Mandatory Safety Stop for Training Dives

[scubamoo]

Our team has recently adopted a rather rigid standard for safety stops. We are required to conduct a 5 minute stop at 15 feet on all dives. Though the intent is good, I feel this is ludicrous for the following reasons.
1) There is no consideration for depth or dive time. A 20' dive is treated the same as a 100' dive.
2) I believe that a "staggered" stop pattern would be safer, and more efficient (i.e. shorter stops starting at deeper depths).

I guess what I need is some resources to prove #2 above, and some ideas for a better policy. What do you think? What policies do you have?

 

[bwerb]

Define "dive team"...I'm assuming this is a SAR team of some sort?

 

[Gary D.]

I have had this discussion several times. A few have been with people so rigid they just could not get a “15’ Safety Stop” out of their head.

There are more but here are two ways to look at it. If you are in “RESCUE” mode forget the safety stop. That 5 minutes is GOING to cut a big chunk out of the “GOLDEN HOUR” that nobody can afford.

Then with PSD work a lot of dives are shallower than 15’ but for long duration’s. It was not that long ago when I was getting yelled at by a snotty nose new diver over this. Like your policy he was dead set on a safety stop on ALL dived no matter how deep or how long. So I bring up a 10’ dive for 30 minutes and he said we HAVE to do a safety stop or risk decompression problems.

So I ask him if I need to find deeper water to do the safety stop and he said yes.

That policy has to have some leeway in it. Being that rigid could cause problems.

Gary D.

 

[bwerb]

Or I could stop being an idiot and learn to read the name of the forum I'm posting in instead of just hitting "find new posts"...embarassed here...

I would think that the key element would be to look at the purpose for the "safety stop" in terms of "spirit of the law" vs. "letter of the law". Far too often unfortunately the regulations seem to take on a life of their own. Perhaps you could discuss your take on it with the team and see if perhaps you could convince them that in this circumstance, the "rule" has some real logical problems and help to re-write the regulation with a more open interpretation.

 

[ScubaDadMiami]

Reading your post, I can interpret what you are talking about in more than one way. So, I will address at least one interpretation.

You mention that you are speaking of training dives. You mention 20 feet and 100 feet but not any specific times.

There is a point to the stop at 20 or 15 feet. The reason I am bringing up the idea of interpretation is that you do not mention whether this is for a "mandatory" decompression stop verus a "safety" decompression stop. So, if you are asking about making a stop at all, you need to learn to execute a stop so that, when you progress to other types of dives, you can add additional stops properly when such stops are mandatory. That's why you are doing a stop at 15 feet even on a 20 foot dive.

Another intepretation of your question could be: why to do the stop at 20 or 15 feet when you are doing a much deeper dive. You raise a valid point and you are on the right track. There are a hundred places where you can check on the procedures for conducting "deep stops." I would suggest running some searches on that as well as decompression models such as "VPM" and "RGBM" for a more in-depth look at the subject.

 

[Uncle Pug]

Mr. Moo.... once these folks have been DIRf'd you'll have an easier time getting them to do multiple stops.

Not all dinosaurs are extinct.

 

[bwerb]

So...for the 10 foot dives...do you bring a shovel?

 

[Gary D.]

Reading your post, I can interpret what you are talking about in more than one way. So, I will address at least one interpretation.

You mention that you are speaking of training dives. You mention 20 feet and 100 feet but not any specific times.

There is a point to the stop at 20 or 15 feet. The reason I am bringing up the idea of interpretation is that you do not mention whether this is for a "mandatory" decompression stop verus a "safety" decompression stop. So, if you are asking about making a stop at all, you need to learn to execute a stop so that, when you progress to other types of dives, you can add additional stops properly when such stops are mandatory. That's why you are doing a stop at 15 feet even on a 20 foot dive.

Another intepretation of your question could be: why to do the stop at 20 or 15 feet when you are doing a much deeper dive. You raise a valid point and you are on the right track. There are a hundred places where you can check on the procedures for conducting "deep stops." I would suggest running some searches on that as well as decompression models such as "VPM" and "RGBM" for a more in-depth look at the subject.

I didn't see where he said anything about training dives. There has to be a seperation between actual RESCUE and Recovery or Training dives. Recoveries and Training are more closely related.

Gary D.

 

[scubamoo]

Define "dive team"...I'm assuming this is a SAR team of some sort?

Large PS dive team. Is that vague enough for you? Approx. 24 divers, closely supervised...

Mr. Moo.... once these folks have been DIRf'd you'll have an easier time getting them to do multiple stops.

Not all dinosaurs are extinct.

Good point UP -- problem is, only 7 have been DIRF'd. We have some in influential positions adamantly opposed to DIR, and they seem to have the decision-makers' ears...

If we continue to do things the way we always did them, we'll only be as good as we always were...

 

[BlueDevil]

2) I believe that a "staggered" stop pattern would be safer, and more efficient (i.e. shorter stops starting at deeper depths).

I guess what I need is some resources to prove #2 above, and some ideas for a better policy. What do you think? What policies do you have?

There are numerous articles on the topic of deep stops.

http://www.divernet.com/news/stories/bends261003.shtml

http://www.scubadiving.com/training/your_body/one_minute_to_safer_diving/

http://www.bluebeyond.com.au/news/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1067420292&archive=

http://www.yorkshire-divers.co.uk/forums/archive/index.php/t-11100.html

For more technical info have a look at the following page. read the Richard Pyle article first, then the Bruce Wienke one. Although these articles are more aimed at the technical decompression diver the information can be applied to the recreational diver, since the underlying priciples are the same.

http://www.abysmal.com/web/library/techdive.html


Hope that will get you going...if anyone has any more links I too would be interested