Where was the instructor?

[dumpsterDiver]

....What do you do when you are negatively buoyant while at depth? Hit the power inflator. But by doing so, you are using air that you will not be able to breathe and are thus wasting air. If you orally add air to the BCD you are using air that has already been through your lungs. That is the point of fin pivot/oral inflation drill, to economically establish neutral buoyancy.

I agree that oral inflation is an important skill. It may be needed during a dive and it also teaches confidence. However. the statement about conserving air by exhaling into the BC makes no sense. Do you teach students to do this when diving for fun?

First of all the amount of air used to fill a recreational BC to establish neutral bouyancy in negligible.
When doing the skill the diver should keep the second stage in one hand and the inflator in the other. How is the diver supposed to hold the camera, the light, the speargun, the pole spear, the scooter, the reel, the anchor line or anything else while trying to do this manuever? Even if the diver has to only re-configure their grip on these items, manually inflating the BC is a waste of time and effort. I thought you are to train people to have fun, taking the reg out of the mouth and manually inflating the BC during a dive is, at the very least, distracting and could lessen the recreational divers enjoyment and awarness of the dive environment. It is also potentially stressful which will cause the diver's metabolic demand to increase which I suspect would more than compensate for the "farts-worth" of air "wasted" by using the power inflator.

Really, do you teach your students that manual inflation while underwater is a viable means to conserve air?

.

 

[String]

Working out the maths to FULLY inflate my wing uses 0.8% of air in my full cylinder. Thats an absolutely insignificant amount and in reality on a dive even with repeated filling and emptying you never even approach the amount of gas needed to fully inflate the thing.

Or to put another way even a full inflate takes 1.7 bar out of a 232bar 12l tank. Putting it a different way again, over 125 full inflates out of a tank.

Oral inflation is NOT a worthwhile method of saving gas. The difference is so small as to be insignificant.

Edit:- rounded figures.....Badly

 

[Gregz]

You know, I didn't think it was worthwhile either, but wasn't sure - String, thanks!
Greg

 

[santacruz]

I just learned of this accident while looking for info on a recent accident at the Breakwater. The first article I saw was on CDNN, with the headline: "Diver Dan's student lucky to be alive after near-fatal PADI open water scuba accident."

When I read the headline, I knew I was in for a one-sided story. Obviously the writer has a bias against PADI and Diver Dan's. A true reporter would know that those two terms don't really belong in a headline.

Almost every post in this thread includes the phrase "I want to know..." or "why wasn't the instructor..."

We only have one side of the story, and that's the victim's. Niether the instructor nor Diver Dan's has released any information on the incident. Don't take that against them. In the event of any accident, instructors are advised to keep their mouths shut and speak only to their agency's attorney regarding circumstances that lead to injury or death. The only exception is of course sharing injury info with the EMT. Given the two articles I've seen, they are wise to keep silent, as the victim's quotes clearly hold the instructor responsible for her injury.

While it's unfortunate that this accident occured, the fact that she survived is fortunate. Given the fact that the instructor cannot speak publicly on the accident, it benefits no one to speculate on why the accident occured.

What we DO know is that a student lost consciousness underwater, and her instructor and DM successfully rescued her in time to be revived. That should be the focus of the discussion. We might actually learn something beneficial to us. Kudos to the instructor on a successful rescue.







The CDNN article is one-sided and biased.

 

[TeddyDiver]

Oral inflation is NOT a worthwhile method of saving gas. The difference is so small as to be insignificant.

Just a though, BC inflator malfunction forces you to disconnect BC hose.. what to do ..

 

[espenskogen]

Nice editing job. My point is that the fin pivot is a standard PADI skill but hovering isn't. You claim its a gateway skill, I'm telling you whatever its supposed to be a gateway to isn't a standard PADI skill. Students have to do a fin pivot at the bottom of the pool and on the platform in one of the OW dives. But there is no standard that takes this "skill" to have descent trim or demonstrate neutral buoyancy or anything else. Again, argue all you want but its not in the standards.

Afraid Hovering is a standard padi skill too. Believe it's required for CW dive 3 or 4..

 

[String]

Just a though, BC inflator malfunction forces you to disconnect BC hose.. what to do ..

Depends on the diver, type of dive, comfort level etc.

I have been known before now to disconnect a BC inflator due to a leaking hose and just complete the dive manually inflating the jacket. Others may choose to abort.

A leaking inflator isnt going to sap your air - after 10 seconds, the BC is full and the diver is setting a new vertical speed record. Way way before it saps enough air to be an issue.

 

[oly5050user]

Afraid Hovering is a standard padi skill too. Believe it's required for CW dive 3 or 4..

required both during confined water and during ow training dives

 

[Willie]

The first article I saw was on CDNN ... When I read the headline, I knew I was in for a one-sided story. Obviously the writer has a bias against PADI and Diver Dan's. ... The CDNN article is one-sided and biased.

I read CDNN regularly, but it didnt take long for me to notice that many of their articles are editorializing instead of reporting. I protested using a contact form because of an article they posted with sensational headline about how bad Cozumel was after Wilma. The article did not even mention Cozumel, it was about Cancun. But the headline didnt even mention Cancun.

Not long ago, they did the same thing. Sensational headline about how the Cozumel reefs would take 100 years to recover. The article didnt even mention Cozumel or its reefs.

It chaps me that they purport to be a news site and it is next to impossible to find a way to send feedback or to verify their sources. I tried for 6 hours one day to locate the source they were quoting and never found it. I did find an AP article that was used in many other news outlets with an entirely different flavor than the CDNN article.

End of rant.

Willie

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

It was obvious that this student is typical of what goes on every day in our lives. You just won't meet anyone that accepts responsibility for their own actions and of course a quick phone call to the local media helps future court cases.