What to do in the event that...

[TSandM]

Bob, that's a beautiful post. I think one of the things we don't do enough of is get students to THINK about what might happen during a dive that might REQUIRE the skill we are making them perform for us. I have begun asking Peter's students, "Can you think of a situation where you might need to do this during a dive?" to get their brains working and really engaged in the exercise, instead of performing it by rote.

The young man we dove with yesterday was, at the end of his first dive, cold and uncomfortable, and you could see the look on his face when Peter told him he had to take his gear and weight belt off and put them back on. The look said, louder than words, that he thought the exercise was stupid harassment, when all he wanted was to get out of the water. When I explained to him that we take our gear off in the water to get back on our boat, his expression changed. He was still uncomfortable, but at least now he knew why we were making him do this ridiculous thing.

 

[Mike Boswell]

For those who keep telling people to "go back to your OW instructor", I would request that you resist the urge to post that and just click to the next thread ... your comments won't really contribute anything useful, and only serve to discourage people from asking questions. That is about as counterproductive a use of your time (and ours) as any I can think of.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

BOB, I've never heard anyone say this better, or nicer.

But given the obvious challenges faced by the intended recipients, will it sink in?

When a poster makes it clear that they really have nothing positive to contribute, I just add them to my "Ignore" list. It's amazing how well that cleans up a thread!!!

 

[Guba]

The "why" of the skills we learn as divers has always seemed important to me, perhaps since I'm in professional education and that is the number one question I answer on a daily basis. It's also why I feel threads like this one are significant and should not be treated in a condescending or dismissive manner. (If you do that, then like Bob, I resprectfully ask you to refrain.)

There is no way under the sun that an instructor...and I don't care how good you are...can cover every eventuality. All they can do is cover responses that will provide the greatest likelihood of producing a good result. The real value of any exercise is to provide the tools and skills that lend themselves toward getting that result. One of these is the ability to conjecture, or ask, "what if...". From my 27 years in emergency services (fire dept and EMT), the one skill that I'm convinced is paramount is the ability to visualize positive results to a situation. In other words, to visualize how you will handle the situation and get out of it rather than "worst case", doomsday scenarios and their potentially disastrous results. Threads like this one encourage that type of thinking, I believe, by asking divers to pause and contemplate how to utilize the skills they already know in resolving a situation or, at worst, reminding them of skills they have not practiced in a long time.

To me, that is far more important than elaborating on "shortcomings" in training or agencies. Those who do that want to make a point...that current training systems are inferior to what they once were or that one agency is better or worse than another. Okay, we get it...no need to berate the point. Now let's move on and do something constructive with our posts and our discussions.

 

[Dr Wu]

this is so ridiculous. the guy asked a simple question. .

The "simple question" was "please provide me a comprehensive list of every single thing that could go wrong on a dive and the proper procedure for addressing those issues"

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

The "simple question" was "please provide me a comprehensive list of every single thing that could go wrong on a dive and the proper procedure for addressing those issues"

... and what's wrong with that? If folks like you would quit trying to be so disruptive, might be some good useful conversation come out of that "simple" question.

So I have a simple question for you ... since you're not attempting to provide anything useful to the conversation, why are you still here?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[danvolker]

The "simple question" was "please provide me a comprehensive list of every single thing that could go wrong on a dive and the proper procedure for addressing those issues"

Which reminds me of the line in Jurassic Park about "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants"....
......"You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it."
- Dr. Ian Malcom, Jurassic Park



....the Wiki viersion: Dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants (Latin: nanos gigantium humeris insidentes) is a Western metaphor meaning "One who develops future intellectual pursuits by understanding the research and works created by notable thinkers of the past"....


Not that we are geniuses .....but if a guy with 0-24 dives thinks that he can enhance the safety and learning of other divers, with his compendium of diving knowledge, then this Jurassic Park quote seems appropriate

 

[TMHeimer]

The point is that this is Basic SCUBA and the OP was asking a question that he already had the answer to.

Q: "What do I do if xxx happens?"

At this level of training, the answer is:

A: "If something bad happens, safely end the dive as you were trained."

flots.

I disagree. After just doing the wreck course I asked a simple question on penetration and got the book thrown at me. "Why didn't you ask your Instructor, that's what they're there for?" Well, there was a lot to digest that day and I didn't think of it. Or "If you ask such a question after taking the course you are insane to even think of penetration". In this case the OP is a newbie, not claiming anything else. I didn't see it as a Basic OW question. I saw it as someone asking for a whole bunch of (quite possibly obscure) situations that may occur and the solutions people found. One may agree that these one in a million scenarios are things a new diver should not be concerned with at this point. But, as many point out, just about every imaginable scuba question has been asked and answered on SB. This one interested me because it was actually something new.

 

[flots am]

I disagree. After just doing the wreck course I asked a simple question on penetration and got the book thrown at me. "Why didn't you ask your Instructor, that's what they're there for?"

But this wasn't about wreck diving. The OP is brand-new with somewhere between 0 and 24 dives, which means that he's probably still trying to figure out his buoyancy control and worrying out slowing everybody else down while assembling his gear on the boat.

Assuming he had an OW class that actually taught all the required basic skills, he's already got everything he needs and adding alternate procedures and skills makes diving more risky by adding confusion and unnecessary decisions.

The free-flow thing is a great example.

It's entirely possible that a diver with a free-flow can turn his air off, share with a buddy, thaw out his first stage, then continue on with the dive.

It's also entirely possible that he'll lose buoyancy control, panic and bolt for the surface only to find that his power inflater doesn't work, and drown.

If he follows his OW training, he'll do a normal ascent with his buddy, establish positive buoyancy on the surface and end the dive.

For a new diver there is no advantage to having multiple options where the potential up-side is limited and the potential down-side is fatal in cases where there is a reliable, known-good method that's already been taught.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Another problem with shutting the air down (to give the reg a chance to thaw) is that this greatly increased demand on the donor regulator and would tend to increase the chance of freeflow on THAT reg too. Then we would have a terrible situation, neither diver could breath because of the distraction of all those bubbles.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Another problem with shutting the air down (to give the reg a chance to thaw) is that this greatly increased demand on the donor regulator and would tend to increase the chance of freeflow on THAT reg too. Then we would have a terrible situation, neither diver could breath because of the distraction of all those bubbles.

Freeflows are pretty common here, because of the cold water ... and I've personally experienced many. But I've never experienced or known anyone else to experience a freeflow that was caused by two people breathing off the same regulator.

Granted, I've read about it on the Internet ... but I'm skeptical about how much of a potential issue it is in real-world diving ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)