Padi instructor complaint and suggestions

[dregg]

Hello everybody,
I am a buddy new to diving.I am here to hear your suggestions to become a diver and help to complain about my bad experience.i had a vacation to somewhere in Asia so i booked with a divecenter. When i arrived my divecenter it was already 5pm and getting dark. After a while i realized that they lost their instructor because he had another job deal with another diveshop near to them. Anyway they had an agreement and i was met with my padi instructor around 8pm. Btw this was an open water course. He brought me his pc after meeting and gave me three videos about open water course but suggested me to skip the confined water preview of all videos which were already 35mins in lenght i watched some videos no more than an hour in total lenghth while i was really tired because i travelled for 12 hours to diveshop. Again btw he gave me a question book which was already done with answers while watching videos. After finishing the videos and questions he came with a book and logbook.

So because he was already had a deal with other diveshop we agreed to meet next day around 1 pm. So he suggested me to swim snorkel or read the book until 1pm next day. The diveshop was located on water and has a 3m depth crystal clear water in front of it.

Next day the instructor arrive about 9am instead of 1pm so i was happy to see him without wasting time. He showed me how to prepare the equipments actually he was just preparing them for dive but anyway i got it cuz its not that hard. Suddenly a boat came and we get in. We travelled for 5 to 10 mins and we had a conversation about weights and buddy check during boat trip. We arrived to divesite but i wasnt informed anything about it yet even the depth of water. Because of course there were no pools but all other students were trained in front of diveshops. Anyway we were ready with equipments and instructor get into water after inflating me. Then he called me also...
I entered the water and instructor showed me how to breathe from regulator and alternate source but in surface not in water and clearing the mask by spiting in it and a big nothing else. As i already said i didnt know how deep we were about to dive. We dived into 12.8m of depth in 2 mins in my first dive. The only knowledge of mine was from videos and nothing about practical part because i was told to skip them already. The only thing in water was he showed me fishes while he was pulling me from my alternate source. Yes exactly, no training. He pulled me because he was diving for himself and i was slowing him down to see the marinelife. Of course i was just fighting with the water and it was my first time underwater so i felt uncomfortable with my ears and signed him. He signed why! But anyway we ascend to surface on 23rd minute of his 30min planned dive so he got angry. He discouraged me by saying that i cant swim(iam a good swimmer but underwater is different of course) and also make me sad by saying we had 7 more minutes so we must complete next time. Anyway we returned to diveshop then he left by saying lets meet around 4pm for training.so i had time to read the whole padi book and time to speak with other divers for suggestions. After reading the book i realized why he suggested me to skip confined water parts of videos because i will not get them.

So now this is 1st part of my story, 2nd part is more dangerous and i was near drown.i feel lucky to write you this story. I may have died...
I want to ask you if is it normal or not, because everyone is experienced here and got trained maybe for different many courses.

 

[Dive-aholic]

This is not how open water courses are supposed to be taught. I recommend you contact PADI Asia and file a complaint against this instructor. While a discover dive is allowed by standards, skipping parts of the course and not getting information on how to clear ears and buoyancy control before this is not. This person should not be teaching scuba.

 

[oly5050user]

So this instructor never reviewed your knowledge reviews (homework), never did quiz 1 thru 4 and no final exam, no confined water (pool or pool like conditions) skill work...you sure this clown is an instructor? Did he sign off your log book? If he did what is his instructor number.? Any PADI pro can look it up and verify if this guy is really an instructor.

 

[halocline]

So now this is 1st part of my story, 2nd part is more dangerous and i was near drown.i feel lucky to write you this story. I may have died...
I want to ask you if is it normal or not,

Oh sure, it's normal for OW students to nearly drown. What do you think?

I'm having a hard time believing a licensed certified instructor would act in a way that resulted in the events as you described them, but if so, that instructor's career should be over immediately.

 

[edwardjohnson]

Wow this is just shameful...It is not the only case though many agencies in Asia do this, and some don´t even bother to certify and give any training at all. Guests are strapped to BCDs and tanks and pulled down, navigated by "instructors" to see fishes and corals. You should get his name and certification number and report this to PADI...If anyone else has seen this please do the same so we can get rid of such behaviours.

Fortunately you didn´t get hurt...

 

[dregg]

So this instructor never reviewed your knowledge reviews (homework), never did quiz 1 thru 4 and no final exam, no confined water (pool or pool like conditions) skill work...you sure this clown is an instructor? Did he sign off your log book? If he did what is his instructor number.? Any PADI pro can look it up and verify if this guy is really an instructor.

No the story is what i told. The quiZbook was already answered but anyway i can do that. I never had any training in pool or pool like conditions just we went to a dive directly. I didnot got a cert and cancelled the course.i will write the 2nd part and rest of all but i m using my mobile and internet connection is slow here so i cannot write fast. And yes this guy is really an instructor.i checked his number from padi but i dont know if it is ethic to share here. If you say so i will share. I hope he can be stopped before someone dies or injured.i save my own but i will not skip the rest of peoples right to stay away from this instructor.

 

[TONY CHANEY]

Glad that you are with us to share this bad experience. This type of instruction or therefore lack of is not the normal way. This should be reported as soon as you can. You report it to the Diveshop and directly PADI. I would suggest that you don't post any names or numbers here. I hope that you got your money back and will seek out a better instructor. Diving really is great and I really get pissed off when some one has a bad experience such as yours.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

This is actually no surprise. I was PADI OW certified last June. Since I needed to be AOW certified for diving in a location I was planning, I did some 1:1 lessons with one of the instructors who was quite flaky (not responding to emails/calls on when/where we were meeting, and ultimately blew me off so I couldn't finish) as there just wasn't time (I was promised by the owner of the school that there was plenty of time).

When we did the deep water dive, the instructor gave me a tank that had a leaking valve. Now I will admit my own stupidity, because I should have refused to dive with that tank as I am solely responsible for my own safety. But I went along with it as he said "don't worry, you have plenty of air". While we did make it down to 100 feet, I did not have the air to do a safety stop. I lost complete confidence in the instructor and just went to the surface. Had a headache due to the CO2 buildup of breathing so hard (which of course doesn't help the air consumption). Why didn't I get air from the instructor? I was having a tough time, as the ankle weights I was supposed to be provided were forgotten, and really felt like I was on my own. I just didn't trust the instructor to do help me (which was overkill) and I just focused on getting to the surface.

Now I was doing the homework for the dives that we were to do, but he'd change them last minute, and never would go over with them. I was foolishly in a rush to get my AOW. Ultimately, I walked away and went to a LDS that did things right.

Every instructor with whom I've shared this story all find it unacceptable that the instructor was okay with me doing any dive with a leaking tank valve. There are some real clowns out there, and people, including myself, put too much trust in instructors due to their experience and certification. Since then, I dive with 120 cu ft steel tanks and a 19 cu ft pony bottle. While I follow protocol, I still try to be completely self sufficient. Once lost, lives cannot be found like car keys.

 

[dregg]

For the first part i asked if it is normal or not because i do not know what is normal or not. If somebody says that going to dive 12-13 m without any practical training even for buoyancy, balance,underwater adaptation etc. İs normal just after watching 3 videos, so i will be wrong to post here. i will try to explain the rest of my story as second part so if someone can quote them together i will be happy because i m trying to post with my tiny mobile.

After first dive i was in diveshop but still didnt know if he was doing thw right way or not so i read the whole padi book
fastly and suspected about my learning period. So as the instructor told me that i cannot swim or balance i focused on questioning other divers theoretically. They helped me too much by explaining and also book helped me too much in my 2nd part of story. Around 3-4 pm the instructor again arrived with a boat. This time i asked him if he can train me infront of dive shop as it was 3metre deep crystal clear water was already there and the conditions were look like to better than even a pool. But he replied like dont worry this site is not deep and it will be ok. I again believed him and hopped in the boat. This time i prepared my equipment myself he didnt even checked. During boat trip 5 to 10mins, i asked him if he can stay a little far away from me and not pull me from my air sources because i dont feel comfortable if in that way. And i asked him let me find my buoyancy myself if tou are not gonna teach. We arrived divesite again it was looking deeper than he told me. He inflated my bcd and asked me to get in water first. I replied that he must go first but he wasnt even equipped yet and told me not to be a girl and there are somegirl divers around and they can help if something happens. I was not scared but i asked that question because i didnt think that way is safe and safety must be first as i read from the book. But he forced me to go so i enyered water. I waited for a couple of mins for him to get ready. This time we didnt have a conversation on surface and deflated. In the water i tried to train myself and become in a good position in a few minutes and started swimming my buoyancy was ok i used some weights in my hand to avoid floating but he didnt teach anything all of that was my own effort because i really wanted to be a diver. But the water depth was again lets say over 9 meters. We were on bottom and again he was trying to shoq me fishes and corals which i was not interested. My only aim was to learn diving thats why i registered a course. We were on bottom and he was showing me fishes again and it was about 9th minute of our dive and i inhaled water from regulator or maybe it was loose in my mouth i really dont know why but i can say i inhaled water. I felt nervous and signed my instructor to go up. (I know a few of sign language yet at that time)but he replied me WHY. At that time following my next respiration i inhaled water again and that lead me to panic because he wasnt understanding me. With the second water came too much and i had laeyngospasm and couldnt breathe. So i started swimming to surface as quick as i can by trying to blow into my regulator but there more water was coming. He followed me and caught me like 2meters under surface and inflated my bcd. When i reached the surface i try to spit tje water that i can hold in my mouth and screamwd for help.

The first thing i heard was "i am not giving you certificate nor i am not helping you because you are freak" and then he went away to boat. After a few mins i calmed down and tried to reach the boat. He was still in water in front of boat but didnt helped me to get into boat. The boatmen helped me for weight and fins. I was still in shock so i asked him to take his fins but he replied me like he doesnt need my help and he has ability to get in without help. After he got in i asked only one question."why didnt you helped me"
The reply was i may drown him because of panic but it was not true because he was inflated and floating. At least he may come from my back to check because my stiuation was not clear. Then he started saying me he already helped and saved my life by inflating my bcd so i MUST THANK him. This was the weirdest thing that i heard in my life. As i am a student of med school i never heard a doctor saying to his patients things like this. I stayed in boat for a while he left for his diveshop then i went to my diveshop to report this.
Everything was fine from the side of diveshop they directly refunded me even i was not thinking about money or dive certificate yet. I was still thanking god about mylife. Then diveshop told me that im not the first student having problem with this instructor.he already did samething to agirl and they went 3 dives like me luckily nothing happened to her but instructor refuse to dive with her again because she cant swim(she is a good swimmer i saw with my eyes) but anyway instructor agreed to release her a scuba diver cert instead of open water in a condition that she will not file/complain about him to padi.
So my diveshop refunded and apologize me and i saved myself without any training luckily but the instructor is still there doing the same thing. my loss is my dream to become a diver didnt happen but anyway i can find a professional instructor later, my vacation is also ruined as i am staying in the middle of nowhere for 3 days without an aim.
I have the name license number of instructor, i have the name of the girl that he threatened and also diveshop is on myside because they had a big fightlike event after me.
What can i do now for other people? Because it may happen to my friend or someone else that i dont know may die because of this instructor.

---------- Post added March 3rd, 2014 at 12:40 PM ----------

Again sorry guys i dont have tapatalk and there are faults in my posts cuz i cant see what am i writing. Please forgive me for my faults.

 

[TONY CHANEY]

This a pure piece of S^&T instructor and you need to report him to PADI ASAP!