Yesterday I feel I got lucky.

[openmindOW]

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!

Yes, but today's training is often inadequate. People are getting OW cards without having been properly trained. That is not the fault of the student; it's the fault of the profit-hungry Dive Instructor.

This whole story is very disturbing on multiple levels.

Yes.

 

[DandH]

I really careless about that. QUOTE]

It's amazing how much power the spacebar has in changing the context of a sentence.

 

[stargazer61]

The more I think about it, AOW immediately after OW is not very smart. The aim for those next few dives should be to increase confidence and get comfortable with the OW skills at 60ft. AOW doesn't really do that, except perhaps in the odd specialty like bouyancy.

Diving to 100 ft, night diving, underwater navigation, wreck diving, search and recovery. That was my AOW course and it wouldn't have been a great way to work on the OW skills (I did have some months and several dives in between). If you add into the mix somewhat lax instruction, you get divers that are certified to 100 ft who aren't really capable and who have no obvious course to do for further training other than redo one OW or AOW or seek some private mentoring.

I think it would be best if the OP can find an instructor to do some private training to nail down those OW skills.

I also think there should be a minimum number of logged dives between OW and AOW. Even just a few dives following the DM around the dive site at 60 ft would help build confidence, bouyancy control etc.

 

[Ayisha]

The more I think about it, AOW immediately after OW is not very smart. The aim for those next few dives should be to increase confidence and get comfortable with the OW skills at 60ft. AOW doesn't really do that, except perhaps in the odd specialty like bouyancy.

bold added

This is an example of the systemic failure throughout some training agencies. Buoyancy should not be considered a specialty reserved for the Advanced course. It is a basic skill!

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Buoyancy and trim are the very first skills I introduce students to on scuba. Following the skin diving/ snorkeling work. Where they learn mask remove, and not only replace, but recover and replace while exhaling through the snorkel to make it breathable upon reaching the surface. First skill while wearing scuba gear on the surface before we descend for the first time is proper weighting. AOW immediately after OW with the BS rationalization that it is 5 or 6 more dives with an instructor is pretty much a joke. If you want to give your students more time with you just do it. Have them come out and just dive. For free (other than gear rental of course if they do not have their own)! Offer tips and suggestions and make them actually want to come back for training. Making it so they HAVE to come back for more is, to me, unethical and just plain greedy. The OP probably should not have been out of the pool yet. Scratch that! No "probably" about it.

 

[Togalive]

I'm just curious, but is it possible that the inhalation of water into his lungs could have diminished the damage done to them, as opposed to holding his breath all the way to the surface. Just thinking about the expansion of the air in his lungs, versus the water being in them which wouldnt expand at all really, so this may be a case where a lung full of water saved your life.

Any thoughts?

 

[stargazer61]

More likely he didn't have a lung completely full of air anyway when he started the ascent, so there would have been some room for expansion on the way up. Also taking a small breath of water on the way up might allow some excess air to escape as well.

In theory, you can still over pressurize with a lung partly full of fluid, similar to how they pressure test tanks.

 

[Rick Murchison]

... But if there is a professional in the water with you, one of his responsibilities is to make sure you keep track of your gas,

Absolutely untrue. You can't do it! For certified divers it is the *diver's" responsibility to keep track of their own gas supply. As an instructor I do keep track of my divers' gas supplies, but the *responsibility* rests with the diver. As a practical matter I get an air check after drills & before the "tour" part of any training dive, regardless of the training level - and I hope that the instructor in this case did that, or, if he didn't, has learned that he needs to be doing that in the future - but even given a good check there are many ways a diver can lose or use enough gas to require independent action... for example, in this case, was the OP an air hog, or did an undetected octopus freeflow exhaust his air supply unexpectedly? If so, there is no way an instructor is going to be able to see that under the conditions described.
And I will add this: just when you think you've seen the biggest air-hog in existence and base your air-check pattern on that, you'll run into someone whose consumption rate is double the worst you've ever seen before and it will absolutely astonish you
Bottom line: Because no one else can do it at all times, as a certified diver, keeping track of your own air supply is *your* responsibility and no one else's. Good buddies and dive leaders do keep track of your air supply too, to the extent possible and reasonable, but the responsibility rests with you... it is not shared.
As for the instructor's responsibility w/r/t monitoring gas supply: It is the instructor's responsibility to tell you to monitor your gas supply (why, how, when, where), but he cannot "make sure" you do it. He can make sure you appear to be doing it (the OP looked at his console and depth, eh?) but the instructor cannot "make sure you keep track of your gas" - and because he cannot do it, it cannot be one of his responsibilities. It is the instructor's responsibility, if you fail gas management, to deny you the C-Card you'd otherwise get.
Bear in mind, however, that barring actually checking a student's air supply against what the student says his air supply is, it is quite possible for students to make it through the typical AOW course without ever actually reading their SPG. They can "go through the motions" and appear to be doing it, but that's no assurance they actually are! I check what's actually on the gauge against what the student says is there... as an instructor you'd be surprised at how often they don't match.
Rick

 

[Crush]

I'm just curious, but is it possible that the inhalation of water into his lungs could have diminished the damage done to them, as opposed to holding his breath all the way to the surface. Just thinking about the expansion of the air in his lungs, versus the water being in them which wouldnt expand at all really, so this may be a case where a lung full of water saved your life.

Any thoughts?

I strongly suspect that any "beneficial effect" would be greatly outweighed by the water washing away pulmonary surfactant, leading to great problems with breathing.

 

[SailorC27]

Be wary of the Cozumel operators. Most of the diving is drift diving. They may take you to depths that you are not well trained for: I.E. 90+ feet.