I have a question for all of you instructors here. Ive taught for 6 years now. Our school requires every student to go through at least 6 pool sessions. We do not run what I like to call the "wham bam thank you mam" OW certification course (which is what I went through years ago) that is completed in two weekends with only one pool session. Our classes include 6-8 group pool sessions, followed by 1-2 private sessions with your instructor BEFORE going into open water. This is one of the underlying problems in this industry, very few stores/instructors take the time to REALLY make sure the students are comfortable in the water before certifying them. A mere satisfactory completion of skills once or twice is not sufficient, thus leaving certified divers scared of going out on their own, and unprepared for what really can happen underwater
That being said, there have certainly been issues with students that were absolutely comfortable and competent with their skills in the 10 foot deep pool, that flipped out when the cold salt water rushed on their face during mask skills while in 30 feet of water. In such situations like that, which do happen,
That's what you and others say, I take you at your word, but in over four decades of teaching I've never seen it occur. Why?
the instructors job is to react and handle the situation, taking control, etc... but to say that if such an event occurs that the instructor clearly didnt do a good job before heading into the open water is completely false.
I've always felt that the best instructors eliminate such problem by adequate preparation of the student and heading off problems before they occur. That's the reason I do not teach quickie classes, or even more complete classes like you do. I teach classes with a minimum of 12 instructional pool sessions and 12 practice pool sessions, all of which are done if full free diving or scuba gear (wetsuit, mitts, weightbelt, etc.) as appropriate.
Pool is pool...ocean is ocean. People react differently when they get out into the open environment, and you can only do so much to prep students for that. That is why the pool is called a "ocean simulator'...but it is still limited.
I could not agree more, that is one of the major reasons that we teach in full gear, the only transition is to salt water and we spend a goodly amount of time making that transition (two Saturdays in fact) in free diving mode prior to taking scuba into the open water. Perhaps that is why I don't have these sorts of problems (knock on wood), but perhaps I'm just unusually lucky.
Current standards in my mind are a complete joke. The RSTC allows an instructor to take up to 8 OW students down WITHOUT an assistant. I dont care HOW good of an instructor you are, you cannot be there for every possible scenario and watch 8 students on your own and work on them with skills! My classes are limited to 4 without an assistant...and the moment I see problematic students in a pool session, I immediately bring in an assistant before heading to Open Water as to make sure everyone is safe.
I could not agree more, by myself I rarely teach more than two students, I prefer to teach four with another instructor as my buddy.
::::Sigh:::: Are we really back to this?
So many of us have tried to speak to Thalassamania's insistence that if ANYTHING (barring an act of God, e.g. meteorite) goes wrong on a dive with an instructor , then it's the instructor's fault...somehow, some way.
Why must you continue to misrepresent my position?
It's an indefensible position...but he will defend it to the end.
In your opinion. Frankly I think I've done a pretty good job of making my case.
I say, give it up. He will continue to hold his "blame the instructor for everything" mentality, regardless of how illogical it is...regardless of how many people, including instructors, come in here to explain to him the lack of logic behind it. Some people simply can't be swayed. It's kinda like religion. Some people's beliefs are simply unshakable, despite the total lack of logic or reality behind them.
Here's the logic, real simple:
- I have never had a student bolt on me.
- I have never known anyone else teaching a Scripps Model course that ever had a student bolt on them.
- Within programs that meet the Scripps Model Standards there has never been a training fatality, in over 50 years of such programs.
That's not to say that everyone must go to the extreme that we do, but it does logically follow that something that we are doing is different, since the result is different. It may be extra time, it may be training in full gear, it may be the extensive snorkeling training prior to scuba, it may be a combination of those items and others that are not delineated, but we have proven that it is possible to have a virtually no-defect training program and I do not think it unreasonable for those of us who have figured out to do that to comment on the on the possible failings of those who have not. In fact, who better to comment? Would you rather take your cue from those who've lost a student or two? They might be able to better point what went wrong!
I am glad that you see the difficulty facing the average AOW Instructor. Practically speaking, Instructors who working in the recreational industry have to "accept" the students, who are certified divers, who come to us for training. To paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, we have to train the divers we have, not the divers we wished we had.
I'd agree with you, except for the fact that I, and my colleagues, somehow manage to train the divers that we have so that they become the divers we wish them to be. Every instructor, ultimately, has that option if they want to take it, they just can't do it at most of your local dive shops.
But if a diver wants to get training, then we should provide it. They're certified divers and they want to dive. It's positively good that they get an Instructor to teach them to be better divers.
They won't be Scripps100 divers, but they will be better.
I agree, it's a difficult situation, but unless you are truly part of the solution you are part of this problem, but the odds are with you and the chance that something like this will happen to you is on the order (I'm told) of somewhere between one in 10
5 and one in 10
5. Perhaps some are comfortable with such a low level of carnage ... I'm not.
Through this thread we have heard what are probably accurate facts as to what happened. We may not know why it happened, but we have a good idea of the actual data: A diver ascended at a rate that was greater than what is considered "safe;" the diver died. I think it is safe to conclude that the mechanism of death was a lung expansion injury. We also know an instructor was present and made at least some effort to slow the diver's ascent.
Yes.
Question: Is there anyone here who thinks there would have been a different outcome had the instructor not been present, i.e. the diver was just out doing a dive with a dive buddy or was diving solo?
I'll stipulate, for the sake of the discussion, that the diver was headed for a problem regardless of the situation.
Next question: Is there anyone here who believes an instructor is the guarantor of a diver's safety during the course of instruction?
Yes, I do happen to believe that barring either some external catastrophe or some unknown medical condition, that an instructor has a duty to "bring 'em back alive." But ultimately neither your opinion on the subject, or mine, have any real standing ... that's an issue that is up to the courts, on a case-by-case basis.
Situational Awareness'
This part of the discussion makes my head hurt. And trying to articulate a coherent position myself makes it hurt even more.
Everyone seems to agree that a diver is responsible for his or her own self.
I don't think that everyone agrees with that. There are some vociferous proponents of that view here on ScubaBoard, but I suspect that push come to shove most of the agencies would have to agree that one of an instructor's first duties (barring above) would be to not have a student be injured or die. Also, every diving supervisor, diving officer, diving medical officer, in the world, in fact, is responsible for the divers that he or she supervises, so I say: No! Many of the leading authorities on diving would disagree wholeheartedly with that statement.
Everyone seems to agree that when one goes to a resort and goes on a dive with a DM who is acting as a dive guide or shepherd, one should not expect the DM to guarantee their safety or well-being. (Each diver is responsible for himself or herself.)
The courts have often found otherwise. e.g., the Tancredi (sp?) case in Hawaii (or the insurance companies have often settled in such cases).
I think that everyone would agree that if one followed the chain of causation back far enough, one could say that someone could have done something that would have prevented the injury that occurs at the end of the chain. For example, if the football coach in high school had been a better coach, I would have taken up football instead of scuba and would not have been injured in a scuba accident -- so it is the football coach's fault I got the bends. Or, if a diver dies because a meteorite falls from the sky into the water where the diver is practicing a skill with an instructor, one might blame the instructor for not having watched the sky and done the necessary math to have known where the meteorite would strike.
I also think that nearly everyone would agree that while you can follow the chain, there is some reasonable spot at which to cut it off. My blame of the football coach is not reasonable.
That's the logical fallacy of
reductum ad
absurdum which wastes all our time and only serves to obfuscate.
So the question is what is: What is the reasonable point to cut the chain?
That's a more reasonable question, I'd be inclined, in most cases, to place the responsibility on the instructor who is on the scene, either because they are in direct supervision or because they have determined (have a duty to have determined) that the student was, in all ways, prepared for indirect supervision. While standards may permit this or that, in these situations they can be only viewed as guidelines and are not carte blanche.
In my own mind, when a student is practicing a skill under the instructor's immediate supervision, i.e. 2 feet away with "eyes on," and bolts when something goes wrong, I tend to say the instructor was inattentive and may not have provided an adequate foundation for the skill. (I think I cut the chain at whether a prior instructor adequately taught the skill.)
If the instructor is directly supervising a student performing a skill, with the remainder of the class kneeling on the bottom and waiting their turn, and one of those students bolts, I have trouble faulting the instructor. Sure, one might say the instructor should have either anticipated the bolt or failed to adequately screen the students to eliminate those who might bolt, but that is too far away on the chain for my taste.
... Saying all this has not made my head hurt any less ... isn't that a symptom of DCS?
That's where we differ ... that's what makes a seahorse race.
