WOW big changes to PADI DM for July 2011

[evart]

John wrote
OK, totally off topic, but one time I was defending a client (can't remember the crime, some felony, probably drug) against a very bad prosecutor. It was horrible. At the end of the case, after the jury came back (hung), the judge apologized to the jury for the incompetence of the prosecutor.

So, what is that prosecutor doing today? He's a judge.

Yep. I have seen things of this sort numerous times.

"An individual will be promoted to their own level of incompetence!!"

 

[Divemastersintraining]

Hi everyone, just a quick note to see how everyone is finding the new update. We've had great success with most of our new programs and are now looking to fine tune it all so it flows as wel as our old setup. In another week or two we should have it all under wraps! Looking forward to hearing any new suggestions or ideas anyone might have!

 

[String]

We're still teaching the old system for as long as possible. The new one restricts students experience with actual divers and creates some logistical problems finding free staff for all the simulated stuff when it gets busy.

Suspect the switch will be at the last possible day and then the price will have to go up due to the increased resources it takes. In addition the timescale will be longer due to it taking teaching staff out of the "real" courses to do simulations.

 

[String]

The instructor got off by insisting... lying... in fact, in a court of law (I was there and I heard it all), despite all standards and best practices to the contrary that he had no legal obligation to ensure that his students made it back to the surface alive. It was an AOW course and he argued that as certified divers they should have known better.

I don't completely reject that argument. In my view once you become a qualified diver (ie OW or higher) then only you are ultimately responsible for your own safety. The responsibility to check air and surface if needed is down to you.
The entry level qualification says you're safe to dive. If you sign that bit of paper agreeing the OW standards were met then you agree to take on that responsibility.

Doesn't excuse anything this particular instructor or DM did as it looks like a complete mess but i don't agree that already qualified divers should rely completely on someone else to stop them breathing all their air down!

 

[Diver0001]

I don't completely reject that argument. In my view once you become a qualified diver (ie OW or higher) then only you are ultimately responsible for your own safety. The responsibility to check air and surface if needed is down to you.
The entry level qualification says you're safe to dive. If you sign that bit of paper agreeing the OW standards were met then you agree to take on that responsibility.

Doesn't excuse anything this particular instructor or DM did as it looks like a complete mess but i don't agree that already qualified divers should rely completely on someone else to stop them breathing all their air down!

Dude, I think you're a good instructor with his brain engaged ... so am I.

Would you accept a student swimming away from one of your groups because they decided to? ... regardless of *why* they decided to?

Would you accept a group splitting itself up of it's own initiative in the middle of a training dive? Would you accept that when you knew it was happening because some of the divers were low-on-air and making emergency ascents? Would you accept not knowing where some of your students were.... especially when you knew that some of them were low on air?

Niether would I.

What I told the public prosecutor is that students under my charge, whether certified or not, are *my* responsibility from the moment their flippers hit the water to the moment they are completely out of the water.

That *IS* the responsibity I feel. To me a training dives lasts from the moment I tell them to enter the water to the time they are out of the water......

The instructor in the case I'm describing said in a court of law that a training dive (he even said that this is how PADI defines it and got away with that because PADI did not bother to send an expert witness and the court accepted his statement at face value) ... that a training dive lasts from the deepest point in the dive and ends when all "excercises" are complete.....what he said is that what a student does before or after the point that they are operating outside of their previous training parameters is not part of a training dive and therefore, since the student in question had his accident at 18m (which is within OW parameters) he was neither required to be there, nor required to respond, nor responsible for the fact that his student drowned during his training dive.

And he got away with that.

What really happened, of course, is that this "instructor" (and I use the term losely to describe a so-called dive PRO who lacks all ability to perform his function adequately and is a danger to everyone who takes lessons from him) f*kd up his dive to the 9th degree and left several of his students twisting in the wind and at least 2 or 3 of them OOA and fighting for their lives..... and all of this with no apparent notion whatsoever that this happened because of his incompetence or with any idea at all that he was even in the least responsible for the series of events that resulted in a very serious accident and very nearly cost more people their lives.

The worst thing about this to me is that PADI (a) did nothing (b) seem to implicitly condone his actions by being completely passive and withdrawn during the law-suit and (c) continues to allow him to give lessons despite multiple clear standards violations and his severe -- DANGEROUS -- and demonstrable incompetence.

To me, as a PADI instructor, I would have expected --and appreciated-- at the very least a strong response to the series of severe standards violations and the lies he told during the court case. The fact that PADI did not do that--did NOTHING--convinces me... much to my *severe* disappointment... that they are not interested in weeding out the severely incompetent instructors, even if their incompetence has been demonstrated in a court of law in a case where they have been charged and convicted with attempted manslaughter and given a court sanctioned penalty.

It has, however, made me feel much more comfortable about anything *I* happen to do with the goal of training divers better..... F@k 30 seconds of hovering.... I'll have students perfect their buoyancy control to *my* expectations from now on. If you can nearly drown a student and leave them behind in 18 metres of water for dead when they run out of air without consequences then I'm sure that actually teaching them to dive with skill and competence isn't going to raise any official eyebrows.

R..

 

[RU4SKUBA]

"The fact that PADI did not do that--did NOTHING--convinces me... much to my *severe* disappointment... that they are not interested in weeding out the severely incompetent instructors"

I suspect its because PADI has an obligation to support and defend the instructors, even when difficult or inconvenient. Who would want to become an instructor for an agency who roll over on their instructors when they make a mistake?

 

[String]

What I told the public prosecutor is that students under my charge, whether certified or not, are *my* responsibility from the moment their flippers hit the water to the moment they are completely out of the water.

That's the bit i take issue with. In my view unless its an entry level qualification then we're dealing with qualified divers. Ultimately a qualified diver is trained and has agreed that they meet the level required not to do anything stupid themselves. They're trained to evaluate self risk and how to avoid it.
If they're incapable of that in my view they don't meet the criteria of a qualified diver.
Obviously entry level is different as they dont know the basics but once they are trained to that level they do. Or are supposed to.

You're trained at open water level how to check your gas, when to check it, when to get out and when and how to execute a safe ascent. In my view from there on its the divers responsibility ultimately for their own safety - they have the training and knowledge and there is no excuse for switching the brain off and choosing to blindly rely on someone else.

As i said, i disagree with pretty much everything else that the instructor and DM did there but i do not agree the instructor on an advanced course is the person ultimately responsible for a diver running out of gas.

 

[String]

"The fact that PADI did not do that--did NOTHING--convinces me... much to my *severe* disappointment... that they are not interested in weeding out the severely incompetent instructors"

I suspect its because PADI has an obligation to support and defend the instructors, even when difficult or inconvenient. Who would want to become an instructor for an agency who roll over on their instructors when they make a mistake?

Actually its more in PADIs interest to support and defend its standards and the implementation of those.

Why would they be interested in defending someone who has breached their own standards and therefore the membership agreement they entered into with that instructor?

We're not talking about "a mistake" here. There is a full blown QA procedure for people to make mistakes, get informed of them and have the mistakes fixed by re-mediation, signed agreements, possible retraining and so on.
This incident isnt a simple mistake - its a repeated and deliberate breach of several standards at once which resulted directly in a serious incident. In that situation i'd expect no defence from the agency AND for them to act in removing this member immediately. Id be very annoyed if the agency i pay a membership of failed to bother enforcing its own rules and safety standards.
Ultimately everyone in the same business has an interest in the courts and agencies enforcing standards - an incident the result of a useless instructor ignoring standards and hurting people is bad publicity, blackens the name of the agency, diving as a whole and harms future business. Nobody benefits from protecting someone clearly incompetent and dangerous.