If you are a new diver, please read this

[don Francisco]

Not knowing the details makes it hard to draw conclusions from this incident, But I'd venture that even with limited training the diver had the necessary tools to avoid her death.

As OW student she would have been taught not to exceed the limits of her training, or 60' depth. At 60 feet one is two minutes from the surface at 30fpm, so unless the diver had such a staggering air consumption rate as to reach the 500psi level within the first 10 minutes, (500psi/min) she still would have had enough air even if she waited until she was down to her last 500#s of air before starting up. I'm not allowing that her consumption would have dropped as she got shallower, but that would only have been to the good.

Again, I don't know the facts, but I'll venture that she either exceeded her trained depth level and/or failed to monitor her air and was unaware of her remaining air time until it was too late.

It isn't fashionable to blame victims, but who else. I Know this sounds harsh and wish the world was arranged so that the price of carelessness wasn't death, but that isn't always the case. As it is, I'm not willing to blame insufficient training, based on the information at hand. All the training in the world would not have made up for a failure to track air and time during a dive.

 

[Diver0001]

As far as I can tell, what I'm NOT supposed to say is that this is "Gas Management"

So call it "dive planning". There's a whole module on that and you can tell them whatever you think they need to know in order to plan and execute their dive safely.

My opinion is that Lynne has hit the nail right on the head in post #10 when she says

They didn't watch their gauges. But if someone had taught them how fast their gas would disappear at depth, maybe they would have been more vigilant.

I think as an instructor you have a duty to do both of these things. (1) make sure they're drilled to keep a good eye on their gauges and (2) make sure they know how to adequately interpret the information they're getting from thier guages.

You *can* find effective ways to get that across without doing "calculations" with them. I link it to navigation planning; talk about "turn pressures" and "out and back" routes (which I highly recommend to my OW students until they get a bit of experience) and then ask the question "so how long DOES a tank like this last?"

Then you can walk them through a *theoretical* bailout and draw some general conclusions about the pressure they need to make a normal ascent. Eventually you'll leave them with one number (in the context of OW that's the number they'll need to bail out from 18 metres) and impress upon them *what to do* if they start getting to that pressure and they still haven't turned the dive.

In other words you first teach them how to turn a dive normally (in which case you never get to bail out pressure) and you teach them what to do if they get to bail out pressure before they turned the dive. These are perfectly reasonable things to talk about with OW students.

All you have to remember is that it's all part of dive planning. If you do it like this you're not "teaching" them gas management in the sense of working out run-times, SAC etc but you *are* giving them a few really good hooks for *recognizing* and dealing with low-on-air situations before they become critical.

I think if you think this through, you'll see that it's all consistent with what your instructor told you to do in your IDC.

R..

 

[TSandM]

I got more information last night, from someone who was there. The diver who died should have had enough diving experience to know she was likely to be low on gas when she was. Which doesn't negate the value of teaching a structured kind of gas management.

In addition, someone brought up on our local board that it wasn't just running out of gas that caused this accident, but also being unable to orally inflate the BC and dump weights. Although weight removal is something one might not have the opportunity to practice frequently, orally inflating a BC is something we can all do any time we surface. A friend of mine, who is an instructor, makes this his practice. That way, if you surface in distress, the reflex to reach for the inflator and blow into it will be ingrained.

 

[Rick Inman]

Gas management, yes. But the real problem is lack of continuous training so that a diver is comfortable dealing with an unforeseen event.

Panic is what kills. Panic causes someone not to orally inflate. Panic comes from lack of continuous training. If this diver's gas management was perfect and they blew a tank O ring, the result might have been the same.

Doing drills during OW class in the pool, and then on the knees in the sand, and then never doing them again is what causes panic and then kills divers.

Continuous training and skills practice.

Continuous training and skills practice.

Continuous training and skills practice.

Please.

Like this:

...orally inflating a BC is something we can all do any time we surface. A friend of mine, who is an instructor, makes this his practice. That way, if you surface in distress, the reflex to reach for the inflator and blow into it will be ingrained.

 

[LavaSurfer]

Gen San Chris -- As I wrote above, I agree with you regarding teaching some basic Gas Management under within the PADI system. One caveat I might make is that doing this ONLY in Class Session One is not enough. This is important enough, I believe, that it should be integrated into any discussion of "dive planning" whether that is when teaching the Tables, how to pick a dive site, or whatever.

I don't know the stats (and if someone does, PLEASE join in) but it seems to me that DCS (and here I'm referring to Type 1/Type 2 hits) is, in fact, of pretty limited relevance to the new OW diver. OTOH, running low or out of air to the new OW diver is a BIG issue and I believe that given the choice, I'd spend a whole lot more time on "gas management" and a lot less time on learning the Tables. But that is JUST me -- a guppy in training.

I was reading this and thinking to myself that although there are specific base guidelines in teaching PADI OW courses there is really no restriction, after IDC and IE that is, in adding your own personal experience and I remember that it is actually encouraged to add value to the lessons. That can be interpreted in many ways and I always talk about gas usage and the effects of depth on consumption in section 1 and I always bring it up in the equipment area, and in section 5 when talking about ascents and safety stops and the exception rules on the tables. It just seems natural that when talking about diving to WXYZ on the tables and exceeding NDL that one might want to talk about gas usage and the problems of pushing the limits.

With all due respect to you and your wife whom I have devoured many many of her posts and learned so much from her, I have to disagree that this is entirely an agency issue. When someone runs out of air and any agency, PADI or otherwise gets blamed, I worry. This is a sport that requires personal responsibility and when someone runs out of air, panics, bolts to the surface and fails to make themselves positively buoyant and their buddy cannot help them then either they failed themselves or they have been negligently trained and I find that hard to believe.

My heart goes out to the families and friends and I think this thread should serve as not only a warning but an eye opener to all divers, new and experienced that YOU are responsible to for your life and safety and completing your OW cert is only the beginning of training not the end.

 

[bret151]

Being i have only been diving for 5 years.i have to say its about responsibility.My instructor taught us to be calm which is very improtant as we all know.He also taught to look at your gauges quite often . My instructor runs "safety service divers" in amherst , ohio he is a rescue diver for a fire dept and use to be a commercial diver.Maybe he has a unique perspective on things as he has pulled dead bodies out of the water on many occasions.Over all i think the instructors do there part.maybe there can be more emphasis on teaching air management but it all comes down to the diver.it's there life and repsonsibility. if they dont use the tools given all the schooling in the world wont matter.i know my life is worth the seconds it takes to look at my gauges.

 

[ScubaDocER]

Thank you TSandM for introducing this topic. It is an interesting concept to tell an teacher what they cannot teach. I think that defies the concept of educating a student. Everything that exists in the world of education cannot always be found in a text or on a DVD, which is why students learn from actual human beings, instead of just a video screen. I can respect wanting students to absorb information in a streamlined matter that allows them to actually comprehend it. But to prevent additional information from being introduced into the conversation seems counter intuitive. I always teach gas management or some form of it to my OW students. I like introducing the rule of thirds (from my cave diving days) so that they can plan their dives before they enter the water. I suggest to them that they never enter the water without a plan. How much air do you have? How much air do you have available to use? How much time do you wish to spend at your desired depth or location? How does a change in your air pressure affect the time you can spend at your depth and location? How much air should you have upon reaching your exit site (ascent line) for you and your buddy? I find that students are comprehending these concepts pretty well. It gives them a sense of control as opposed to telling them to wonder off and be back on the boat with 500 psi in their tanks. Monitoring their pressure gauges is also mandatory and I ask them that at least twice on every dive and require that they ask their dive buddies that at least once on every dive, just so that they get into the habit of doing so. Rehearsed skills can develop good habits that may be life saving. To inhibit an Instructor for teaching concepts that may improve the quality of a persons diving does more of a disservice to the student than the agency. I respect that agencies institute guidelines to ensure that a basic level of understanding is achieved by its students and applied by its Instructors; but a realization that this does not cover the totality of important concepts in diving should be respected.

 

[Lead_carrier]

Very Sad. I wonder if an air integrated computer that did the air management calculation and started to beep to signal ascend would help?

Maybe that would be an easier sell than requiring gas planning calculations to be learned in an open water course?

How deep were they diving?

Not necessarily, my hearing loss is in the high frequency range and I can intentionally set an alarm off and not hear it. Learning to pay attention to the gauges would be a lot easier to teach than just saying, listen for an alarm. We've dumbed the courses down too much as it is.

 

[nelia1978]

I know I am VERY new to this sport. I just finished my pool classes, and will only get certified in June due to the Montreal weather up here.
Although I am new to this sport I know that I personally am a very cautious person. I love doing crazy things but playing with my life is not one of them, and I know that the air in the tank is my life line under water.
With this said, I know mistakes do happen, people are not cautious enough while diving, especially new divers like myself. I know the more we learn from experienced divers, the better we as new divers will get. I know we can easily get distracted by the beauty of the sealife, ect but it is no excuse of being careless. I know eventually when I feel secure enough to go out with a dive buddy I know that i am not only resp. for myself but I am also resp for who I am diving with, and I hope that my dive buddy has the same school of thought as me.
For me, I really hope this never happens, and If I find a dive buddy who is not as concerned with saftey as I am, I will not dive with them, its as simple as that. I know there was a guy in my pool class that i would NEVER go diving with.

I know myself well enough to know what I am confortable with or not, and i do plan on diving with more experienced people. I know many people from my LDS goes out camping every weekend in the summer to go diving about 2 hrs from here so I know I will be out there on occasion when I can afford to rent the gear..
Well just thought I would share as a new cautious diver.

 

[Blackwood]

Maybe that would be an easier sell than requiring gas planning calculations to be learned in an open water course?

Probably depends on the person. Some would rather save the money and do some simple algebra. Others would rather spend the money and not do the simple algebra.

That said, I've yet to see a gas integrated computer that will signal to ascend before your buddy is too low on gas to get you to the surface.

I think it would be easier (and more in keeping with agency methods) to publish tables of gas reserves required at various depths. "Slide your finger down to you and your buddy's combined consumption rate, slide your finger over to your depth column."