Why should I support my LDS?

[captain]

Is a snorkle life support, you can't breathe with your face in the water without it.

 

[Lead_carrier]

No amount of gear will make up for a lack of adequate training and skill development.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

And no amount of training will make up for human nature when an actual event happens. I've seen EMT's, firemen, and divers do skills and scenerios flawlessly. But when faced an actual emergency totally freak out. I will give you that good training SHOULD help overcome the panic mode but anyone one of these professions know that during training. They have someone watching over their shoulder like a hawk, so they are practicing an emergency, not living it.

 

[Lead_carrier]

Quote:
Originally Posted by NWGratefulDiver
Someone referred to a BCD as "life support" ... and then somehow the BCD morphed into a regulator that was being used by astronauts.

The same someone referred to that magical BCD as "defective" ... which turned out to mean that it was being advertised as "manufactured" by someone other than the company who contracted with the company who manufactured it. What he really meant was that it was "counterfeit" ... which doesn't necessarily make it "defective". But those who were by then arguing about whether or not the astronaut's regulator was "life support" didn't recognize that putting someone else's name on a BCD doesn't somehow make your regulator fail.

I hope that clarifies things for you ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob

You may want to update this post soon before we get to Spare Airs and it really gets out of hand.

Don't forget Air2's and split fins

 

[TechBlue]

and....Amphibian Dynamic Flip Folding Scuba Fins Scuba Diving Flippers

 

[Deep South Divers]

Don't forget Air2's and split fins

Yeah, exactly...

ALL scuba gear is "life support." If you think that split fins, Air2s and snorkels are a joke when defined as "life support," then welcome to my thought process. I think they're a joke, too.

But hey, that's just my opinion - yours may be different, your mileage may vary, and all of that other disclaimer garbage.

 

[TechBlue]

Seeing as it seems we can disuss anything and everything in this thread I borrowed this from another forum.

Quote:
Decompression was a concern, especially for the principals like Cameron and Giddings who were spending the most time under water. Their daily, long immersions [10 hours plus] at relatively shallow depths were unusual and not something covered by standard Navy dive tables. Dr. Peter Bennett, an expert on the physiology of diving, visited the set to advise the filmmakers on how much their bodies could take. At the end of the day, Cameron and Giddings often had to hang at 10 feet under the surface for an hour to adjust to the pressure difference. Never one to waste time, Cameron asked the crew to install a monitor in the control room so he could watch his dailies through the acrylic window while suspended on a line. When his neck was sore from his helmet, he hung upside down and had the crew invert the monitor. He asked Orloff to patch phone calls from the studio through to his helmet so he could to talk to Fox executives while he decompressed.


Cameron could go for about an hour and 15 minutes on a single fill of oxygen. Because he tended to get absorbed in his work, he asked his assistant director to warn him when it had been an hour since his last fill. A few weeks into the production, Cameron was talking Mastrantonio through a shot; the actress was about 20 feet away. Giddings [his director of photography], about 30 feet away, was lining up the shot, with his back to Cameron. All the other divers were at the surface or rigging lights off in the distance. As Cameron spoke to Mastrantonio, he took a breath, and got no air. Perplexed, he looked down at his pressure gauge, which read zero. The AD had forgotten to give Cameron the requested one-hour warning.

The director’s helmet was attached to his buoyancy vest. He knew if he removed it, it would lose its bubble of air and become a 40-lb. anchor—between the helmet and the waist and ankle weights he was wearing, Cameron would be 80 lbs. negative. With the extra weight and no fins, there was no way he could swim to the surface. Hmm. This didn’t look good.

But he still had the microphone in his helmet linked to the underwater PA system. And Giddings was down there with him. So Cameron called to him, “Al… Al… I’m in trouble.” The running joke on the set had been that all the other divers had to cover their ears all day long while Cameron yelled, “Al! Al! Pan left!,” because the DP had ruptured two eardrums in a diving bell accident 20 years earlier, and was all but deaf from the scar tissue. Funny, but not this time. Unable to rouse Giddings, Cameron looked around for the support divers. “Guys, I’m in trouble,” he said, using up the rest of the air in his lungs. He made the sign for being out of air, a cutthroat motion across the neck, and a fist to the chest. Nothing. At the bottom of a 7 million gallon tank, in the dark, 35 feet from the surface, Cameron really was in trouble. He knew he had to ditch his rig or die.

Up in the control room, Orloff had noticed the director wasn’t sounding like himself. Suddenly the sound mixer heard Cameron’s helmet being popped off and all the expensive electronics inside it flooding. Back in the tank, with his heavy helmet now off and fastened to his buoyancy vest by a braided steel hose, Cameron couldn’t see anything but a blur. By feel, he located the release of his buoyancy vest and shrugged out of it, dropping the helmet to the floor of A Tank. Then he began what divers call a “blow and go,” a free ascent. If a diver fails to breathe out during a free ascent, the compressed air in his lungs will expand as the pressure in the water around him decreases, and eventually his lungs will explode, a very painful way to die. Cameron was blowing out a stream of bubbles as he ascended, and kicking like crazy because of his ankle weights. Finally, a safety diver named George raced to the director’s aid. And that’s when things got bad.

Safety divers are trained to stop panicking divers from ascending, so they don’t blow their lungs. So George stopped Cameron about 15 feet from the surface, as he was schooled to do, and shoved his back-up regulator into Cameron’s mouth. And Cameron did what he was supposed to do, which is purge, then inhale. But the back-up regulator was broken, a useless piece of junk disguised as lifesaving equipment. So Cameron inhaled water. Thinking he had purged incorrectly, Cameron repeated the procedure, as George held him down, and got another blast of water in his lungs.

Now he was choking, about to black out, and he had a guy holding him from ascending. With no way of explaining that he wasn’t getting air, Cameron tried to pull away. Thinking the director was panicking, George held him even tighter, and tried to make him breathe on the regulator. “A classic cluster****,” recalls Cameron. It was then that Cameron’s rough SCUBA training in the Buffalo Y pool really came in handy—either that or having brothers. Because he punched George as hard as he could, right in the face. George let Cameron go and the director made it to the surface without blacking out. He swam weakly to the dive platform and dragged himself from the tank.

By the end of the day, he had fired George and his AD. And he ordered the divers at the surface to fish out his helmet and fix the microphone so he could get back down in A Tank.

__________________

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

And no amount of training will make up for human nature when an actual event happens. I've seen EMT's, firemen, and divers do skills and scenerios flawlessly. But when faced an actual emergency totally freak out. I will give you that good training SHOULD help overcome the panic mode but anyone one of these professions know that during training. They have someone watching over their shoulder like a hawk, so they are practicing an emergency, not living it.

Some people are prone to panic ... and those people just shouldn't be diving. Good training will help identify them, and a good instructor will counsel them about considering taking up a sport that's less lethal in the event of a panic attack. I have had one such student who did get that advice. I do not know if he continued with training ... I DO know he didn't continue it with me.

Other people can be conditioned NOT to panic with additional training ... and those people also need to be identified and worked with. What helps them not panic is familiarity and confidence ... which comes from practice and repetition. I have had several of those students in the past. They did not get their C-card the first time around ... they were counselled to come back and hook up with the next few pool sessions until they were more confident and comfortable with their skills. Only then were they allowed to go to OW and eventually get their C-card. Oddly ... not a single one of them objected ... I suspect because they understood the reasons for it and took their own safety as seriously as I did.

What causes panic the vast majority of the time isn't inexperience ... it's inadequate time to develop the skills and become comfortable and confident performing them. A class that requires a student to do a skill once, and then checks it off the list, might be adequate for some ... perhaps even for most. But it does not identify the people who are likely to panic in a real emergency and help them develop their skill set to the point where that doesn't happen.

Taking this back to the original topic ... this is what differentiates, to my concern, an LDS that's worth supporting from one that's not. The LDS that's worth supporting doesn't apply "cookie cutter" standards to their students. They recognize that every student is unique, and brings a personality to their diving ... and that some people simply need more time to practice their skills than others. An LDS that's worth supporting will be one that doesn't just "pass" a student because they went through the motions of the curriculum ... they will watch how a student performs, and pick up on cues that could lead a student to underperform when not under the supervision of their instructor. They will make extra pool time available when needed. They will organize and lead dives to help their newly certified divers gain the experience and comfort level to be able to dive on their own, and handle themselves appropriately in a real emergency.

I disagree that you can't tell ... most times you can. You just have to be willing to put the effort into trying.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Web Monkey]

By the end of the day, he had fired George and his AD. And he ordered the divers at the surface to fish out his helmet and fix the microphone so he could get back down in A Tank.

Great story, but in the end, it's all just bad planning and execution. Especially on something expensive as a movie shoot where an extra few thousand dollars wouldn't even be noticed, Cameron should have had a qualified safety diver with him at every moment.

Terry

 

[TechBlue]

Some people are prone to panic ... and those people just shouldn't be diving. Good training will help identify them, and a good instructor will counsel them about considering taking up a sport that's less lethal in the event of a panic attack. I have had one such student who did get that advice. I do not know if he continued with training ... I DO know he didn't continue it with me.

Other people can be conditioned NOT to panic with additional training ... and those people also need to be identified and worked with. What helps them not panic is familiarity and confidence ... which comes from practice and repetition. I have had several of those students in the past. They did not get their C-card the first time around ... they were counselled to come back and hook up with the next few pool sessions until they were more confident and comfortable with their skills. Only then were they allowed to go to OW and eventually get their C-card. Oddly ... not a single one of them objected ... I suspect because they understood the reasons for it and took their own safety as seriously as I did.

What causes panic the vast majority of the time isn't inexperience ... it's inadequate time to develop the skills and become comfortable and confident performing them. A class that requires a student to do a skill once, and then checks it off the list, might be adequate for some ... perhaps even for most. But it does not identify the people who are likely to panic in a real emergency and help them develop their skill set to the point where that doesn't happen.

Taking this back to the original topic ... this is what differentiates, to my concern, an LDS that's worth supporting from one that's not. The LDS that's worth supporting doesn't apply "cookie cutter" standards to their students. They recognize that every student is unique, and brings a personality to their diving ... and that some people simply need more time to practice their skills than others. An LDS that's worth supporting will be one that doesn't just "pass" a student because they went through the motions of the curriculum ... they will watch how a student performs, and pick up on cues that could lead a student to underperform when not under the supervision of their instructor. They will make extra pool time available when needed. They will organize and lead dives to help their newly certified divers gain the experience and comfort level to be able to dive on their own, and handle themselves appropriately in a real emergency.

I disagree that you can't tell ... most times you can. You just have to be willing to put the effort into trying.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

OK we are back on track, nice little segway.

All very well and I agree with everything you said but this is not a perfect world and to remain competitive dive shops have reduced training fees and pay their instructors like trained monkeys and let's face it PADI is huge marketing machine and that is what it is all about sales. OW is the first opportunity to set the hook and if they do not certify them they may be gone forever and unfortunately they are not going to let that happen.

What you are saying is the way it should be but diving sold out chasing the dollar and using the "average new diver only lasts three years and never dives again but it's constantly renewable" as a business model, people quite happily spend loads of money for golf coaches and skiing for instance but shop the **** out of dive stores for training and equipment.

 

[TechBlue]

Great story, but in the end, it's all just bad planning and execution. Especially on something expensive as a movie shoot where an extra few thousand dollars wouldn't even be noticed, Cameron should have had a qualified safety diver with him at every moment.

Terry

Can't argue with that, it was 20 years ago and despite the massive budget the whole shebang was poorly executed but again just an example of what happens when you least expect it.