Value of the DIR approach

[Adobo]

Well, he was brand new, and I did send him off to work with an instructor, after a half hour of work couldn't get him close enough to neutral to do ANY diving.

How many people closely inspect their buddy's inflator to see how the buttons work before they dive?

Anyway, I've already said that it was an error, and one I learned from.

(I might as well take a shot at you too. I'd hate to be one of the few that didn't.)

 

[SparticleBrane]

Something tells me that we've beat her long enough and she won't make the same mistake again.
In fact, she probably already knew her mistake long before everyone told her about it...and knew what to do for the future. No sense in kicking her while she's down, hm?

 

[mdb]

Something tells me that we've beat her long enough and she won't make the same mistake again.
In fact, she probably already knew her mistake long before everyone told her about it...and knew what to do for the future. No sense in kicking her while she's down, hm?

SparticleBrane: I agree. The good Doctor is always open and forthcoming. She sparks good ideas and good debate. We all learn something in the process. Good pre dive checks, regardless of cert. agency is a valuable lesson. I like to dive solo, but when diving with another I know, from experience, it is important to check each others gear and ask questions, decide who is 'leading" the dive, monitor each other while diving etc. This ongoing thread has had a lot of good insight. It motivated me to schedule an Apollo group dive in warm water. It is cold and rainy, with high surf, here in the SF bay area.

 

[djanni]

Well, he was brand new, and I did send him off to work with an instructor, after a half hour of work couldn't get him close enough to neutral to do ANY diving.

How many people closely inspect their buddy's inflator to see how the buttons work before they dive?

Anyway, I've already said that it was an error, and one I learned from.

Would you mind clairifying something for me? In your 1st post you mentioned a diver having trouble with his bouyancy and you tried to help him only to discover an unusal inflator you couldn't operate. I didn't get the impression he was your designated dive buddy. Yet above you say he was your dive buddy. Was he or was he just another diver on the boat?

It's unusal for me to dive with anyone other than my normal dive buddy (my wife) yet in the cases where I have, I have gone through an equipment review which is a part of PADI training.

However, if diving with my normal buddy we don't go around to the other divers on the boat and ask about their equipment nor have I ever had other divers approach one of us for an equipment review. There was an occation where the husband of a young woman got sea sick and skipped a dive. The young woman, a beginner, asked if she could hang with us and although I felt a bit pretentious (having only about 50 dives myself at the time) I suggested we should check out each others equipment first.

So I'm trying to understand the lession you learned. Was it to always check your Dive Buddy's equipment or are you suggesting divers should review the equipment being used by all the divers on the boat in the event you cross paths with one of them and they need help?

In either event it does give pause to consider that even if one is familiar with their dive buddy's equipment there are always situations where a diver can come across a diver needing help. In that situation experience with a variety of configurations would have to be an advantage as I mentioned in my previous post.

Apparantly there isn't enough justification (which is a good thing) for the "Regulators" to mandate standards for safety. You know the "Regulators" would mandate it if they could and probably tax it as well.

As long as there isn't justification to "regulate" these things there will never be standardization and so it seems important that a diver makes an effort to be ready for the unexpected as opposed to being so focused on a single configuration that they are at a loss to render aid.

Relating this back to the subject of your original post I could draw this hypothesis; DIR is of value to DIR divers who dive as a team and are intimately familar with each others equipment yet should these DIR divers encounter an non-DIR diver needing help the non-DIR diver is at greater risk. Therefore DIR is of no value to non-DIR divers.

EDIT: You fell on your sword already. This question isn't about you and I not having a go at you.

 

[JeffG]

Would you mind clairifying something for me? <snip>
EDIT: You fell on your sword already. This question isn't about you and I not having a go at you.

Sure your not.

 

[djanni]

Sure your not.

Jeff: Do you review the equipment of every diver on the boat? If not, why not?

 

[Jasonmh]

Relating this back to the subject of your original post I could draw this hypothesis; DIR is of value to DIR divers who dive as a team and are intimately familar with each others equipment yet should these DIR divers encounter an non-DIR diver needing help the non-DIR diver is at greater risk.

I'm not sure I see how, since in this senario it is just as likely that the non-dir diver would be just as unfamiliar with the DIR divers gear, putting the DIR diver in the same risk. If I am diving in a wreck with a non-dir buddy with an Air2, and we had an OOA incident, I would much rather be the one donating than the one receiving in that senario. I would say for my self that I would be in the greater risk if I needed to share air.

 

[TSandM]

Don Janni, this guy was my buddy. He was a brand new diver who had posted on some board (maybe this one, I don't remember) about wanting someone to go diving with. I volunteered, and met him at our local underwater park. I think I had somewhere around 100 dives at that point, and hadn't done Rescue yet -- or I would have done some things differently.

We did an equipment check which consisted of each of us testing his OWN gear to make sure it worked, and I watched him but not closely enough. I did check how he was carrying his weights, and I was concerned because he seemed overweighted to me, and all his weights were in integrated weight pouches, so I predicted he'd be seriously feet-down in his trim.

As it turned out, the only position he could assume underwater was standing. I tried to get him to lie down on the bottom and inflate his BC with small puffs until he could float enough to kick forward, but he didn't understand fin pivots, and he just kept corking to the surface. It was on one of these attempts that I tried to manage his inflator for him, and found myself stymied by it.

After a half hour of struggling, I told him he needed a refresher course from a professional instructor, because I wasn't an instructor at all, and I had run out of ideas of how to help him. (BTW, this entire sequence of events took place in ten feet of water.)

I did not do a fabulous job of helping this guy. I wasn't a DM or instructor -- I wasn't even a Rescue diver. I was just somebody trying to be nice by diving with a novice. I felt bad that I couldn't help him more, and I learned a lot about the skills that are needed to be a good mentor on that diving day. I'd love to learn without making mistakes, but unfortunately, life isn't often like that.

Except for the fact that standardized equipment removes some of these issues, this story has virtually nothing to do with DIR.

 

[Kwbyron]

If PADI announced a Standard, would you follow it?

I think that standard is inherent in the training. I came out of PADI thinking about buying a jacket BC and the standard reg/octo setup, It wasn't until I moved to Seattle that I knew what a BP/W was, or that you could get a reg with a 7' hose. In that sense, DIR is kind of the group out of standards...
All jackets are different, but from what I have looked at the big variation in gear is if you are jacket or BP based and the hose length on your regs. Miner variations in gear is why you go over it with your buddy before hand, doesn't DIR have a pretty in-depth predive buddy check?

 

[boulderjohn]

Standardization--what a great idea that would be!

If only we had standardized back in the 50's. We could all be using standard double hoses and J-valves now.

Standardization prevents progress.