Yesterday I feel I got lucky.

[yhike]

We took the classes over a weekend Saturday and Sunday this was class room and swimming pool. I took the ow classes and the advance AOW over this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I choose not to dive Sunday I did not feel well and was nervous. I just got talking with experience diver and told me I should report our experience with Padi. I am still on the fence about this.

Do I wish I had better instructor. sure but the responsibility still relies on me. Do I know I screwed up sure. I posted to get advice on what I did wrong. I will say I really thought I had a saftey net with being with a dive master. I learned that is not the case. I was no more safe having him then I would of being alone.

Also on AOW . I was not doing this to get a certificate I was doing this to get more dives so we knew what we were doing on our trip. I want to be safe. I have 3 year old that I want to come home too. I have nothing to prove nor does my wife.

 

[Bogie]

Wow! I am glad your safe. I would get checked out.

We learn from our mistakes. I would take the rescue class. It teaches self reliance and how not get into panic.

 

[Scuba Ken]

Did the doctor do a chest x-ray? Not related to diving but I had a partial collapse of a lung that went undiagnosed because the doctor did not do one initially.

 

[Divingguy]

Glad the doc thinks you are ok, but I am STILL confused.
Sounds to me like you did OW and then AOW on consecutive weekends or something like that, with absolutely NO non-training dives in between.
While I applaud your desire to get more training, I personally do NOT agree with having students go straight from OW to AOW with no dives in between.
Nevertheless, if you were a CERTIFIED diver on the dive in question, it was YOUR responsibility to monitor your air, and YOUR responsibility NOT to bolt on your buddy!
So did your buddy do the lost buddy drill and surface after one minute to look for you?
I just can not believe that there was not a WHOLE lot of discussion up at the surface, by your instructor, dive master, and/or dive buddy.
This whole story is very disturbing on multiple levels.

 

[alewar]

This makes me remember that thread about "Buzos de Baru". I hope it isn't the same operator once again!

 

[kaerius]

Glad you're alive. I'd go as far as saying you beat the odds on that one(you could've died from at least three different causes from that, lung overexpansion, DCS, or plain drowning).

It sounds very reasonable that didn't exhale during your complete paniced assent. AGE can happen in about 4-5 feet of assent, so you need to get checked. Don't hesitate. I'm sure you didn't vent your BCD on your emergency accent, so that might have put a lot of pressure on your chest too.

With full lungs, lung overexpansion injuries can occur with only 2 feet(well, the figure I remember is half a meter, or ~20 inches) of breath holding ascent. Mind you the OP probably had significantly less air than that in his lungs.

I'd also like to reiterate that the DM shouldn't have been alone with 6 students in low vis conditions. At minimum there should've been two professionals in the water on that dive, one in front, one behind/above. I'm not a fan of the whole instructor doesn't bother getting wet but lets the DM handle the dive thing personally, they should both have been in the water IMNSHO.

 

[Ayisha]

...I took the ow classes and the advance AOW over this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

...Sounds to me like you did OW and then AOW on consecutive weekends or something like that, with absolutely NO non-training dives in between...

I believe yhike is saying that he took both the O/W and AOW within one weekend.

He did the O/W class and pool one weekend and then had scheduled the open water dives for both the basic and advanced certs from last Friday to Sunday. He did not dive on Sunday due to a possible diving complication and anxiety. Is that correct, yhike?

BTW, informing the training agency of the issues occurring over the weekend should not concern you if you believe the training staff did nothing wrong. You are simply reporting events as they happened and it is up to the training agency to determine whether the standards were met. If you suspect the professionals did not fulfill their responsibilities and you don't discuss this with Quality Assurance, you are enabling something like this to potentially happen again, and the odds are not in a student's favour. You were extremely lucky.

You probably see this as entirely your doing right now. One day after doing a lot more research and listening, you will come to realize that it is a systemic failure in some quick courses right now that certify divers with a minimum amount of training dives and lack of proficiency and comfort in the water. If you had the time and experience to become comfortable and proficient, and had an exceptional instructor who ensured your mastery of all skills before leaving the pool and passing you in O/W and AOW, this incident would never have happened.

 

[stargazer61]

It does seem there is a flaw in the system when the OP is really just looking for a few supervised dives to build on the OW certification and is actually getting (in theory) some extra training in a variety of specialties that include the supposed ability to dive safely at 100 ft.

If this had happened on the deep dive the outcome would almost certainly have been fatal.

Whichever way you look at it, it seems AOW can include some fairly poor training levels. I had plenty of concerns on my AOW course.

 

[Fin59]

Glad you are ok. You don't say when you are going to Cozumel, or you may have, but I'm too lazy to go back and find it. Anyway, when you decide what dive op you want to use there, please think about hiring a private DM the first few days. The added cost will not be much.

 

[openmindOW]

Yhike, thank you again for your post. By posting here you are helping other divers to learn.

I just got talking with experience diver and told me I should report our experience with Padi.

Please report your experience. I suspect that there is a training problem with your Intructor. I suspect other Instructors reading this woudl agree with me on this.

Do I know I screwed up sure. I posted to get advice on what I did wrong.

You are to be commended for posting and for owning up. But you're not the only one with blame here. Your Advanced Instructor and your OW Instructor share blame.

I want to be safe. I have 3 year old that I want to come home too. I have nothing to prove nor does my wife.

Diving is supposed to be fun. And when you're well-trained it is.

Re-take OW or Advanced with a good Instructor.