First open water dive: ran out of air. WTH?

[OldNSalty]

Running out of air on a training dive = not acceptable.
I'm not an instructor but IMO he shouldn't be setting your stuff up beyond the very first time when he demonstrates. Correcting it and checking it, yes but you should be responsible for all that including checking your air before you go in.
If you can't see, fix it. I have worn contacts for years while diving, lost one once but they are disposable anyway.
I would file a report. I am not an alarmist by nature but you could have been a point of discussion in the accident forum, the next student might be.

 

[kelemvor]

Not that you shouldn't report him, but personally I wouldn't do it YET. Not unless you're ready to walk away from the money you paid him for certification.

Reporting him is definitely the safest action to take. No question about that.

Personally, I think scuba class fees are pretty steep and I'd be super hesitant to walk away from the money I paid. It's not like the agency is going to talk another instructor into training you for free.

 

[Neilwood]

Taking OW students into ANY overhead environment is an absolute standards violation.

I had a feeling that might be the case but not being an instructor I wasn't sure of the exact standard.

I did a swim through on my OW but it was a break in a wall between the main section and a small island - at no point (between 10m deep at the base and the surface) was it closed overhead and it was literally about 18 inches long!

 

[doctormike]

Running out of air on a [-]training[/-] dive = not acceptable.

Preach it, brother..!

 

[RJP]

Not that you shouldn't report him, but personally I wouldn't do it YET. Not unless you're ready to walk away from the money you paid him for certification.

Sounds like he'd do well to RUN away from that money...

 

[Neilwood]

Not that you shouldn't report him, but personally I wouldn't do it YET. Not unless you're ready to walk away from the money you paid him for certification.

Reporting him is definitely the safest action to take. No question about that.

Personally, I think scuba class fees are pretty steep and I'd be super hesitant to walk away from the money I paid. It's not like the agency is going to talk another instructor into training you for free.

For a standards breach, the shop should be more than willing to replace the instructor with another (if possible). If not, they should be returning the money as the OP has paid for a course taught to a set of official standards and that does not appear to be what is being given.

 

[Finding Thomas Paine]

Sounds like he needs to RUN away from that money...

I'm going to meet with him first. But I'll say this - if I decide to switch shops/instructors (he owns the shop) and/or report him, he best be very happy to refund the money. Because I would be very clear about that. My bet is he would rush to do so. I am hoping it doesn't come to that - but I want to have a face to face discussion about what happened first and then see how I feel.

Regardless, it's a huge lesson learned for me about personal safety responsibility. I feel quite sheepish about it but the bottom line is I was out of my element and never questioned him or the situation. He was the sensei and I the student. Naive or not, it's how I felt as I bet many beginners do.

 

[Neilwood]

I'm going to meet with him first. But I'll say this - if I decide to switch shops/instructors (he owns the shop) and/or report him, he best be very happy to refund the money. Because I would be very clear about that. My bet is he would rush to do so. I am hoping it doesn't come to that - but I want to have a face to face discussion about what happened first and then see how I feel.

Regardless, it's a huge lesson learned for me about personal safety responsibility. I feel quite sheepish about it but the bottom line is I was out of my element and never questioned him or the situation. He was the sensei and I the student. Naive or not, it's how I felt as I bet many beginners do.

As mentioned earlier - have a read of Jim's sticky. It is a good reminder of who is really in charge of safety.

 

[Gareth J]

Regardless, it's a huge lesson learned for me about personal safety responsibility. I feel quite sheepish about it but the bottom line is I was out of my element and never questioned him or the situation. He was the sensei and I the student. Naive or not, it's how I felt as I bet many beginners do.

Well done for handling the situation as well as you did.

As others have said, no one should ever "run out of air" (breath a cylinder dry), especially on a training dive. That WAS the instructors responsibility, yes you have a responsibility to monitor the air, but as an uncertified diver on a training dive the instructor is directly responsible for your safety, primary to this is ensure you have enough gas at all times.

You raise a good point above. Through out your training you will be told you are responsible for your safety, checking AIR etc. That if you are uncomfortable or concerned then aborting a dive is your prerogative \ responsibility. In the next sentence instructors say trust me, then effectively push the limits of your comfort zone (mask clearing exercises etc).
The instructor leads, you follow.
When you gain your certification, instantly you now need to break the habit of following your buddies lead. If you are not happy, worried, outside your comfort zone, then STOP. Don't get in the water until your concerns are resolved. If you are in the water be prepared and willing to abort the dive. A new diver aborting a dive is a POSITIVE (unless it happens every dive), it shows acceptance of their responsibility in the buddy pair.
Things can go wrong very quickly underwater, little issues escalate, it is better being on the surface, being disappointed that you missed/ cut short the dive, than being underwater and wishing you where on the surface as things go from bad to worse.

Gareth

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Regardless, it's a huge lesson learned for me about personal safety responsibility. I feel quite sheepish about it but the bottom line is I was out of my element and never questioned him or the situation. He was the sensei and I the student. Naive or not, it's how I felt as I bet many beginners do.

Exactly. Don't beat yourself up about it. New divers, myself included when I started out, considered instructors to be experts and know best, even if it contradicted what we were trained in our OW courses. I got myself into a bad situation where I should have known better, as my safety is my personal responsibility. After getting OW certified, I started on my AOW (should have gotten in more fun dives first), I did my first deep dive with an instructor where an O-ring had to be replaced on the tank that was given to me, as it was leaking. "Oh, you'll be fine. You have plenty of air." Well at 100 feet, I was about 1000 psi. At that point, I realized my mistake and I was pissed at myself and the instructor. I made the decision to not ask to share air and head to the surface. I felt that doing it alone was the better course of action. No safety stop, exceeding the 1 ft / second (which btw, is slower than you think, try to ascend super slowly, more slowly as you reach the surface), all the things one shouldn't be doing on a deep dive. Now it was a bounce dive, so I wasn't going to need to head off to a chamber (I did have a headache from overbreathing my reg with the CO2 buildup).

Now for those who want to respond and say "yes, you screwed up, you were certified, you should have known better, blah, blah, blah", please go pound sand for a bit. I've already heard it.

To the OP, all I can say, trust no one for your own safety. There are too many clowns that will put you at risk. A good instructor will insist that all of your equipment is in perfect order, ask your air pressure routinely, have a clear dive plan, maybe even teaches you to do bubble checks (where your buddy turns his/her back to you and you check for any leaks and he/she does the same for you).

I've never had any issues since with air. I dive with a 30 cu ft pony bottle. I took a 19 cu ft pony bottle with me to Greece as I did some diving there while island hopping. But I want that secondary air source regardless, as I'm a photographer, and photographers essentially dive solo.

I'd suggest getting a refund and starting over. This time, ask questions about how the class is run. Again, don't beat yourself up. So many of us make mistakes, and few of us are willing to admit it publicly on a web forum. I respect you for that fact that you are willing to share this.

Kosta

PS. Watch out for the normalization of deviance, the "Oh, I've been doing it this way for x amount of time and nothing has happened."