how to handle panicky divers in group

[ballastbelly]

i have an idea which could be done without risk in 10 min with students in the OW course, while in waist high water,all students head immersed breathing from the snorkle, the instructor will at random pick a student and block his snorkle, which will give a nasty OOA feeling. the student has to reach for his reg and place it in his mouth. if instead he panics and raises his head,he fails the excersize.

 

[diver 85]

Show all new students this pic UW & if they don't go OOA & panick, they'll be just fine......

 

[doctormike]

Link doesn't seem to be working

Huh. That's odd.

Try this...

 

[victorzamora]

We didn't harass students, but a big group of my friends got involved at the LDS. We harassed eachother.....big time. Even on OW dives, we harassed eachother. We'd always watch for REAL trouble, but turning tanks off became a game. Deep? Current? We got there eventually. The trick was doing it without the other person noticing. REALLY helps build a tolerance to what would normally induce panic. I'm a huge fan.

My wife is VERY prone to panic, and pulling that crap on her would get my butt sat firmly in the dog-house and could turn her off to diving completely (nearly did). So I've broken her into it slowly. I've told her that on this pool session, we're practicing skills. Over the next five minutes, I'll be pulling the reg out of your mouth underwater (as if it got kicked out). Then we do. Now it's time for me to freak out and jerk your mask off. Then I do. Then I tear the reg out of her mouth and take it from her (as if I was OOA). Then I turn her tank off ONCE, and she's aware of it. Rinse and repeat until she's feeling better about it, and then add multiple failures per dive, then add different types, do it without her seeing me do it, etc. Build up a tolerance to the harassment. If I tore her reg out day 1 without warning, I would've been in beaucoup trouble.

 

[TSandM]

I do not believe such an exercise would have any utility. OW classes already do an air depletion exercise, where the diver has his gas turned off by the instructor, and must signal "out of air". I realize that is a staged exercise, and the student is warned it is going to happen, which removes the surprise factor, but I don't think it would change much, anyway, and here is why: Several years ago, after I had been diving for about six years and had about a thousand dives under my belt, as well as a good deal of advanced training involving masks being removed and sometimes gas being turned off without warning, I submerged on a stage to begin a cave dive. About three breaths underwater, I "ran out of gas" -- having been stupid and failed either to turn on the stage or to check it prior to diving. My immediate reaction was to bolt for the surface, and I was astonished at the amount of adrenaline that suddenly poured out into my system. Of course, before I could surface from my four feet or so of depth, I had inhibited the impulse and turned the stage on. But what it taught me is that no amount of harassment training OR experience can stop that initial "Oh, *&#" response to being suddenly deprived of a breathing source underwater. Even if you did the exercise you describe with new divers, you would have no guarantee that a year later, they wouldn't panic if they ran out of gas.

 

[Malpaso]

Huh. That's odd.

Try this...

That works.

 

[emoreira]

What we do in the deep part of the pool, when the course is near the end, is to share air with 5 or 6 people (normally 4~5 students and a DM) until the tank is empty, so students can feel what it feels to run out of air, how the reg feels harder and harder, while sharing air. This is a conscious exercise and the students are aware of what's going on and what will happen. However we offer the possibility to feel what is it like to run out of air, and how the reg will warn you, if you are not seeing your SPG during the dive (or perhaps the SPG is not working right).
I doubt if turning the tank off and suddenly no air comes to the reg is a "real" feeling.
What we insist in the course is to be used to see the SPG from time to time (not to have the sight constantly in the SPG) and how the remaining air in the tank behaves, so no surprise with the OOA situation.

 

[Akimbo]

I do not believe such an exercise would have any utility...

I would say “much” instead of “any” utility, but I generally agree. Doing harassment dives effectively requires a tremendous number of hours in the pool, high instructor to student ratios, and a lot of instructor skill — none of which exist in the vast majority of recreational Scuba classes.

I would say that Victor’s descriptions of harassment sessions are useful at honing skills dealing with emergencies, but aren’t terribly effective at learning to manage panic. I believe an important component in learning to manage panic is the risk of losing something important. In the case of military harassment dives it is getting booted from the program you worked hard to get into. Unfortunately, learning panic control from rare real life experiences requires you to be concerned about getting dead.

 

[emoreira]

Show all new students this pic UW & if they don't go OOA & panick, they'll be just fine......

Something more horrifying :

 

[victorzamora]

I would say “much” instead of “any” utility, but I generally agree. Doing harassment dives effectively requires a tremendous number of hours in the pool, high instructor to student ratios, and a lot of instructor skill — none of which exist in the vast majority of recreational Scuba classes.

I would say that Victor’s descriptions of harassment sessions are useful at honing skills dealing with emergencies, but aren’t terribly effective at learning to manage panic. I believe an important component in learning to manage panic is the risk of losing something important. In the case of military harassment dives it is getting booted from the program you worked hard to get into. Unfortunately, learning panic control from real life rare experiences requires you to be concerned about getting dead.

You're absolutely right on with both points. This was post-cert ("average" cert class, btw). It was the two of us in a pool during an LDS or Scuba Club pool session, or at a pool at our apartment complex. It was one-on-one, typically. I'm no instructor, though, but we did the best we could. This was to build comfort in the water under rough situations. She was very flighty, and a lot of it was due to not being very comfortable in the water. It was due to not having the skills down as solidly as she thought. It was due to not having the experience to convert theory into practice properly. It was NOT about learning to resist panic. Having said that, she's had unbelievable amounts of improvement, and she's REALLY come a tremendously long way. She is now MUCH less prone to panic due to being a lot more comfortable in the water. Situations that would've sent her down a panic-spiral have been handled well, even in real-world diving situations. The two ways of reducing the risk of panic are to reduce your internal panic reflex, or to build your comfort threshold to the point where normal issues are handled nonchalantly instead of as an emergency. An event only becomes an emergency if you let it. THAT was my goal with my wife. She's now been FAR beyond anywhere she thought possible, and she's done so comfortably.