What age for tech?
- Thread starter bengregson
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If the diver doesn't appreciate the risks, s/he shouldn't be on any dive in the first-place. Sorry, "but more fully appreciate" is crap. You either do, or you don't.
Risk is managed by planning and following the play book. Once you're in a decompression situation, I don't think that the diver perceives any additional risk. The surface is forbidden. Paralyzed is paralyzed and dead is dead.
You don't follow the play book, you're screwed; this is the first rule of deep diving. The tables (regardless if they are paper or in electronic form) are not perfect. The risk is not in diving and following the play book, but in not being in good physical condition with an acceptable oxygen tolerance and doing a decompression dive. Then you're rolling the dice.
cool_hardware52
Contributor
That simply denies human nature. Most newly minted drivers (drivers not divers) are pretty confident that they understand the risks associated with operating a motor vehicle.
Most eventually realize, after a near miss, accident or simply more hours behind the wheel that the risks are greater, or different than they first perceived. Age and experience does that to people. Why would you expect diving to be any different?
Tell me, how as an instructor do you *know* that a student has a full grasp of the real risks?
Are you claiming that a 300 fsw dive with a hypoxic Trimix and multiple deco gases presents no greater risk than normoxic trimix dive to ~170 with a single deco gas?
Which training agency teaches that?
Tobin
Tobin,
For some reason, many Instructors today tend to push people into mixed gas long before their physical condition and training/experience would allow. If you're looking for "full grasp," most Instructors need to go back to school (present company excepted).
What I'm saying is that any deep dive can be done with the right mixture, equipment, a physically fit diver (who possesses a good oxygen tolerance) and who is well prepared to follow the appropriate decompression profile.
I do not understand separate training programs for 45m, 55m, 60m and 100m dives????
Most (if not all) of the World's Navies, and the World's Commercial Diving industry!
The reason why recreational divers are not taught in a similar way, would seem to be that there is more profit to be made by running multiple training courses.
This has been perfected by organizations such as PADI (and other organizations) who have carved things up so much, that students are not assured adequate instruction in one training program that will insure their safety (although through the good graces of some Instructors they are successful in achieving this).
I have taught mixed-gas to thousands of commercial students. The only difference is some have "tickets" that allow surface supplied mixed-gas (unrestricted), SCUBA (open and closed circuit) mixed-gas and bell saturation. Depth has nothing to do with it; it's the equipment used.
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cool_hardware52
Contributor
Tobin,
For some reason, many Instructors today tend to push people into mixed gas long before their physical condition and training/experience would allow. If you're looking for "full grasp," most Instructors need to go back to school (present company excepted).
I would suggest that there is no real way for any instructor to *Know* that a given student fully appreciates the risks they are taking. That requires mind reading.
OTOH a stepped approach that requires a minimum # of dives at each level to qualify for the next level ensures two things; some demonstrated experience, and a slower reach for the brass ring. Neither seems like a bad thing to me.
PADI has mastered marketing multiple courses, but.....
I seriously doubt any training agency makes much money teaching Trimix diving in 3 steps. The numbers of divers who even consider taking a hypoxic trimix course is so small as to be almost non existent compared to BOW, AOW, Nitrox etc.
Comparing Commercial Dive instruction, or Military dive instruction with Civilian recreational instruction is not all that useful.
The real difference is the student. Their motivations, and willingness to commit the time and the $$ will always exceed what most civilians are willing to do.
It makes sense to train a commercial diver from day one for a broader range of capabilities.
It also makes sense to have training available that permits recreational divers limited access to Helium for the ~150ft range.
We don't require all drivers to get a F1 license before they can drive a sports car either.
Tobin
Are you a mixed-gas instructor?
You are certainly entitled to your opinion.
Anti-Hero
Contributor
What exactly is a "good oxygen tolerance?"
cool_hardware52
Contributor
flw
Guest
When I trained there was only 1 trimix course, not 2 anyway......but a few years later I found myself learning to dive rebreather and with under 20 hours on it diving solo on the Pheasant, a notoriously tidal wreck in about 80m off Hoy. Now, nothing went wrong, I had a fabulous dive, but hindsight only taught me it was possibly not the brightest thing I'd ever done, despite having several years of o/c trimix diving behind me by then. 2 or 3 years later I was on the same wreck, again solo and the tide pulled the entire shotline down to the seabed, at the same time my solenoid decided to jam on and feed me pure O2 - by then I had the experience ( and luck) to deal with it, but it highlights what can go wrong very quickly on a 'routine' deep dive, and why you do need to build up experience of all the various pitfalls at every level. Had my solenoid jammed on the first dive, I'd almost certainly not have been able to recover it - let alone go diving again the next day.
It's kind of nice to have a course which does slow down training, and perhaps allows divers to learn from other mistakes before making them themselves
It's kind of nice to have a course which does slow down training, and perhaps allows divers to learn from other mistakes before making them themselves
I'll try to explain as best I can, but as we have hyperbaric physicians that frequent the site, I'm sure that they can do a better job.
This procedure tests the ability of your heart and lungs to provide oxygen and remove carbon dioxide from the bloodstream before, during and after you exercise. The desaturation part of the test, evaluates your oxygen needs at rest and during exercise.
Although we all are susceptible to oxygen poisoning, some people can perform well despite higher or lower partial pressures of oxygen. This is why some people can climb Mount Everest without oxygen with little acclimatization, while others need oxygen despite a lengthy acclimatization. This is something that you are born with; although I believe fitness may be a mitigating factor.
Although the oxygen tolerance test has been found not to be a perfect predictor, it's used by most military and commercial training facilities in the selection of diver candidates.
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