Finished my pool portion but not going to do OW can I still get any kind of cert?

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Seville

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Location
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Hi everyone,

My girlfriend and I recently signed up for the PADI open water course. We already finished and passed the classroom portion and the pool portion of the course. Unfortunately, since I have had two ruptured ear drums and two sinus surgeries, I cannot equalize very well and when I do it is extremely painful ascending, it will take a couple minutes for me to come up from 7 feet. I was the only one in the group who was trying to stay down instead of going up to the surface. So I realize that as much as I would like to I physically cannot dive. (I did go to my doctor and he warned me not to dive if it started hurting). This next week we have the OW dives, I'm pretty sure I cant get my money back for anything but can I still get some kind of Padi card? I hate quitting but its the principle of the thing.
 
Afraid not. The most you can get is referral for you to complete your open water dives with another dive op, which is of no use to you since you won't be continuing to dive, but certainly no card of any kind. If you have done OW dive 1 and 2 you could get the PADI Scuba Diver card, that's the lowest rung on the PADI ladder.
 
You "knew" it was a very good chance that you'd be unable to complete the course...

Jim...
 
It is unlikely you will get anything unless you can manage to do dives 1+2 which as said above gets you Scuba Diver.

Have you tried speaking to an ENT that specialises in diving - DAN might be able to help.
 
You do have the option of extending the process with a referral as others mentioned. This could be to another shop/location though that does little to ease your root problem. Your shop can also let you complete latter if the ear issues can be addressed. They may ask you back for a pool refresher likely with a current class before taking you to open water.

Your ear damage history should have come out in a dive physical or instructor screening so it's odd that you got this far.

Also as others mentioned, visit dive savvy ENT to see if there is hope, DAN can assist in locating someone.

If all else fails the only thing you can get is gear for your girlfriend.

Pete
 
Your location says CA which I assume means California (it could also be Canada). If you are in California, then go see Dr. Brian Weeks at Senta Clinic in San Diego. He is an ENT and a diver and he also does an off label procedure known as balloon dilation of the Eustachian tube. With me he accomplished miracles. Good luck.
 
We have had people who ruptured their eardrums in the past that have been able to be cleared by a physician for diving. The use of a set of Doc's Pro plugs or the like may help you. When you go to an ENT, you can discuss the use of these special ear plugs with them.
 
I went to my doctor for the medical waiver to be signed off, he seemed not to know a lot about diving and simply stated that if I can't equilize the ear drum will just pop and it will then equilize. I was actually very surprised that he signed off on it. I don't know if I should try to get my padi folder back from them to keep if she ever wanted to continue to get certified.

To be honest my girlfriend had a horrible time, we had some really slow ppl in our group and we had to wear 7 mil suits and hoods in 105 degree weather with the pool being 86 degrees, we were there for 6 hours for both days and the instructors would not let us get out to use the rest rooms or get water, so it was not a pleasant experience and this was from a 5 star padi shop. About 40 percent of the class had already dropped out.
 
I'm not a trained medical professional so I'm not even going to tell you what you can do regarding the ear drum thing. However, if you keep trying to descend with a block or ascend with a reverse block, you are definitely going to hurt your ear drum.

With regards to your confined water experience, I'm sorry that you had an unpleasant experience. The "5 star" designation essentially means they paid some money to PADI to use it for marketing and pushes PADI programs, but this would not be apparent to non-divers. They also probably did not let you out of the pool presumably because it was a large group and they were pressed from time to get through all the required skills. Sadly, this is not uncommon in the industry. If you ever get better and want to give scuba another shot, asking about what the teaching ratios will be is a good place to start when choosing a dive centre to train with.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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