Scary story to relay...

[beach89]

A qualified and well seasoned instructor drowned in a swimming pool. He was found at a depth of 4 feet. There are many more threads about students drowning in classes, when diving with family members, etc. You are not an instructor and cannot recognize equipment problems before they get in the water. You placed your friends/family in a very precarious position and only luck saved you from disaster. You can drown in 2 inches of water. When untrained people use ill-fitting SCUBA gear without appropriate supervision there is no "safe" depth.

If he was in the water with them then I really don't see why it would be all that dangerous. The biggest worry would be lung over expansion injuries. As long as he made it clear that they were to not ascend when inhaling (or never hold their breath), then they wouldn't have to worry about that. It would be kinda hard to get the bends (how long at six feet would it take? Over five hours?). Equipment failure- A BCD failure or flooded mask would be the biggest problem. Those would be the only things that would cause someone to bolt to the surface with a lung full of air. A regulator failure would only be a problem if they stutter breathed. Gauge failures wouldn't be a problem. Can't think of anything else.

In the link you posted, the divers died of heart attacks in pools. His brother/friends could be swimming in a pool and have a heart attack and it would be more or less the same as having a heart attack in the pool while wearing scuba gear. Actually it'd be better to pass out in the water with a regulator in your mouth than with nothing at all.

BTW: I wouldn't do it, but I don't think it's excessively dangerous.

 

[stangd1909]

80 ft for someone on a discover SCUBA dive is insane. If the DM hadn't seen the kid lose his reg, it could have been a fatality.

Me and a buddy went on the discover scuba in Belize and they would only take us to 35 ft. On top of that before we could go diving, they took us in 6ft of water and made us do some skills. So taking the kids or any first time diver to 80-100ft is just crazy!

 

[NOMEUS]

The Dive company who alowed this to happen are obviously one who do this everyday.
They need people to report this to the appropriate dive agency (the one the dive shop work under) PADI, NAUI, CMAS, etc If there is no obvious Agency to see then the individual instructors / divemasters,should be reported to there Agency.
The Standards for these agencys are stipulated clearly and should be adhered to.

 

[NOMEUS]

Even if truth was 'streched' on this occasion, the fact is the type of incident described is all to common. Hopefully if you continue your dive experience and go for your Divemaster, you will have good instructors and not become the type of Divemaster that behave as described.

 

[NOMEUS]

i became certified a few months ago and i am working through my AOW and rescue, the Master later on. i work at my LDS helping out. sometimes i tag along with the OW courses so that the instructer can have a buddy and someone there to help out with skils demonstration. a week ago on 3 occasions a student decened to 5 meters with his snorkel, the instructer had told him just proir to decent that he needed to put his reg in. i signaled to him to during his descent. some people just dont get it, this kid bragged about how he had dived many times in the past (uncertified and solo) there the type of people who die and brind a bad name to the sport. the fact the he did not notice untill he had reached the bottem ment he was holding his breath. IDIOT i hope that my LDS failed him.

Your instructor would appear to be the 'idiot'.

1 You should not be demonstrating skills during any course that your instructor is teaching. (Divemaster yes. You no.)

2 Your instructor cannot be very attentive to allow a student to make a snorkel descent three times.

3 The student should have been doing a 'Five Point Descent' under the close scrutiny of the instructor and the problem would have been spotted and corrected.

(Snorkel descents by students are one of the most common errors found while teaching the open water course.)

4 If your attitude is to publicly, deem this particular student an 'IDIOT' you are a long way from becoming a good dive professional ie a Divemaster and further.

There are way to many bad Instructors / Divemasters. The bad ones far outway the good ones in number unfortunately. This is true despite which Certifying Agency the instructor was certified by.

PADI, NAUI, CMAS and the like get bad press not because they are bad organizations but because of the experiences the public have via bad Instructors / Divemasters and Dive Resorts / Shops.

 

[Steve_Dives]

I'll say something in JahJah's defense regarding taking his brother into the pool (JahJah, you're on your regarding the friends. ). The equation,

Little brother + scuba gear + pool

would come together eventually, unless JahJah wears his gear at all times. (JahJah's profile has him at 17, and therefore the younger brother probably has access to both gear and pool.)

Having the brother and friends attend a discover type event or obtain their C-card would be the ideal. But sometimes that isn't practical, and then we have an 11 year old trying to set-up the gear and submerge with it on his own without any supervision.

 

[scuba66]

shadragon is"problems" of this adventure. why dont ya tell em of your dcs experience out at deer island point? there is a place for concern, extrenely high current area. site of the second largest whirlpool in the world and several people from this board routinly dive this area to depths over 100 feet. remember bnefore you start pointing fingers look at yourself first.