Skytzo_Marc
Registered
This happened on Saturday and I posted this on myspace that very evening... several people recommended that I post it here as well.
I signed up for my AOW cert and we were supposed to do three dives on Saturday, two on Sunday. I'll start off with what I thought was happening and then explain what really happened.
That day I had to rent gear, and when I got to the rental place, there was no gear left. They had to scrape up stuff to rent me because I was in one of their classes... already a bad feeling about that. Anyways, before I leave I ask if the BCD has clips to secure my gauges and seconday reg... I was assured there was.
Prior to this my experience has been: OW cert in Bermuda in 1998. Refresher course in Florida 2005. So I've never dived in San Diego before. In fact, I've never dived in cold water or in water with visability less than 35 feet.
The instructor asked me if I was comfortable in the water. Given my experience in warm, tropical, clear water... I said yes.
Anyways, I get to the boat dock and I mention that I need to get weighted before diving. The diving instructor says: "As an OW certified diver, you should know how to do that." Umm... yes, I do... I was just letting you know that I'm using rental gear plus a thick wetsuit so I need to find out what my proper weighting is. He says ok.
So I get my stuff loaded onto the boat and set my gear up. Given the attitude of the instructor, I figured that I would just load up all 24 lbs of weight into the BCD. I also at this point notice that there are no clips to secure any of my extra stuff so I'm told by the instructor to simply put the stuff into my BCD pockets.
So the first dive was the Yukon. Our max depth was supposed to be 100 feet with a bottom time of 19 minutes. We would follow a line down to the wreck, no penetration (this was the first dive of an AOW class).
The instructor only covered the wreck diver material. I dont think we were tested the way we should have been. Instead of asking us the questions, the instructor would have us read the questions and then answer them himself. I will also say that he didn't cover the deep diver material here.
It's at this point that I meet my dive partner, U (who apparently hasn't dived for almost a year). The other two students are fresh out of open water and are a couple, I'll call them BF and GF. The instructor knows BF and GF but has had no experience diving with either U or myself.
Given my extremely limited experience diving... I was already uncomfortable. I'm going diving in gear that I've never used before, PLUS the fact that it was the last of the rental gear.
Anyways, I get into the water and as soon as I hit the water I feel uncomfortable. My mask fogs like mad (yes I used defogger and soft scrub) and I can't see crap in the water at all. Add in the cold temperature and I'm already pretty nervous.
Once all of the students are in the water we begin our descent (following a line down from a buoy). My dive partner signals several times that he has problems clearing his ear... so I wait for him, and he eventually signals ok... we continue the descent.
At 80 feet we let go of the chain and I swim towards my dive instructor who's flashing his light at us. Would have been nice if I had been reminded that the light down there was very low because I had my dive light with me... but we'll continue.
I can't see CRAP. I'm nearsighted as it is... which normally isn't a problem but given what happened here, I'm getting prescription lenses before I dive again. At this point I can't tell if my mask is fogged or if it's just the water vis. Anyways, all I see is yellow/green water and the outline of the rusty ship known as the Yukon.
I don't really remember much from them on but struggling to follow the group (might I add that neither I nor my dive partner were following procedure and sticking close to each other or checking our gauges something we should have done). Anyways, my fins keep hitting the wreck and that just makes me even more nervous. So now we've got anxiety factors like: I can't see well, bad depth perception, and it's cold as hell.
I check my gauge and see that I'm at 1000 psi. So I signal low on air. NOBODY responds. I try knocking on tank but it makes no sound. I almost decided to pull out my dive knife to knock on my tank but given my poor depth perception I decided I'd rather not do that. Yay, another anxiety factor. Guess who's breathing too quickly at a depth of 100 feet? Sounds like a great way to get nitro narc to me... and not the happy drunk kind, how about the anxious panicky kind?
I also try to defog my mask by flooding it (and looking up). The wonderful reg I rented doesn't breath well when I look up and it's so cold I can't tell if I'm exhaling through my nose or my mouth... all I see is bubbles.
At this point I'm going to explain what I thought happened, and then what really happened.
I honestly don't remember much after that other than being uncomfortable. Suddenly, there is a diver in front of me (who looks like the instructor) so I signal low on air. The diver offers me their secondary. I must have been out of my mind because I accept it. After taking a breath from it I realize: "I don't need this, I still have enough air to ascend" so I hand it back. That's when I swallow water.
YAY for panic. I grab back the secondary from the diver, breath, then locate my reg and put it back in my mouth. At this point I'm off my rocker. I signal up immediately.
The diver signals ok, lifts up their inflator hose and releases the air. We start sinking. I check my depth gauge and we're going from 85 feet back down to 100. I start screaming into my reg: "GO UP!!!" Yes, I'm fully panicked at this point. I almost wanted to hit the other diver because I thought they did it on purpose.
Suddenly, I'm surrouned by two other divers and we begin to ascend. My heart is racing... I'm not paying attention but I think that the other divers noticed my panic attack and have decided to surface as group. We perform a safe ascent and it's not until 60 feet that I realize that there are only 4 of us... not 5.
As the water gets brighter and warmer I finally start to calm down slightly... but I'm still quite insane.
We hit a safety stop at 15 feet and while I'm holding onto everybody, I'm fine... but then I let go and I shoot to the surface (I'll remind you that I was panicked and not thinking about dumping air).
When we get to the surface I start asking where U is (my dive partner). BF states that U grabbed him and shot for the surface (at this point I thought he was talking about me) and then we see U on the boat. ON THE BOAT.
So what really happened?
My dive partner, U got extremely dizzy at one point. He grabbed onto the nearest diver and signaled not ok. This other diver was BF, not me. BF thinks U is out of air so he offers him a secondary but U just knocks it out of the way and shoots for the surface. Along the way, U starts blacking out and says that he couldn't see anything on the ascent or remember what happened. Meanwhile he has a death grip on BF that he doesn't let go of until they hit 30 feet.
The instructor sees BF and U shoot for the surface and goes right after them. This leaves myself (who can't see crap or what's going on) and GF. GF sees her BF being drug to the surface by a madman and so she grabs me.
When she saw me signal to go up, she indeed tried to but says she just started sinking. Let me venture a guess and say that both of us were overweighted.
Anyways, after U lets go of BF at 30 ft, BF and the instructor then return to us and thats when we made a safe ascent.
It's DAMN lucky that nobody got hurt. NOBODY was following proper procedure at all. To my knowledge, nobody got DCI but everyone was pretty f-ed up on the boat and we all concluded that we weren't going to dive. I also refused to dive Sunday.
Upon retrospect I should have followed my instincts. I saw several things wrong that the instructor should have pointed out and corrected first but didnt so I decided to trust the more experienced diver instead of the book. BAD idea.
What do I think should have happened?
1) The instructor should have scheduled the wreck dive and the deep dive separately. He planned to dive the Yukon twice, once as the wreck dive and once as the deep dive. Thats the exact same dive with both of the added danger factors.
2) The instructor should have covered the deep diver material as well as the wreck material before diving. Im sorry, I dont care if you want to technically count the first dive as the wreck dive, it is STILL a deep dive that none of the OW students had experience with.
3) The instructor should have taken the students on an easy shallower dive first, to see if they were capable of handling such a dangerous dive. He could have taken us on a nav dive off of La Jolla instead.
4) The instructor should have recognized that the students were using rental gear that they were not used to. He should have allowed us time to weight up correctly at the shore/dock first and then perhaps practice a few drills with our partners.
Up to this point Ive been withholding the name of the dive shop because I wanted to find out if the instructor was just bad or if it represented the dive shop in general. The manager assured me the head dive instructor would call me. I spoke to the manager on Sunday, still no calls. If I get no response soon Im not going to bother trying to save their reputation and Im going to write a letter to PADI.
On my part, I should have refused to dived and I should have studied the material much more thoroughly.
Anyways any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated. I still keep kicking myself in the head for being so stupid and I'm glad that I'm alive.
I signed up for my AOW cert and we were supposed to do three dives on Saturday, two on Sunday. I'll start off with what I thought was happening and then explain what really happened.
That day I had to rent gear, and when I got to the rental place, there was no gear left. They had to scrape up stuff to rent me because I was in one of their classes... already a bad feeling about that. Anyways, before I leave I ask if the BCD has clips to secure my gauges and seconday reg... I was assured there was.
Prior to this my experience has been: OW cert in Bermuda in 1998. Refresher course in Florida 2005. So I've never dived in San Diego before. In fact, I've never dived in cold water or in water with visability less than 35 feet.
The instructor asked me if I was comfortable in the water. Given my experience in warm, tropical, clear water... I said yes.
Anyways, I get to the boat dock and I mention that I need to get weighted before diving. The diving instructor says: "As an OW certified diver, you should know how to do that." Umm... yes, I do... I was just letting you know that I'm using rental gear plus a thick wetsuit so I need to find out what my proper weighting is. He says ok.
So I get my stuff loaded onto the boat and set my gear up. Given the attitude of the instructor, I figured that I would just load up all 24 lbs of weight into the BCD. I also at this point notice that there are no clips to secure any of my extra stuff so I'm told by the instructor to simply put the stuff into my BCD pockets.
So the first dive was the Yukon. Our max depth was supposed to be 100 feet with a bottom time of 19 minutes. We would follow a line down to the wreck, no penetration (this was the first dive of an AOW class).
The instructor only covered the wreck diver material. I dont think we were tested the way we should have been. Instead of asking us the questions, the instructor would have us read the questions and then answer them himself. I will also say that he didn't cover the deep diver material here.
It's at this point that I meet my dive partner, U (who apparently hasn't dived for almost a year). The other two students are fresh out of open water and are a couple, I'll call them BF and GF. The instructor knows BF and GF but has had no experience diving with either U or myself.
Given my extremely limited experience diving... I was already uncomfortable. I'm going diving in gear that I've never used before, PLUS the fact that it was the last of the rental gear.
Anyways, I get into the water and as soon as I hit the water I feel uncomfortable. My mask fogs like mad (yes I used defogger and soft scrub) and I can't see crap in the water at all. Add in the cold temperature and I'm already pretty nervous.
Once all of the students are in the water we begin our descent (following a line down from a buoy). My dive partner signals several times that he has problems clearing his ear... so I wait for him, and he eventually signals ok... we continue the descent.
At 80 feet we let go of the chain and I swim towards my dive instructor who's flashing his light at us. Would have been nice if I had been reminded that the light down there was very low because I had my dive light with me... but we'll continue.
I can't see CRAP. I'm nearsighted as it is... which normally isn't a problem but given what happened here, I'm getting prescription lenses before I dive again. At this point I can't tell if my mask is fogged or if it's just the water vis. Anyways, all I see is yellow/green water and the outline of the rusty ship known as the Yukon.
I don't really remember much from them on but struggling to follow the group (might I add that neither I nor my dive partner were following procedure and sticking close to each other or checking our gauges something we should have done). Anyways, my fins keep hitting the wreck and that just makes me even more nervous. So now we've got anxiety factors like: I can't see well, bad depth perception, and it's cold as hell.
I check my gauge and see that I'm at 1000 psi. So I signal low on air. NOBODY responds. I try knocking on tank but it makes no sound. I almost decided to pull out my dive knife to knock on my tank but given my poor depth perception I decided I'd rather not do that. Yay, another anxiety factor. Guess who's breathing too quickly at a depth of 100 feet? Sounds like a great way to get nitro narc to me... and not the happy drunk kind, how about the anxious panicky kind?
I also try to defog my mask by flooding it (and looking up). The wonderful reg I rented doesn't breath well when I look up and it's so cold I can't tell if I'm exhaling through my nose or my mouth... all I see is bubbles.
At this point I'm going to explain what I thought happened, and then what really happened.
I honestly don't remember much after that other than being uncomfortable. Suddenly, there is a diver in front of me (who looks like the instructor) so I signal low on air. The diver offers me their secondary. I must have been out of my mind because I accept it. After taking a breath from it I realize: "I don't need this, I still have enough air to ascend" so I hand it back. That's when I swallow water.
YAY for panic. I grab back the secondary from the diver, breath, then locate my reg and put it back in my mouth. At this point I'm off my rocker. I signal up immediately.
The diver signals ok, lifts up their inflator hose and releases the air. We start sinking. I check my depth gauge and we're going from 85 feet back down to 100. I start screaming into my reg: "GO UP!!!" Yes, I'm fully panicked at this point. I almost wanted to hit the other diver because I thought they did it on purpose.
Suddenly, I'm surrouned by two other divers and we begin to ascend. My heart is racing... I'm not paying attention but I think that the other divers noticed my panic attack and have decided to surface as group. We perform a safe ascent and it's not until 60 feet that I realize that there are only 4 of us... not 5.
As the water gets brighter and warmer I finally start to calm down slightly... but I'm still quite insane.
We hit a safety stop at 15 feet and while I'm holding onto everybody, I'm fine... but then I let go and I shoot to the surface (I'll remind you that I was panicked and not thinking about dumping air).
When we get to the surface I start asking where U is (my dive partner). BF states that U grabbed him and shot for the surface (at this point I thought he was talking about me) and then we see U on the boat. ON THE BOAT.
So what really happened?
My dive partner, U got extremely dizzy at one point. He grabbed onto the nearest diver and signaled not ok. This other diver was BF, not me. BF thinks U is out of air so he offers him a secondary but U just knocks it out of the way and shoots for the surface. Along the way, U starts blacking out and says that he couldn't see anything on the ascent or remember what happened. Meanwhile he has a death grip on BF that he doesn't let go of until they hit 30 feet.
The instructor sees BF and U shoot for the surface and goes right after them. This leaves myself (who can't see crap or what's going on) and GF. GF sees her BF being drug to the surface by a madman and so she grabs me.
When she saw me signal to go up, she indeed tried to but says she just started sinking. Let me venture a guess and say that both of us were overweighted.
Anyways, after U lets go of BF at 30 ft, BF and the instructor then return to us and thats when we made a safe ascent.
It's DAMN lucky that nobody got hurt. NOBODY was following proper procedure at all. To my knowledge, nobody got DCI but everyone was pretty f-ed up on the boat and we all concluded that we weren't going to dive. I also refused to dive Sunday.
Upon retrospect I should have followed my instincts. I saw several things wrong that the instructor should have pointed out and corrected first but didnt so I decided to trust the more experienced diver instead of the book. BAD idea.
What do I think should have happened?
1) The instructor should have scheduled the wreck dive and the deep dive separately. He planned to dive the Yukon twice, once as the wreck dive and once as the deep dive. Thats the exact same dive with both of the added danger factors.
2) The instructor should have covered the deep diver material as well as the wreck material before diving. Im sorry, I dont care if you want to technically count the first dive as the wreck dive, it is STILL a deep dive that none of the OW students had experience with.
3) The instructor should have taken the students on an easy shallower dive first, to see if they were capable of handling such a dangerous dive. He could have taken us on a nav dive off of La Jolla instead.
4) The instructor should have recognized that the students were using rental gear that they were not used to. He should have allowed us time to weight up correctly at the shore/dock first and then perhaps practice a few drills with our partners.
Up to this point Ive been withholding the name of the dive shop because I wanted to find out if the instructor was just bad or if it represented the dive shop in general. The manager assured me the head dive instructor would call me. I spoke to the manager on Sunday, still no calls. If I get no response soon Im not going to bother trying to save their reputation and Im going to write a letter to PADI.
On my part, I should have refused to dived and I should have studied the material much more thoroughly.
Anyways any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated. I still keep kicking myself in the head for being so stupid and I'm glad that I'm alive.
