Instructors - Agencies Split from overweight

[MikeFerrara]

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This thread is a split from over weighting death in the forum Accidents and Incidents.
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If the parents read their OW manual, how can they NOT know diving is risky?

First of all, they are lead to believe that they and the child were taught to dive. That of courses there is all that "In the unlikely event that..." stuff.

People would wake up if the charter releases were more like tech diving release with DIE in capital letters and initial here with the understanding that you could die.

People beleive what they want until something bad happens.

 

[The Chairman]

First of all, they are lead to believe that they and the child were taught to dive.

Do you have evidence otherwise? There are other instructors who teach a quality class Mike. Most instructors do NOT fit your paradigm.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Do you have evidence otherwise? There are other instructors who teach a quality class Mike. Most instructors do NOT fit your paradigm.

Only what I've seen with my own eyes...like the small boy who was left on his own while his father tried to help his panicing mother and then got to see his mother pulled from the water screaming. That was a fun day, let me tell you. One that I will never forgety anyway...and I'll bet that little boy doesn't ever forget either.

I don't know what "most" instructors are. I only know about the instructors that I've seen and that's quite a few. That's where I got the paradigm from. That paradigm also meets the letter of the standards so there aren't any surprises.

 

[ItsBruce]

Mike makes an interesting point about bad instructors. ... So, for all the instructors on SB, I ask: Do you make sure your students really know their stuff or do you run them through the skills and sign them off?

Then, for Mike, though I'm pretty sure I know the answer already: What do you do?

And: Since you are consciencious and make sure your students know their stuff, what makes you think the rest of the world is significantly worse than you? Does that go for the other instructors here?

My point is, sure, there are some bad instructors out there, but I've rarely seen them, except at resort dives where there is a time limitation.

 

[The Chairman]

Only what I've seen with my own eyes...like the small boy who was left on his own while his father tried to help his panicing mother and then got to see his mother pulled from the water screaming.

So, the evidence is anecdotal at best. Did you witness the instruction given to this father/mother/child trio? Are you certain that the instructor failed?

Also, I don't teach students under 14. That's the lower cap accepted by the Boy Scouts and I am OK with that.

 

[SparticleBrane]

Mike makes an interesting point about bad instructors. ... So, for all the instructors on SB, I ask: Do you make sure your students really know their stuff or do you run them through the skills and sign them off?

The real question: do the instructors know their stuff?

Most that I've seen...don't.

 

[MikeFerrara]

So, the evidence is anecdotal at best. Did you witness the instruction given to this father/mother/child trio? Are you certain that the instructor failed?

No Pete, the instructor didn't fail. The skill level of the divers I see are consistant with what the standards require. I would say that the instructor did his/her job exactly as they were taught and as outlined by the standards.

This was at Gilboa. When we cam upon the trio they were crawling around on the a wing of the plane. Then it looked like they started wrestling or something. That's why we stayed. thenm it became apparent that they intended to ascend....holding onto eachother in the statue of liberty pose and kicking...only they were negative so they weren't going up and actually fell off the wing of the plane and descended another 10 ft or so into the bottom where they created a huge mushroom cloud.

When they finally got moving up and rose up out of the silt cloud, they never dumped and rocketed to the surface.

Also, I don't teach students under 14. That's the lower cap accepted by the Boy Scouts and I am OK with that.

That seems like a better age than 10 to me.

When I got back to the dock Mom's equipment was still sprawled out all over and Dad was hiking back and forth taking it up to the cars. The small boy came over and asked if we needed help wih out gear. I said "no" and thanked him. that's when he started telling me the story from his point of view. He was pretty upset.

My wife and I hovered there watching this whole thing trying to decide if we needed to step in and just who it was who needed help and followed them up as best we could without doing the moon shot ourselves. You have to understand, this sort of thing happens all the time. There's always someone who looks like they might be in trouble, crawling in the bottom or looking like they are trying to ascend when they are descending. What I didn't realize when I was watching was how young the third diver was.

So yep, it's all anecdotal. Do I need to do a nationwide, comprehensive illion dollar study to know that I don't want to be in that situation again? All you have to do is read the standards.

 

[MikeFerrara]

And: Since you are consciencious and make sure your students know their stuff, what makes you think the rest of the world is significantly worse than you? Does that go for the other instructors here?

My point is, sure, there are some bad instructors out there, but I've rarely seen them, except at resort dives where there is a time limitation.

It has nothing to do with "bad instructors". As far as I'm concerned a bad instructor is one who isn't following standards. I've only seen a very small handful of instructors commit standards violations.

These divers are trained by "good" instructors who are following standards to the letter. The instructor is doing what standards require and the student is meeting standards. the problem (if you want to consider it a problem), is that standards don't require that the srudent be abl;e to dive in order to be certified.

So, I'd say that all these instructors are consciencious and doing the best job they know how to do within the context of what they've been taught.

 

[MikeFerrara]

The real question: do the instructors know their stuff?

Most that I've seen...don't.

Define "their stuff". They know what they've been taught and they know the standards and most follow them. They can all do a pretty job of clearing a mask whie kneeling and their students can clear a mask while kneeling. However, none of them, including the instructor, has ever had to demonstrate that they can dive because the standards don't require that.

 

[stevetim]

I've followed this post here and there and haven't seen anyone post anything that resembles an experience a female diver friend of mine had.

My friend has been diving for a few years and loves it with all of her heart. She has enough dives under her belt to be able to diagnose a lot of her own weighting issues and any other small problems that may arise before descending for a dive.

However, on one particular day she entered the water, and for no apparent reason AT ALL, just started to panic and really stress her desire NOT to descend and do the planned dives. At the time we all thought this was the most irrational and crazy thing we had seen coming from a fellow diver whom LOVES the water and ocean.

After determining she was fine otherwise we continued our dives while she sat on the boat not being able to explain her actions and feeling horrible about the way she reacted to jumping in the water.

It turns out after a few weeks later, she did probably have a good reason that wasn't discernible at the time. And can you guess by now what that was?

Pregnancy. She was about 6 weeks pregnant at the time of her panic attack. So maybe the pregnant female body has a kind of reaction mechanism to doing something that could adversely affect a fetus?

I don't know, just food for thought before we bash a diver or her instructors that none of us really know personally.