Whose poor judgment?

[Cave Diver]

I think you did the right thing, especially by deciding to tag along at the back to keep an eye one the group.

There were some areas that might be improved on. One depends on how far into the dive you were when you noticed his air at 500 psi. It was unclear to me how far into the dive after meeting at the bottom the incident occured. If the tank was low to start with, your son may have been having difficulty due to the increased bouyancy of a partially empty tank. You didnt mention pre dive gear checks, so this is just a supposition on my part.

You mentioned that you grabbed your son and started an ascent and that he had no idea about his air situation until you returned to the resort. Personally, I would have indicated a low air situation and that it was time to surface. If the gauge had a calibration error and ended up being less than 500psi and if your son was feeling stressed or breathing heavily, a low air could have turned into a no air situation. I'd think it would have been better for him to be aware of why the dive was over.

It seems as if the instructor used poor judgement and had a lack of awareness and your actions avoided a potentially bad situation.

I would also talk to the AI and ask what she thinks you did wrong. Perhaps your wife didnt convey the story accurately?

 

[Web Monkey]

The only thing I would have done differently is: start a little earlier and banged on my tank to get the instructor's attention and give him the international "You're number one" hand-sign before starting my ascent.

Having the DM or instructor run people out of air while being nowhere nearby is extremely common. There are a number of threads on almost exactly the same topic, including a recent one that ended in a fatality. The "short story" is that you can't trust your life to anybody underwater that you wouldn't trust your life to on the surface.

Terry

 

[Web Monkey]

The instructor proceeds to lead with everyone falling in behind him so I naturally took the last position so I can keep an eye on everyone. As we're going along everyone begins to space out with my son loosing ground.

For What it's Worth, it's the instructor's responsibility to go slow enough to stay with the divers he's responsible for. It's not up to you or your son to "keep up".

Terry

 

[stevejaz]

I think you did the right thing, especially by deciding to tag along at the back to keep an eye one the group.That wasn't my original intention, I had wanted to take pictures but the configuration of the conga line concerned me, especially as it started to space out. I thought maybe my staying at the rear gave the instructor an indication that I'd take care of the back of the line until I mentioned the air situation and he told me he knew, then I knew he was full of it

There were some areas that might be improved on. One depends on how far into the dive you were when you noticed his air at 500 psi. It was unclear to me how far into the dive after meeting at the bottom the incident occured. If the tank was low to start with, your son may have been having difficulty due to the increased bouyancy of a partially empty tank. You didnt mention pre dive gear checks, so this is just a supposition on my part.Total BT was 35 minutes and it took a couple minutes for him and my wife to descend due to equalization issues. I'm pretty sure he had 3K PSI to start with. The pre-dive checks were done by the staff, being a new diver myself I let them do their job as I was pre-occupied with making sure I was ready to dive, trying to be responsible for 3 other new divers would have definitely stressed me out at that point as this was my first dive that I didn't have an instructor checking my equipment

You mentioned that you grabbed your son and started an ascent and that he had no idea about his air situation until you returned to the resort. Personally, I would have indicated a low air situation and that it was time to surface. If the gauge had a calibration error and ended up being less than 500psi and if your son was feeling stressed or breathing heavily, a low air could have turned into a no air situation. I'd think it would have been better for him to be aware of why the dive was over.I think you're right, I just didn't want him to panic and felt that definitely would have stressed him further. Instead I grabbed his BC with both hands and motioned to him to ascend letting him control the ascent and directing him along the way. I felt this gave him something to concentrate on and that he was in control.Should we have had an OOA we were also in the best position to deal with that as well but honestly I wasn't giving that much thought at the time.

It seems as if the instructor used poor judgement and had a lack of awareness and your actions avoided a potentially bad situation.

I would also talk to the AI and ask what she thinks you did wrong. Perhaps your wife didnt convey the story accurately?I asked my wife last night and she told her I should have swam up to the instructor to notify him.....Uhhhhh, yeah right, leave someone behind that had 500PSI....I don't think so!

The only thing I would have done differently is: start a little earlier and banged on my tank to get the instructor's attention and give him the international "You're number one" hand-sign before starting my ascent.hahahahaha, they still had another dive...guess where I was on that dive I actually took more control of that dive and gathered everyone up. We goofed around doing head stands and the worm and such on a sand bar to lighten the mood and increase the confidence

Having the DM or instructor run people out of air while being nowhere nearby is extremely common. There are a number of threads on almost exactly the same topic, including a recent one that ended in a fatality. The "short story" is that you can't trust your life to anybody underwater that you wouldn't trust your life to on the surface.I can't understand that! This was our first bad experience but lesson learned!

Terry

Thanks you guys!

 

[Cave Diver]

Thanks you guys!

Thank you for adding the clarifications. You did a good job, especially as a new diver yourself.

 

[NvScubaSteve]

Steve,

I dont think I can bring much to the table on this other than to echo the opinion that you did the right thing. On a side note, with you, your wife, and what sounds like your whole family showing an interest in diving you may want to consider advancing your skills toward a rescue diver cert. Just a thought so you have skills in the tool bag to help assist and protect your family on dive trips. You never no when skills learned in rescue may be needed.

As for your idea about a noise maker, I use a similar noise maker as you describe with multiple ball bearings in it and the sound is very distinctive. My wife and I both carry them and we can always get each others attention with them. Take a look at ReefNet Inc. | H2YO Noisemaker these are the ones that we carry.

Dive safe

Steve

 

[openmindOW]

Based on what you wrote, it sounds like youdi the right thing. It sounds like your uncertified son was done to 500 psi in 35 feet of water and the "Supervising" Instructor was unaware of your son's psi and was not able to assist your son due to his distance from your son.

Earlier posts are correct that the Industry is producing piss-poor Instructors.

Where did these resort courses take place?

 

[stevejaz]

Steve,

I dont think I can bring much to the table on this other than to echo the opinion that you did the right thing. On a side note, with you, your wife, and what sounds like your whole family showing an interest in diving you may want to consider advancing your skills toward a rescue diver cert. Just a thought so you have skills in the tool bag to help assist and protect your family on dive trips. You never no when skills learned in rescue may be needed.

As for your idea about a noise maker, I use a similar noise maker as you describe with multiple ball bearings in it and the sound is very distinctive. My wife and I both carry them and we can always get each others attention with them. Take a look at ReefNet Inc. | H2YO Noisemaker these are the ones that we carry.

Dive safe

Steve

Thanks, I checked those out and that's very similar to what I was thinking. Probably better because they may freak out at the airport if I do them out of a small piece of pipe and have them in my luggage.:shocked2:

You're right about the RD cert! BTW and I was already on top of it I'll be starting on with Academy of Scuba after I return from vacation for a few specialty classes and Rescue Diver is one of them! No plans to instruct but I'd like my son to if he's interested. He's very patient and what better way to spend a couple years after college than to travel and teach scuba.

Based on what you wrote, it sounds like youdi the right thing. It sounds like your uncertified son was done to 500 psi in 35 feet of water and the "Supervising" Instructor was unaware of your son's psi and was not able to assist your son due to his distance from your son.

Earlier posts are correct that the Industry is producing piss-poor Instructors.

Where did these resort courses take place?

That's the thing, I don't think it's any particular shop. In my case we did those dives and I got my certified from the same place. My instructor....excellent and as I've found out with my wife certifying she held my buddy and I to higher standards than what was required and was a stickler for good fundamentals. Now the instructor in question is from the same shop....good shop/bad shop????? More likely too big of an operation. So I guess the moral is....buyer beware...I don't know what else to say.

 

[Diver0001]

One other point, you said he wouldn't hear a tank rap at that distance, is there an effective means for getting someone's attention from say 50'? I was going to get a small steel pipe and cap both ends with a ball bearing in it...good, bad??????

Two ways I can think of. A rattle like you mentioned works. You can buy these at most dive shops. There is also a device called a "dive alert" that you can click on to your inflator that makes a beeping sound using low pressure air. Both of these can be heard easily at long distance but are very irritating if over-used.

What I personally use is just a small flashlight. If I want to get the attention of someone at distance I wait until they look in my general direction and then point the light at them and wave it back and forth across their field of view. This works if someone isn't totally tuned out but requires good timing.

R..

 

[Schizlor]

I was going to get a small steel pipe and cap both ends with a ball bearing in it...good, bad??????

Just be careful how you cap the ends if you're gonna fly with something like this. To TSA that will look exactly like a pipe-bomb