1 BCD 2 divers: Is it okay?
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... unless, of course, he manages to get a little water in his mask, has a reaction not uncommon to new divers when water gets into their nostrils that makes them feel like they're breathing water, and tries to bolt on you ... holding his breath, because that's what instinct tells us all to do in that situation. Then you have two choices ... let him go or hold him down. If you let him go, he may suffer an overexpansion injury that could easily kill him. If you hold him down, he may go into full-blown panic mode, which could easily result in serious injury to both of you.
Which would you choose?
This is not a theoretical scenario ... it's one that dive instructors have to learn how to deal with. It's one that's happened to me before.
Are you prepared to deal with it?
Taking stuff like this lightly is how people end up being the topic of an Incidents and Accidents thread.
No ... you DON'T know the risks. You're kidding yourself thinking that you do. If you did, you wouldn't even be contemplating it ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
I saw a sign recently that said:
"Parents, let your kids move out of the house, get a job and support themselves, while they still know everything!"
Sort of fits this attitude. I have read that one of the reasons that is being blamed for the relatively disproportionate rate of early deaths in young males, is a seemingly hormonal based complete lack of ability to accurately see and weigh possible consequences of risky behaviors, combined with a feeling of invincibility, in young males. Been there, done that, and have the scars to prove it.
Sadly, I do not think any warnings, even by well respected and highly experience Instructors, are going to make an impression on our friend, and hope that in the end we do not have to read of two deaths from a stunt like this.
I understand your point, Bob, but there are literally thousands of instructors who take the same risks every day. Knowing the risks isn't why people don't take the risk, it's why people choose carefully. As always, I think the advice is sound, but I also believe it is based in an egotistical position that it's somehow impossible to do a valid risk assessment as a newbie, which I completely disagree with for several reasons.
I'm not attacking anyone who thinks this is a foolish choice as I tend to agree. But make no mistake, it's not that difficult to read an OW manual and recognize what the risks are to you or another newb you take under water. It's also ridiculously easy to research possible scenarios for risk assessment (like the one you just provided) here and any number of other places. You CAN know the risks even if you haven't actually experienced them.
Knowing the risks isn't the issue I have with this, it's knowing how you are going to deal with them, which is what we as newbies really can't know (no matter how much we THINK we'll do it well). In your scenario, for example, you even provide the options how to deal with it and that provides me ways to consider the scenario that I could then make the decision to do it anyway. Not in spite of your post but because of it.
I know I've dealt with MY OWN issues under water fairly well so far. If I took a friend to 30 feet breathing off my octo, though, I really don't know how I'd deal with various scenarios, even though I know the risk. There's a big difference in those two things and I tend to believe that most of the folks providing advice like yours stress the wrong issue in these discussions.
AaronRiot
Contributor
If I may, I think it has nothing to do with professional vs non-professional. I'm not an experienced diver and when my ex asked to try the gear in the pool with the leftover air I found it pretty easy to say "babe, I like ya breathin', let's get you some lessons and keep it that way".
I think this has much more to do with illusions of grandure, among other things.
My fav quote has officially found another home :
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." Douglas Adams
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Well, first off ... dealing with the risks is a big part of instructor training. I nearly failed my instructor evaluation because one of the evaluators didn't think I was positioned correctly to be in proper control of my students. I had to demonstrate to her satisfaction that I understood where I was supposed to be before she'd pass me. And that was as a diver with over 900 dives and nearly a year and a half experience as a divemaster. In this case, I knew exactly what she wanted, but knowing and doing are entirely different things. This is a concept that's difficult to convey to someone who hasn't experienced it, but almost intuitive once you have.
Second point ... an OW manual barely scratches the surface of risk assessment. You'll get way more out of a properly taught Rescue class, but even then it's a controlled environment and bears little resemblance to a real-world situation ... particularly if that incident involves a panicked diver. I'd been teaching for nearly two years before I was confronted with a real panic situation ... and had by then taught several Rescue courses ... and still found myself challenged to deal with it in a way that didn't endanger both me and the panicked diver. There's no way I think someone who hasn't been trained to handle it ... and who has very strong fundamental skills ... can manage that sort of situation without serious risk to themselves, not to mention the person they're attempting to help. The reality is you don't have time to think ... events are cascading on you much faster than you can consciously assess them and choose a course of action ... you just have to react and hope that your instinctive choices are good ones. Only experience can provide the tools you need for that job ... reading an OW manual gives you the information, but not the skills, to deal with it. In the real world, a diving accident is seldom the result of a singular problem ... it's the result of a cascading series of events that begins with one bad decision. OW class isn't intended or designed to teach you how to deal with multiple issues at once. It's designed to teach you fundamental skills ... in serial fashion so that you only have to concentrate on one problem at a time. Depending on the agency, it may or may not teach you basic rescue skills at all. And if it does, it's in a very controlled environment. OW doesn't train you to manage a rescue situation ... it's not intended to ... it only teaches you enough to help you keep yourself out of trouble ... maybe. Many OW classes avoid risk management altogether ... out of some misguided fear of "scaring" the student.
Knowing the risks involves understanding them ... and in this case, understanding the potential consequences of such an action should be enough to forego any serious contemplation of the action. Risk management is more about keeping you and your dive buddy out of a bad situation than it is about dealing with one once it occurs. Making a conscious decision to do something dumb implies that, in fact, you don't understand the risks at all ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
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For my instructor training we spent hours in the pool having other IDC students "simulate" problems, ranging from full blown panic to minor irritations. I worked as a certified assistant with other instructors for a year before I taught my first class "solo." During that time I learned that any student, at any time, can do the most incredibly stupid things underwater. And yet, after all that training, when I taught my first class by myself I was surprised by a student who worked very hard to kill themselves. They didn't succeed, thankfully. And the reason they didn't has everything to do with the excellent preparation I had up to that point. But the point is they tried.
And the student wasn't some knuckle dragger either. He was a young guy in great shape, a former swim team member and an architect. In other words, this was a smart guy who had all the physical abilities and mental acuity to make this stuff "easy."
My questions -- if you want to do this answer the following questions:
1) are you rescue certified and have you practiced your rescue skills regularly?
If not, then when something goes wrong, how do you plan to respond appropriately? Oh, and it's not "if," it's when. You might get by doing this once without an incident. Maybe even 10 times. But if you do it enough times you will have an incident. So what do you do when it happens?
2) do you have an emergency O2 kit and do you know how to use it properly?
3) Have you practiced managing a near-panic situation underwater? Do you have any idea what's involved and how to keep yourself and your student safe?
And lastly and perhaps most importantly for someone so foolish:
Are you aware of your local criminal and civil laws? Given that you're initial training clearly informed you that you aren't qualified to do something this stupid, after you've killed your friend, it is entirely possible that you'll be charged with manslaughter. It's a given that you'll lose the civil trial and be impoverished by your actions, but you should know how much time you'll spend behind bars for reckless indifference as well.
Because, while there are no scuba police, there are real police. And at least in my state it is a crime if you knowingly endanger someone else, have every reason to believe that your actions have the potential to injure them, and that action results in their injury or death.
And the student wasn't some knuckle dragger either. He was a young guy in great shape, a former swim team member and an architect. In other words, this was a smart guy who had all the physical abilities and mental acuity to make this stuff "easy."
My questions -- if you want to do this answer the following questions:
1) are you rescue certified and have you practiced your rescue skills regularly?
If not, then when something goes wrong, how do you plan to respond appropriately? Oh, and it's not "if," it's when. You might get by doing this once without an incident. Maybe even 10 times. But if you do it enough times you will have an incident. So what do you do when it happens?
2) do you have an emergency O2 kit and do you know how to use it properly?
3) Have you practiced managing a near-panic situation underwater? Do you have any idea what's involved and how to keep yourself and your student safe?
And lastly and perhaps most importantly for someone so foolish:
Are you aware of your local criminal and civil laws? Given that you're initial training clearly informed you that you aren't qualified to do something this stupid, after you've killed your friend, it is entirely possible that you'll be charged with manslaughter. It's a given that you'll lose the civil trial and be impoverished by your actions, but you should know how much time you'll spend behind bars for reckless indifference as well.
Because, while there are no scuba police, there are real police. And at least in my state it is a crime if you knowingly endanger someone else, have every reason to believe that your actions have the potential to injure them, and that action results in their injury or death.
That last sentence is where we part ways, I think. Perhaps that's the issue in the different ways we see things that propagates to the whole scenario. I think it's completely possible to understand all the risks and still make the choice to do something foolish because you think it will be worth it (for whatever reason) in the end.
I wasn't trying to imply that OW teaches risk assessment because mine certainly didn't. What I meant was that OW teaches us what can happen... lost mask, water up your nose, OOA, freeflow, etc. Those are the "emergencies" that can happen and what you're at risk for encountering. I don't believe OW teaches you very much about how to deal with those, but as you said, it does teach the basics. They aren't difficult to understand. As I said, there isn't really that much variation to what you're going to encounter on an OW trust me dive at 30 feet that isn't covered in an OW manual. Your assertion that understanding the risks should be enough to forego them goes back to my first point. Different people treat risk differently.
The issue I see with OW versus rescue versus instructor training is OW focuses on what to do when YOU have an issue and rescue/instructor courses teach you what to do when SOMEONE ELSE has an emergency. I think that's where we newbies, who are confident (perhaps overly so) in dealing with our own issues mistake our abilities as translating well to dealing with other people's issues when that may or may not be the case.
I stand by my statement, though, that putting the focus on "you don't know the risks" rather than "you don't know how you'll handle the risks WHEN you encounter them" is the wrong way to discourage us overly-confident know-it-all newbs.
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Every new diver goes through a stage where they think they know way more than they do. I did, and every seasoned diver I've ever met did as well.
Eventually something will happen that brings us back to reality.
But there is a qualitative difference for ignoring the risks as they apply to one's self, and ignoring the risks as they apply to others. This is all the more true when the "other" in question is not a certified diver, has no formal training, and is in absolutely no position to adjudicate the risks for themselves. In such cases indifference to the risks in question is a sign of a failure to understand them.
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