Tyger
Registered
I was reading through the A&I "Lessons Learned" board, and I noticed there was a bit of a recurring theme with lessons from newer divers.
The basic outline of most of the stories is:
Follow up posts then extol the virtues of learning what it feels like to panic, and be able to control it, and how that is an important lessons to learn/will make them a better diver the next time something unexpected happens.
And while I can't disagree in those cases, the feeling I get from a lot of the responses is that "If you haven't had one of those near panic experiences when you're starting, you'll have more trouble when something unexpected happens later on".
My fiancee and I both got our OW certs recently, and both of us had something outside the lessons happen to us.
For her, it was on the first or second OW dive. I was flailing around a little, being more accustomed to traditional swimming than using fins. I managed to hook my arm around her regulator hose and yanked it out of her mouth. Easily a panic inducing situation for a diver their first time in the ocean to have their source of life violently deprived. Yet, she just grabbed it, put it back in, cleared it, and glared at me. (I don't recall if the last step was part of the training or not. )
For me it was after the final OW dive. I was volunteered by the instructor to help take down the attachments of the float to the bottom, where we had been doing the skills. (His assistant had already left with a few students who were getting too cold to do the post-skill tour.) While I was unscrewing one end from the sandy bottom, he swam off to unscrew the other end. Mind you, the vis was about 5 feet, so this was well out of my sight even though he was probably only a few kicks away, and in retrospect I should have paid more attention to the direction he went. But I didn't, I just unscrewed until it came out, briefly distracted by a couple cormorants joining me on the bottom. Once I had it out, I looked around and realized I had no idea where the instructor had gone. Again, easily a panic inducing moment for a new diver, being alone on the bottom with very low viz. But I didn't even think of panicking. I just took appraisal of the situation, remembered something I'd read in the PADI OW manual about rapping on the cylinder with a knife to get a buddy's attention. While the rental gear didn't have a knife, I realized this big metal pole in my hand would work better anyway. So I tapped a few times, he tapped a few times back in response, then a couple seconds later was back and ready to ascend.
Neither of us faced down panic in either incident. To believe the "lessons learned" threads about new divers, we're still not prepared to handle an emergency situation. I think we showed we can handle unexpected events quite level headed. However, I'm also not so vain and cocky to think I know even close to everything.
So I was wondering what other people thought. Is learning to face down panic an important lesson, or can some people just manage to always have a level head about it from the start?
The basic outline of most of the stories is:
- Diving as normal
- Something unexpected happens
- Panic ensues/tries to ensue
- New diver fights to control the panic
- Diver races to the surface/overcomes panic and slowly surfaces
Follow up posts then extol the virtues of learning what it feels like to panic, and be able to control it, and how that is an important lessons to learn/will make them a better diver the next time something unexpected happens.
And while I can't disagree in those cases, the feeling I get from a lot of the responses is that "If you haven't had one of those near panic experiences when you're starting, you'll have more trouble when something unexpected happens later on".
My fiancee and I both got our OW certs recently, and both of us had something outside the lessons happen to us.
For her, it was on the first or second OW dive. I was flailing around a little, being more accustomed to traditional swimming than using fins. I managed to hook my arm around her regulator hose and yanked it out of her mouth. Easily a panic inducing situation for a diver their first time in the ocean to have their source of life violently deprived. Yet, she just grabbed it, put it back in, cleared it, and glared at me. (I don't recall if the last step was part of the training or not. )
For me it was after the final OW dive. I was volunteered by the instructor to help take down the attachments of the float to the bottom, where we had been doing the skills. (His assistant had already left with a few students who were getting too cold to do the post-skill tour.) While I was unscrewing one end from the sandy bottom, he swam off to unscrew the other end. Mind you, the vis was about 5 feet, so this was well out of my sight even though he was probably only a few kicks away, and in retrospect I should have paid more attention to the direction he went. But I didn't, I just unscrewed until it came out, briefly distracted by a couple cormorants joining me on the bottom. Once I had it out, I looked around and realized I had no idea where the instructor had gone. Again, easily a panic inducing moment for a new diver, being alone on the bottom with very low viz. But I didn't even think of panicking. I just took appraisal of the situation, remembered something I'd read in the PADI OW manual about rapping on the cylinder with a knife to get a buddy's attention. While the rental gear didn't have a knife, I realized this big metal pole in my hand would work better anyway. So I tapped a few times, he tapped a few times back in response, then a couple seconds later was back and ready to ascend.
Neither of us faced down panic in either incident. To believe the "lessons learned" threads about new divers, we're still not prepared to handle an emergency situation. I think we showed we can handle unexpected events quite level headed. However, I'm also not so vain and cocky to think I know even close to everything.
So I was wondering what other people thought. Is learning to face down panic an important lesson, or can some people just manage to always have a level head about it from the start?