...walked in the snow uphill, both ways!

[King_Neptune]

Theres a BIG difference to being a little overweight and what you described.

Very True, and as was hashed out towards the beginning of the thread, being overweight or having other physical limitations does not mean that you CANNOT dive ... but what I couldn't believe is the way she acted like nothing happened afterwards.

Im not going to die because of some moron, who has no right being there in the condition they're in.

Stop and think for a minute, which one was really the dangerous MORON in this situation?

The out of shape "bowling pin" that wanted to learn to SCUBA but basically was still a NON-DIVER in their 1st stage of learning ...

[red]OR[/red] ...

The seasoned, well trained, experienced and healthy Instructor with 10 to 15 years under his belt diving???

[red]My Honest Opinion on the Fault Meter - [/red]

The Student - About 0.01% blame

The Instructor - The other 99.99%

And I might be letting the Instructor off a little easy there, if you get my point. He was in charge, he was the leader, he was supposed to be the one that was calm and collected enough to wisely and rationally make an educated decision about the proper steps to take.

And if I was lucky I may have even had enough energy to knock that instructors lights out when I finally did get in!

All humility aside for 2 seconds if I may be afforded that - I am not exactly small, weak physically or mentally and I generally have an overall very patient and I like to think I am pretty sensible. But I have to admit that looking back, if I had any more strength that what last little bit I had to carry my own bones to the car without passing out, I would have done something that I would have regretted, felt good about at that minute, but absolutely regretted once some sort of reason came back over me.

For those few hours I had been tasked with a "Mission". My integrity as well as my life and not to mention the life of the student, were at stake here. Pretty high stakes for me. I would have either accomplished the task or died trying. I just realize that dying while trying was a very real possibility and I wasn't going to go like that without a serious fight. I will admit that before accepting the ultimate defeat I would have knocked her unconscious, hoping that I had the strength to do that in a calculated manner so as to not kill her and so that she could still be revived once ashore.

Would I have really done all that? Yes, without later losing a wink of sleep over it either, but I was not willing to resort to that unless I firmly believed there was just absolutely NO HOPE left to do it otherwise.
:drown:

 

[radagalf]

King_Neptune once bubbled...
Agreed MD,

If only more People would opt to speak up more about questionable Instructors!


=-)

I spoke up about my instructor. I first did the open water course back in 1995. The instructor I had at the time was horrible, he went over the knowledge reviews shabbily, didn't actually check to see that we had done them, and our pool time was always rushed and our skills highly undeveloped.

When it came time for my open water dives, I couldn't go that weekend for some reason. He said we could do it the weekend after. Fine. Well, I guess I got in the way of his plans, cause he was out drinking in his front yard on the Sat, after I had waited for an hour at his shop. He said, sorry, we'll get you going right away.

His idea of getting me on my way, was to throw some equipment together (the wetsuit didn't fit) and to send one of his DIVEMASTERS with me to do my checkout dives... well, I've learnt so much more since then, especially as I am a divemaster myself now... and it scares me as to what happened.

If you aren't scared now, you will be. The DM brought me to Comox harbour, and I asked where will we be diving? She said on the breakwater. I took that to mean on the ocean side. Well we walked along until we got to the end of the breakwater. We got in, descended and I followed her. Next thing I know, I hear this motor gettign closer and closer, I look up abotu 15 to 20 feet, and see an ~15 foot pleasure boat passing overhead!!! We were in Comox harbour!!!

Needless to say I finished that dive and the next one (unfortunately - now I would have denied going in the water at all), got my c-card, and left diving until 2000 when I re-took the OW course as I felt A) it had been a long time since I last dived and B) most importantly, I felt that I hadn't learnt to master any of the skills the first time round anyways!!!

I must say that I think that was my greatest decision to spend the extra dough and re-take the whole course, as the instructor I had was great and I have had good experiences ever since!!! (I am very selective of my dive shops/instructors now).

Just to finish off, I got my mother to help me write a note to PADI about the instructor and his methods at the time. They phoned us back after receiving the letter to tell us they were going through the quality control process. A week or 2 later we received another phone call explaining that this wasn't the first time, and although they usually have a 3 strikes you're out policy, this was pretty serious (and backed up by the other students in the class) and that he had his instructorship (?) taken away. We received an official letter about the situation a short time after.

 

[Rick L]

The only time I had a real problem with a buddy was the first year I started diving! He had been a diver for 5 years!(so he said)
He was a friend of a friend so we set up a late march dive.
We went to cove with cliffs on two sides and a beach at the begining.The plan was to swim out to a wreck 350 yards away!
We surface swam about 250 yards and decended to swim the rest on the bottom.we where down about 10 min. at about 20 feet. All of a sudden he shoots to the surface I surface next to him. He rips his mask off and i notice he has a confused look on his face. He says to me {Im not going to make it!!} I say whats
wrong. He says Im not going to make it leave me here?
I swim over and grab his inflator and fill his vest. I tryed to get him to dump his weight belt but he just kept saying leave me here! I tell him to calm down I will tow you in. He says no and starts swimming away from me out deeper? Finaly I just swam out behind him grabbed his tank valve and started draging him in.
He calmed down and I towed him about half way back. When we
got next to the cliffs he says just bring me there. I tell him you will get killed trying to get up those. He starts fighting me so I towed him in there. I almost got crunched on the cliffs by some big waves. I swam the rest of the way back to the beach put my gear next to the truck. I walked on top of the cliffs till I got to where he was. carried his tank bc and wieght belt back to the truck. I ask him what happened he says he dosn't know but he was realy tired now. To say the least Never went diving with him again.
Rick L

And he was tired Oh yea I swam out and got his dive flag too!
I had anouther guy tell me he had seen a dead body and was going in? I said where he says um a ok it was a needle!
It ends up he was afraid my friend was going to snag his girlfriend
back on the shore Not a lot of trust there (never went diving with him again either)
Rick L

 

[Military Diver]

Come on folks, this thread holds so much valuable info for every diver, I think it is great to post the scares as well as all the greats from peoples adventures. It certainly gives people an idea of what they can face and lets them think ahead of time on how they would handle a similiar situation.

MD

 

[King_Neptune]

A nifty little Forum Fact ...

This thread remains the single most read and refered link on this site.

No other thread has had more reads by both members and guests.

=-)

 

[got4boyz]

just how many reads has it had? It's sure been around for awhile. Which post has survived the longest and which post has the most replies?

Just curious!

 

[scubababe]

Military Diver once bubbled...
Come on folks, this thread holds so much valuable info for every diver, I think it is great to post the scares as well as all the greats from peoples adventures. It certainly gives people an idea of what they can face and lets them think ahead of time on how they would handle a similiar situation.

MD

What is more .... it makes all my dramas seem like nothing! It is quite the reality check.

 

[zboss]

As a new diver I can only offer up a minimally worthwhile opinion based upon my studies and the limited experience I do have... so here goes... flame away if you like, I am wearing fire-retardant underwear...

I have read an awful lot on this website and this particular thread as well concerning the physical "requirements" of diving; consequently I have also read quite a few responses from people that definately do not meet those physical requirements. Most of the time they go something like "i'm a big girl/guy - weighing in at XXX pounds" etc... they then go on to detail how good of divers they are and that it's about personal choice...

Well - what I have to say about this is that it is NOT a personal choice when you choose to dive... diving takes support personel, a quality dive crew, the right buddies. It's not that I believe an overweight person cannot be a good diver when things are going OK - it's what happens when **** hits the fan... is your buddy going to be able to pull a 250 pound person, weighted with gear out of 8 foot seas onto the deck, by themselves - WIHOUT killing both of you?

Even though I do not have a lot of diving experience I do have a lot of open water boating experience (from which a good portion on diving takes place) and I know for a fact that things can go from A-OK to deadly in a matter of seconds... having someone whom is a potential bottleneck to the safety of the boat and it's passengers is simply not acceptable - could I ask this person to walk along a 6 inch gunwal towards the bow of the boat on big rollers? Probably not - the rail might not hold them or they simply might not fit.

Flame away...

 

[King_Neptune]

I will see about rounding up some forum highlights and stats for everyone to ponder over, but off the top of my head, I believe that if not the TOP, very close to the TOP replied to thread is the [red]Red Neck Divers Thread[/red]... with over 250 Replies!

=-)

 

[got4boyz]

when you get the chance to dig up some stats and hilights you might want to put them in a new thread for everyone to see who might not find them here.

Dive Parodies continued is only 5 behind the Red Neck thread! I hadn't seen the Red Neck thread before. It's hilarious, so is the Dive Parodies!