What's with the deaths?

[jviehe]

If PADI, and OW classes in general are so bad, how come less than .01% of divers ever have accidents? Some people are just going to die no matter what you do. In fact, if you look at DAN accident stats, most accidents occur with older people, and by ascending too fast.

 

[Charlie99]

turnerjd once bubbled...
Whilst I have no experience of SSI, certainly within the PADI OW there is very little mentioned about environmental assessement. Certainly within PADI there is no performance criteria based on environmental assessement untill the DM course.

Perhaps you should go back to your PADI OW manual and read module three, "The Diving Environment". That is a discussion of things like temp, viz, water movement (currents, shore break, swells, etc.), and other factors.

In both my PADI OW course and my nephew's course with a different instructor, evironmental assessment was discussed as part of the pre-dive planning process.

Since both instructors independently brought it up in much the same manner, at the same point in the course, I suspect that it is also covered in the instructor training.

The amount of mindless PADI-bashing that goes on amazes me.

Charlie

 

[Brian Gilpin]

No course can be effective at teaching everybody everything they need to know be it OW or AOW. The missing element is repetition through continuing education. Cert cards should be issued for a set period of time. A test of knowledge and skills should be required to stay certified unless current experience is verified by instructor.

During my DM training last sunmmer I assisted several open water classes. It was amazing how much really basic stuff I had forgotten. I doubt if I am alone

Brian

 

[erubic]

Thanks guys!! I might go talk to a different instructor to see what he says. He is with SSI. Is there any problem having mixed cert cards. Like if I have my OW with PADI and my AOW with SSI?

 

[Rick Murchison]

erubic once bubbled...
Thanks guys!! I might go talk to a different instructor to see what he says. He is with SSI. Is there any problem having mixed cet cards. Like if I have my OW with PADI and my AOW with SSI?

In general an OW or AOW card from any agency is viewed as an OW or AOW card when it comes to prerequisites for another course. However, with SSI and PADI AOW as examples, they can mean significantly different things.
With PADI, the AOW card means you've completed the AOW course, and could have as few as (PADI instructors correct the number here if I'm off) 10 dives (4 OW and 6 AOW).
The SSI advanced card means you have completed 4 specialty courses and have logged 24 dives.
Is one card better than the other?
Well, I'm sure PADI feels theirs is better, because there is less chance that the student will choose four specialties that are "less than advanced," while we SSI folk feel ours is better because it means a diver with broader training and includes the 24 dive experience requirement.
Rick

 

[MikeFerrara]

jviehe once bubbled...
If PADI, and OW classes in general are so bad, how come less than .01% of divers ever have accidents? Some people are just going to die no matter what you do. In fact, if you look at DAN accident stats, most accidents occur with older people, and by ascending too fast.

We don't know how many active divers there are and we don't know how many dives are done in a year. We only know about the accidents that are reported and we don't hear anything at all about near misses that don't result in injury.

On the other hand, why is it that I've witnessed so many accidents, ambulance runs and near misses at local recreational sites. This year it was on nearly every trip out including the last two trips in a row.

The fact is that you can drop to the bottom, crawl around and go back up and 9 out of ten times nothing goes wrong. The question isn't what percentage of dives result in injury but what percentage of dives where there's a problem result in injury.

From my observations over 90% of the free flows around here result in a rapid ascent and/or buddy seperation and some percentage of those result in injury. The fact that many dives are conducted without a free flow only means that most divers will get lucky most of the time. It also says that there's a good chance that they're toast if they have a free flow.

 

[jroy017]

Is there any problem having mixed cet cards. Like if I have my OW with PADI and my AOW with SSI?

With most agencies you can mix up you cert cards : I's sure of the following agencies, PDIC,PADI,NAUI, SSI, YMCA scuba program and even CMAS but they don't exactly work the same way.

As said before Instrucor over agency since all the agency really does is issue your card and your instructorrs and most agencies have the same standards for course outlines with minor exceptions. And most good scuba instructors will broach a subject even if it is not required by the agency since if he feels it is important.

 

[turnerjd]

Charlie99 once bubbled...
Perhaps you should go back to your PADI OW manual and read module three, "The Diving Environment". That is a discussion of things like temp, viz, water movement (currents, shore break, swells, etc.), and other factors.

In both my PADI OW course and my nephew's course with a different instructor, evironmental assessment was discussed as part of the pre-dive planning process.

Since both instructors independently brought it up in much the same manner, at the same point in the course, I suspect that it is also covered in the instructor training.

The amount of mindless PADI-bashing that goes on amazes me.

Charlie

Charlie,

The PADI OW course certainly has a small theory element about the diving environment. Most of module 3 is about choosing appropriate equipment for the dive you are doing, such as exposure suits.

Unfortunately, in an OW course, with 4 (and an optional 5th) confined water sessions, couples with 4 OW dives you do not get to see or use these different options.

A large number of people do all their OW dives in the same (or very similar) place. At the end of the course you do not have any experience in assessing the environment of the dive. A good case in point is doing the checkout dives in an inland site, and thinking that you are more than prepared to subsequently dive in the sea assessing the environment yourself.

A good example is currents. Most people will not have encountered currents during the OW checkout dives. The instructor will deliberately choose a dive site without any. Marine charts are never introduced, never mind tidal or current charts. This comes into environmental assessement, and is not covered.

Take as a second example, beach diving. If you haven't done this during your OW checkout dives you have no idea about surge, how to get yourself in the water properly and safely, again, this comes into environmental assessement.

I could go on and on, whilst you can think of it as PADI bashing, think of it also as opening your eyes to the fact that there is more to diving than taught by PADI.

Jon T

 

[MikeFerrara]

If you watch some video of divers which isn't hard since almost all resorts these days film and sell copies, you'll see some common themes. One is the divers bouncing off the bottom, two is the fact that there usually isn't a single functional buddy pair in the entire group, another is the dangling equipment and yet another is the bad trim and the fact that so many must kick all the time to maintain depth. All these things reduce the divers ability to respond to a problem.

Emergency response...

When I do a skill assesment on a student befor a continueing ed class I ask them to do some simple skills. They must descend, stop at 10 ft and hold for a last minute check with their buddy before continueing down. Then they must stop above the bottom and hover. I ask them to remove and replace their mask (off the bottom and while maintaining buddy contact). I ask them to share air while holding depth and I ask them to demonstrate free flow breathing midwater (because we have cold water).

Very few can get through this assesment. Once we do begin diving, if it looks to me like a buddy team is too far apart or unaware of eachother I will signal one of them to be out of air. At that time they need to get to their buddy (while blowing bubbles) and share air). The fact is that, in simulation, and before remediation, I can kill any one of these teams with the slightest thing thrown at them. They can't manage a free flow midwater, they can't share air without being all over the water column, they don't know where their buddy is and they can't do a mask R&R without loosing it unless they're planted on the bottom, they can't even stay together during a descent. BTW, that's when I like to throw OOA's or free flows at them.

That tells me that these are divers who are relying on luck and if anything goes wrong there's a good chance that they'll get wacked.

How is that for statistics?

 

[Diver0001]

erubic once bubbled...
Thanks guys!! I might go talk to a different instructor to see what he says. He is with SSI. Is there any problem having mixed cet cards. Like if I have my OW with PADI and my AOW with SSI?

The cards aren't really a problem. On content SSI and PADI are very similar. SSI tries to differentiate itself from PADI in a few minor ways but in the end you won't learn anything earthshaking in either system that isn't covered by the other.

PADI has a much larger share in the market than all of the other players combined and although that may be their biggest strength (lots of instructors to choose from), it's also the source of their biggest weakness, namely meaningful quality control. But poor QA doesn't mean that all of their instructors are bad. Quite the contrary, en mass PADI undoubtedly has the largest and most accessible group of well skilled instructors of any recreational training agency. They also have a good system that works when combined with a good instructor. Can it be improved? Sure. is any system beyond criticism?

The problem for you as a client, however, is recognising the good ones and maybe more importantly, recognising the deadbeats.....But having said this, all of the meaningful players have this problem so if you choose for SSI, PADI, NAUI, PDIC or a host of others, you're going to have to evaluate you instructor one-on-one. No system has a monopoly on good instructors (or bad ones).

So my point is what ever you do, choose the right instructor for you. Ultimately diving is diving is diving and what you are taught is never as important as how well you are taught.

R..