

Look to the statistics presented earlier that graphically indicate obesity is a major factor in dive-related deaths. MANY of the deaths recorded here in Catalina waters, especially at the Dive Park, were obese divers out of shape for such an activity so the overall statistics are very similar to my anecdotal experience here on Catalina.

Dr. Bill

 

[drbill]

Since I began this thread, and did not suggest that government become involved in the issue (only the dive industry and dive community), I wish people would get off the topic of governmental legislation and interference. It has no relevance to what I posted initially in this thread. I do NOT feel the government needs to or should be involved here, only the industry.

Dr. Bill

 

[DiveGolfSki]

The problem, or perhaps better said, the cause of the problem, is that the industry is a reactionary, consumer-based industry that has allowed the inmates to run the asylum and now that the direction of the industry has been co-opted by the consumer it's an uphill battle trying to turn the ship back around.

....I wish when I was in Grad school, or studying for the CPA exam that I could have dictated the terms by which I wanted to dillute the process, it would have saved a heck of a lot of studying ;-)

Regards

Interesting analogy you're putting forth here. You've basically implied that the consumer dictates what goes on in the dive industry. Sticking with your analogy, if a consumer is given the option of product A which is relatively safe and easier to get versus product B which is TREMENDOUSLY safe, very expensive and very complex, which would he buy to experience the same benefit? Should anyone tell him which choice he should make or limit his choices in the first place?

I was waiting for someone from the DIR/GUE camp to chime in. Actually, I don't know if you recognized the entire text I lifted from GUE's site on my post #75. My point to Dr. Bill is THAT THERE ARE SELF REGULATED ENTITIES IN EXISTENCE DOING EXACTLY WHAT HE PROPOSES, SPECIFICALLY, GUE AND DIR.

True to form, you and he are saying that there is only one way to dive ... the "safe" way, the DIR way, the GUE way. If that's the case, the main issue behind this thread is whether or not PADI, NAUI, et al, principles should be replaced by the more "restrictive" GUE or DIR philosophies.

To be honest, there are some benefits to "reversing the trend" in diving. I, for one, am appalled at the growing trend of DVD's in diving versus actual pool or open water experience.

However, by completely going the ways that Dr. Bill and GUE/DIR suggests, the dive will shrink community to a small cadre of "buff" DIR types. Frankly, I don't think it has to go to that extreme end of the spectrum. The consequences of not being properly trained in diving (a simple one ... YOU DIE) is an incentive enough to make a diver want to seek more training (it is in my case).

 

[mels_2]

i got more info on the diver in Vermont the post is on 2 other threads as well. but here it is again from the boston globe:

The body of a 43-year-old father of four was found late yesterday afternoon after two days of searching a quarry for the missing diver.

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Timothy Gagnon, an experienced scuba diver, was diving with a friend in West Rutland on Sunday morning when the friend had difficulty with his breathing equipment, said Gagnon's wife, Joanne, in a telephone interview from her home in Northwood, N.H., last night.

Gagnon and his friend were doing ''buddy breathing" -- sharing air from the same regulator, said Joanne Gagnon. At one point, Gagnon's friend, whom she would identify only as John, was shallow enough to surface on his own. The friend waited on the surface; Gagnon never appeared, his wife said.

''They believe he was trying to fix the problem when it happened," said Joanne Gagnon. ''This was an accident. He was helping his friend. They had been diving for a long time together."

Gagnon was reported missing Sunday morning. He was found late yesterday afternoon about 400 feet from his point of entry into the quarry, according to Vermont State Police.

A rescue team from the Colchester Fire Department recovered his body.

''At this time it is being considered an accidental death," said State Police dispatcher Tom Best.

The case remains under investigation and an autopsy was ordered, police said.

Gagnon's wife of 24 years said her husband had been diving for decades and was very comfortable in the water.

''He's a great, great guy," she said. ''He was perfect."

 

[DiveGolfSki]

i got more info on the diver in Vermont the post is on 2 other threads as well. but here it is again from the boston globe:

The body of a 43-year-old father of four was found late yesterday afternoon after two days of searching a quarry for the missing diver.

ADVERTISEMENT

Timothy Gagnon, an experienced scuba diver, was diving with a friend in West Rutland on Sunday morning when the friend had difficulty with his breathing equipment, said Gagnon's wife, Joanne, in a telephone interview from her home in Northwood, N.H., last night.

Gagnon and his friend were doing ''buddy breathing" -- sharing air from the same regulator, said Joanne Gagnon. At one point, Gagnon's friend, whom she would identify only as John, was shallow enough to surface on his own. The friend waited on the surface; Gagnon never appeared, his wife said.

''They believe he was trying to fix the problem when it happened," said Joanne Gagnon. ''This was an accident. He was helping his friend. They had been diving for a long time together."

Gagnon was reported missing Sunday morning. He was found late yesterday afternoon about 400 feet from his point of entry into the quarry, according to Vermont State Police.

A rescue team from the Colchester Fire Department recovered his body.

''At this time it is being considered an accidental death," said State Police dispatcher Tom Best.

The case remains under investigation and an autopsy was ordered, police said.

Gagnon's wife of 24 years said her husband had been diving for decades and was very comfortable in the water.

''He's a great, great guy," she said. ''He was perfect."

Mels_2,

You may want to start a new thread and post the above in the Accident and Incident section. That's probably the better place for it to be in.

 

[lamont]

For the most part I agree with your comments about lack of regulation, I'm about as anti-government intervention as can be. However the flip side of the coin is that to the extent accidents keep piling up, news coverage increases and/or courts continue to keep busy with lawsuits the only way to keep big-brother out is to do a more effective job at self-policing. Everyone knows that if the government gets involved they'll over-regulate the hell out of the sport and dream up idiotic ideas like snorkels and nitrox advertising banners, see Laguna Beach, Ca. for evidence.. So unless we keep the sport below the radar screen from those eager beaver legislators that have little else to do but make new laws then I suspect it will only remain a matter of time before we get saved from ourselves..

Laguna Beach is a single example, and for everything you can conceive of there's probably a stupid law somewhere governing it that the local busybodies attempted to legislate in some dumb way. I'd file this under the same category as Pi being legislated to be 3. Is there any evidence that we're in danger of becoming regulated outside of very local constituencies? In general there seems to be a pretty even-handed approach to potentially dangerous recreational activities from diving to hiking to snowboarding to climbing. The worst that the average regulatory reaction seems to have gotten to is just to make people pay for their own rescues.

I don't see a lot of rescuers clamoring for more regulation in any of those industries. I don't see legislators (state or federal) as having diving or dangerous sports generally on their radars. The industries themselves have financial and lobby clout behind them which can fight excessive legislation.

So, I don't see a reason to impose draconian self-regulation because we might at some point in the future be theoretically subject to even more draconian self-regulation. That seems to be inventing a problem in order to solve it.

In the interim, I see no harm in raising awareness levels and increasing due diligence. The issue is that we are a self-policing sport, arguably being lead by a privately held, for-profit agency, that has shown time and again the willingness to put earnings per share ahead of safety, the resulting end game will be knowing when enough is enough, and in that regard the industry hasn't shown a heck of a lot of self-restraint.

There does seem to be a dumbing down of safety issues in order to not scare off scuba divers because of profit motive. I just don't think that more regulation is the answer here though. I'd prefer to see people who care about these issues (GUE and whoever wants to join them) lead by example.

 

[Rick Inman]

... I'd prefer to see people who care about these issues (GUE and whoever wants to join them) lead by example.

We're always talking about the various agencies, but what about the LDS? Really, how often do they ask for a C-card with an air fill? I can't remember the last time I was asked - even for nitrox.

If a customer walks in and asks to rent everything and produces an NASDS C-card from 1978, what do you think the LDS clerk would do?