Help me write a letter

[victorzamora]

Hey guys,

I'd like your help writing a letter. I ran across a dive professional I know at Vortex Springs. He led a group of 8 or 9 people that CLEARLY have no business being in an open water environment, with 4 lights between them, to the Piano Room. I know it's common, but it's ridiculous and "it happens all the time" is NOT a good excuse for it. It's dangerous, irresponsible, and could lead to deaths. Anyway, I'm trying to draft a letter or e-mail or FaceBook message that contains appropriate wording to not sound accusatory and like a pretentious prick, but clearly concerned, stern, and getting the message across. I think digitally might send the best message as I'm half-planning on including a few videos, including "Deceptively Easy Way to Die" but I need help drafting it. I'll compile a composite of whatever is posted on here and send it to him.

If you guys need a video proving their "quality" of diver, I'll be glad to post it....but it's a "shaming" video through and through, and those typically get a lot of off-topic rants and tangents. Needless to say, all of them were bouncing along the bottom in nothing but flutter kicks, stirring up every bit of silt and debris the whole way in and out. The whole thing started off with one of those divers falling to the bottom (maybe 20# overweighted) so hard it jarred one of his two calf-mounted BFKs out of its plastic clip-in sheath, who then grabbed his LPI and rode that rocket to the surface. I know for a fact he went into the cave as I recovered his knife and returned it to him in the middle of a story about how great the cave was and how he didn't understand why it looked worse on the way out.

Any help would be appreciated,

Victor

 

[PfcAJ]

post the video.

 

[victorzamora]

I received a PM from someone who made me think of something. Lynne posted on this topic on Facebook as well. He didn't act out of ignorance. He acted out of arrogance. The PM I got was saying that this letter should be much more stern than educative. The concern being that he's teaching other, ignorant, students that this behavior is okay.

As for the video, I'll try to get it posted. Having just reviewed it, I missed the truly bumbling baboons and caught the two divers at the back placed there as the "best divers" that still show that they have no place in a cave.

Here's the video.

 

[TracyN]

Well I was at Vortex on Sunday learning how to scooter and there was a class standing on the bottom doing drills. Rather than swimming they were walking! There was no diving going on. It was a cluster. I just can't believe instructors can teach like that, it's appalling. I wanted to take out the instructor with my scooter and make it look like an accident. Considering I was piloting the scooter like a drunk that wouldn't have been too hard to believe, lol!

 

[PfcAJ]

Lets kick the pronouns and just say who it was.

Dissuade others from taking his 'training'.

 

[kensuf]

Call the training agency.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

Write a letter to the training agency with your observations. If you can provide the instructors' name and instructor number it will be a lot of help to the QA people at whatever training agency it is.

Witness statements will help too.

 

[PfcAJ]

I'm sure the agency will be Johnny on the spot and really clean up their ranks....

 

[victorzamora]

I'm sure the agency will be Johnny on the spot and really clean up their ranks....

Thanks for that, I needed a good laugh!

Jokes aside, I have plenty of witnesses as well as some video. I have the guy's name and agency, but obviously not his cert number. He's got a very unique name, and I certainly don't want to call him out YET. I want to draft something up that seriously lets him know he's screwed up and should never do it again. If he responds poorly, I'll advise the shop owner....who I'm sure condoned/ordered it. If I get another poor response, I'll be reporting both officially with witness statements, names, video evidence, written evidence, and I'll be publicly calling them out on every digital venue I can get my hands on.

Jim, I'm not sure if you remember me....but I called you a while back about PADI Full Cave distinctive specialty and we got on the topic of some very heinous standards violations by an instructor who is still a PADI MSDT and Tech Instructor, but is also now an NSS-CDS and NACD Full Cave instructor who is still violating standards on a daily basis (I saw him violate standards as recently as this past Sunday, and have written accounts of standards violations during a Full Cave, Intro to Cave, and Cavern cert courses in the past month). However, I don't want to have my name publicly posted on things smearing them and really hurting them. I'd MUCH prefer a stern discussion informing them of their decisions and how serious the consequences are as a "way out" BEFORE (potentially) ruining their professional diving career.

 

[PfcAJ]

yup, we wouldn't want to risk ruining someones career. Let's just let them continue to certify unqualified divers and potentially put students in harms way in the meantime. What could possibly go wrong?