padi ow, why is CESA recommended to 9m?

[beanojones]

As above, i know a few people who have ended up in the pot from teaching it. It's not a safe skill for the students or the instructor in general and as i've said above, don't believe its needed at all OR solves any problem. I teach all mine from 6.0m. Never deeper - i can't justify it on a risk assessment. An ex-manager of mine said he'd fire anyone teaching it from less than 6m and deeper than 6.1m and i agree with his view entirely.

I agree with eveything you said, and I will add this tidbit that I mentioned back then: CESA has killed instructor candidates during the IE, and in the real world it has killed instructors and students.

As the only skill with a page and half "follow this exactly" in the instructor manual, PADI recognizes its dangerous nature. The even used to do what was called a "Ascent workshop" during the IEs to try and deal with some of it dangerousness to the instructor and students

That said, it is a dead simple skill that people should have no hesitation about being able to do whether or not it is actually ever needed to do it because it is there to rid divers of holding their breath when out of air, which is a basic, instinctual, life-threatening response to being "Out Of Air". My go to example of why it is important is this sort of scenario: everyone is facing the boat waiting to leave the hang bar (15 ft/5m), a sudden gear failure causes a diver to be OOA, with all the potential helpers on the boat or facing away. With CESA, no problem. Without being able to respond with a casual CESA, life threatening situation. (This is a real world situation, that happened to one of my current instructor friends on their first boat dive after certification.)

---------- Post added June 28th, 2014 at 05:16 PM ----------

What if you have an overhead (either a wreck/cave or a decompression obligation)? I appreciate this is the basic scuba discussion forum, and 'recreational' divers shouldn't be in that situation, but technical divers have developed skills and equipment configurations that ensure they always have an alternate gas source.

I love telling OW students that the difference between tech diving (which I describe as any overhead environment, virtual or not) and recreational diving is that tech diving the response to any problem including OOA is never ascent. When they wrap their head around that one, they are again understanding why they are not ready for tech diving. Without that understanding just like "arbitrary" depth limits, restriction to tech activities is just some arbitrary authority saying "no you can't". The next question they ask is always what does "a tech diver do if they are out of air?".

I do not see a reason why recreational divers shouldn't have a redundant gas source, be it on their person or their buddy. It is incredibly important to tell students to always exhale on an OOG ascent, but I do not see the need to practice it. If you are ever in the situation you need to do a CESA, you have really made a bollocks of things big time!
.

One, not practicing something that involves ridding a student of an instinctual response that would kill them if they did it matters. Really more than anything else done in the OW course.

Not being able to handle being OOA when alone in 15-20 feet of water is kind of a basic difference between certified divers and non-certified divers. I am perfectly comfortable denying certification to any student who cannot manage it. I am also perfectly comfortable guinding intro divers to 15-30 feet who would respond to being OOA badly (they would also panic if their mask came off.)

Let's not confuse what a basic certified diver should be able to do, what a non-vertified diver should be able to do, and how a tech diver should respond.

(I think more instructors need to do the industry standard "intro dive" so they stop turning out certified divers who have basically done four intro dives. Part of why I am confortable not issuing certifications to people even they have paid for OW classes is because I see that they got their money's worth from the dives themselves. They just failed to earn the OW rating.)

 

[ballastbelly]

you guys are right, the book doesnt say inflate bcd during cesa, but inflate on the surface after cesa, my bad

my book is 2.11 & i am reading it in anticipation of my OW class

i found part of my answer in this post:

For PADI to recommend the CESA from any deeper would most likely have the effect of a) divers ascending too quickly to achieve the ascent on a single breath, b) exhaling too quickly resulting in a breath hold towards the end of the ascent

so depending on the type of ahhhh you make you could either exhale too little, or worse too much, & end up running out of air and having to breath hold in the last few deadly meters. but then i read this, which implies you will have all the air you need:

Next, being able to exhale for a length of time is quite different if you are ascending. Expanding air will multiply your ability to exhale. You can exhale all the way from 100 feet in a controlled ascent because of that.

cesa from 30m at 60fpm will take around 2 minutes. i can do 2 minutes breathholding freediving amply if relaxed & with a full lung. but not bubbling ahhhh.

possibly if i was calm enough i could scavenge a last breath of stale air from my bcd? has this method ever been documented as used in an escape before?

thx

 

[beanojones]

esa from 30m at 60fpm will take around 2 minutes. i can do 2 minutes breathholding freediving amply if relaxed & with a full lung. but not bubbling ahhhh.

possibly if i was calm enough i could scavenge a last breath of stale air from my bcd? has this method ever been documented as used in an escape before?

First don't worry about it, you'll get taught it.

Second, "Out of Air" is not what you think it is.

---------- Post added June 28th, 2014 at 05:24 PM ----------

First of all, remember that you must exhale all the way from whatever depth you are diving.

Next, being able to exhale for a length of time is quite different if you are ascending. Expanding air will multiply your ability to exhale. You can exhale all the way from 100 feet in a controlled ascent because of that.

Finally, remember that your cylinder is not actually out of air. It just does not have enough air to be able to deliver it through the regulator at that depth. As you get shallower, you will be able to inhale.

This, this, a thousand time this. "Out of Air" means cannot use the air left in the tank at that depth. (Which is why depsite the fact that it's "wrong" I never correct a student who takes another sip on the way up during CESA practice: because that's what they are supposed to do.)"

 

[Mustard Dave]

possibly if i was calm enough i could scavenge a last breath of stale air from my bcd? has this method ever been documented as used in an escape before?

thx

Yes! This bloke got a nasty lung infection: Think twice before breathing off a bag - Divernet

 

[Tortuga68]

If a diver thinks that they have to be able to ascend via CESA comfortably from whatever depth they are at, they will most definitely think twice about breaking recommended depth limits, because there is a particular 'required' skill they themselves understand they lack.)

That's one way of looking at it; another is that if people think they can CESA from depths greater than 9m then they won't worry so much about going OOG

Not to rehash other threads, but you're the only person I know of that regularly has divers with them who go OOG and thinks that CESA is a viable solution

 

[iztok]

His manual should not be from 09.

09 is still valid for now :/ new students shouldn't have it but sometimes you have a student that started in 09 and now continues. highly unlikely but I have one.

---------- Post added June 28th, 2014 at 10:46 PM ----------

(Which is why depsite the fact that it's "wrong" I never correct a student who takes another sip on the way up during CESA practice: because that's what they are supposed to do.)"

Wrong as it is violation of PADI standards.

 

[redacted]

That's one way of looking at it; another is that if people think they can CESA from depths greater than 9m then they won't worry so much about going OOG

Not to rehash other threads, but you're the only person I know of that regularly has divers with them who go OOG and thinks that CESA is a viable solution

Would that be the same logic used to outlaw the use of seat belts and air bags in automobiles?

 

[TSandM]

Ballastbelly, this is one skill you really can't envision until you do it. You can't hold your breath for two minutes, but you can exhale for two minutes IF the gas in your lungs is steadily expanding. I practiced the CESA in the pool and always had difficulty making the distance, but when I did it from 45 feet in my OW class, it was dead easy; in fact, at some point in the ascent I had to exhale HARDER because I could feel my lungs filling up.

I agree with beano to the extent that this is a skill everyone needs to know is a) possible and b) not that hard to do. However, good gas planning, good buddy skills, good situational awareness, and a respectful attitude toward the dive will make the need to USE the skill vanishingly rare.

 

[Goodtime Adventures]

First of all, remember that you must exhale all the way from whatever depth you are diving.

Next, being able to exhale for a length of time is quite different if you are ascending. Expanding air will multiply your ability to exhale. You can exhale all the way from 100 feet in a controlled ascent because of that.

Finally, remember that your cylinder is not actually out of air. It just does not have enough air to be able to deliver it through the regulator at that depth. As you get shallower, you will be able to inhale.

Yes, I completely agree, and this is how most instructors add value and real life practical application when explaining and teaching the CESA to students. But the fact remains that PADI standards state the ascent must be taught and practiced from 9 metres max on a single exhalation, on the basis that they are completely out of air. We can tell our students that in a real life scenario they would be able to exhale for longer (which generally becomes clear when switching from practicing it horizontally/diagonally in confined to doing it as a practiced emergency ascent on the open water dives), and that more air would be available to them at shallower depths. So I'm not debating any of those points, just saying that perhaps PADI set the recommendation and standards for diver training are set at 9metres to avoid encouraging novice divers - who perhaps have not yet mastered their regular ascent rate technique as it is - from ascending to quickly/and or holding their breath on ascent on their first few dives. As a training agency, there's probably a certain amount of conservatism employed from a legal perspective too of course. It just wouldn't do to tell people that they're capable of more, and end up with complaints or increased incident rates from divers who are encouraged to push their limits too soon

 

[Tortuga68]

Would that be the same logic used to outlaw the use of seat belts and air bags in automobiles?

I'm somewhat disturbed that this was the best analogy you could come up with.

Are you from the same America where cars have to be fitted with seatbelts but people didn't used to have to wear them? Should airline passengers have to practice jumping out of a plane? Is beanojones a pilot?