Scary OW certification weekend

[mr_adrian70]

The post starting this thread has me as mystified as pretty much everyone else on this thread. There is indeed anAlbuquerque SSI dive shop[/URL] that has a class schedule that coincides precisely with both the OP's introductory post for his confined water training and the open water dives at the Blue Hole. That part makes perfect sense.

As others have pointed out, there is a lot to be confused about after that. I hope mr_adran70 will take a few minutes to answer a couple of questions very clearly.

1. Can you repeat in as much detail as possible the situation with the air leaking from your spg? As some people have pointed out, because the opening in a high pressure hose is so very tiny, even if you were to cut the hose in half with a bolt cutter it will not lose air as quickly as you seem to be saying.

2. You spoke about "the skill where the instructor turns off your air, and you swim like crazy to the surface." Could you please describe this in much greater detail as well? Are you certain the instructor shuts off your air? Do you keep the regulator in your mouth as you ascend? When you say "swim like crazy," what does that mean--do you swim as fast as you possibly can?

1. Ok even when in the pool i was an air hog. We were in the water demostrating the 7 basic skills before we even went on the tour of the hole so by that time i probably had about 1000psi left in my tank. When i grabed my guage to check my depth, and air thats when the line was practically severed at the point where the hose connects to the SPG. It was no slow gentle leak. It was seriously spewing a great deal of air. It very quckly went into the red zone as i was sharing air with my instructor. So after we accended,made a 3 minute safety stop at 15ft got to the surface, and swam to the side where you can stand up, the guage was in fact reading zero psi left. i hope that adequetly adress that issue?

2. Several posters i saw questioned this i saw. I apologize for not using enough details in my description of this skill. I guess i should have been more descriptive in my narrative. Yes the intructor shuts off your air as you are holding the SPG. As you see your air approaching 500 psi you signal that you are out of air, take one last deep breath, keep the regulator in your mouth while slowly exhaling, and swim to the surface. You are then supposed to flair your body as you surface, and manually inflate your BC. I said swim like crazy cause you are out of air and you dont want to lolly gag. The intructor also rises with you and is ready to turn back on your air at anytime if you run into trouble. In the pool we practiced a similar skill where you slap your hands against your thighs run them up to your weights, release, and drop them then accend. In the hole we did this as well but stoped short of releasing, and droping the weights. Adequte answer to your question?

 

[ianr33]

. It was seriously spewing a great deal of air. It very quckly went into the red zone as i was sharing air with my instructor. So after we accended,made a 3 minute safety stop at 15ft got to the surface

You do realize safety stops are optional right? No one in their right mind (even an instructor!) would do one if going OOA was a possibility.

I still think you're trolling,but then I'm a cynic

Name the shop and Instructor and maybe I'll believe you.

 

[DukeAMO]

I am glad to hear that you appear to be ok. And I am glad that you came back to this thread to talk about what happened.

Seconded. I'm glad you got checked out, and glad you're feeling better.

Any guess what your fastest ascent rate was? (Or did you have a computer on that would tell you?)

Did they tell you how long to rest before trying to dive again?

Do you know why the instructor decided to let you finish your skills that day, instead of scheduling a make-up dive? Did you insist on finishing?

 

[mr_adrian70]

From reading this thread, I've come up with the following.

1. You should not, with ANY ANY ANY agency with any instructor worth his salt have been given a certification so easily, especially after your episode. If I was the instructor I would have either not certified you (and then fired myself for being a dumbass) or given you an extended private lesson.



2. That instructor is STUPID, he did everything some what right until the O2 was given, and he deserves to be immediately fired and revoked of his membership to instruct

3. Call DAN on your way to the hospital


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Maybe some mistakes were made by the instuctor by letting me continue but i appreciate how he went out of his way to help me complete it. He knew i was pursuing a life long time dream of mine, and just how important this was to me. That i had a diving trip to Little Corn Island all planned out for October, and how bummed out i would be if i couldnt dive. I think he was trying to be nice by letting me try to complete the rest of the skills i had left. he didnt want to deny me my dream! He really did everything he could to make the remaining skills as easy for me to perform as possible. He removed my weights, and loosened up by bc after he calmed me down, and i stopped hypervenilating for the second time. He even snorkeled the rest of the way around the hole with me. He made the buddy tows as easy as possible as well by gently kicking for 2 of the tows as i went, and only making me tow him a short distance. He also helped me complete the equipment removal at the surface skill by keeping me calm and breathing normaly. I really wanted to join the rest of the class in their graduation dive down to the bottom but he refused to let me go with them. I think he was an awesome intructor that i learned a great deal from. I also think he is an awesome man, who went out of his way to get me to do what needed to be done so i could realize my dream. I in no way wanted my narrative of my weekend to cast him in a negative light!

 

[doctormike]

Maybe some mistakes were made by the instuctor by letting me continue but i appreciate how he went out of his way to help me complete it. He knew i was pursuing a life long time dream of mine, and just how important this was to me. That i had a diving trip to Little Corn Island all planned out for October, and how bummed out i would be if i couldnt dive. I think he was trying to be nice by letting me try to complete the rest of the skills i had left. he didnt want to deny me my dream! He really did everything he could to make the remaining skills as easy for me to perform as possible. He removed my weights, and loosened up by bc after he calmed me down, and i stopped hypervenilating for the second time. He even snorkeled the rest of the way around the hole with me. He made the buddy tows as easy as possible as well by gently kicking for 2 of the tows as i went, and only making me tow him a short distance. He also helped me complete the equipment removal at the surface skill by keeping me calm and breathing normaly. I really wanted to join the rest of the class in their graduation dive down to the bottom but he refused to let me go with them. I think he was an awesome intructor that i learned a great deal from. I also think he is an awesome man, who went out of his way to get me to do what needed to be done so i could realize my dream. I in no way wanted my narrative of my weekend to cast him in a negative light!

What, you mean if you had to schedule another open water session and work on some skills, that would have denied you your dream of diving?

Do you mean he was a great instructor because he made it easier for you to complete skills that you couldn't otherwise do, by lowering his standards?

Do you mean that you feel well prepared to dive in the open ocean off of a remote island, on your own, now that he signed your card, despite the fact that he didn't think that you were even capable of going on the "graduation dive" with the rest of the class?

Sorry, but this last post doesn't do a lot to support your story....

 

[Islandheart]

All I can say is "oh Lordy Lordy", some of you will understand and some will not !

 

[mr_adrian70]

I grab my instructors attention, and show him what was happening. He tried to fix it underwater but was unable to. I was quickly losing all my air! My SPG showed i had about 500 psi left. Instructor signaled everyone to start going up. I ended up having to air share with my instructor, and we went up to the surface after making a safety stop. When we got back up my air tank was completely dry.


OP,

You said the instructor tried to fix the problem but was not able to. Did he turn your air off to stop the bubbles from the leak?

This would explain how your tank appeared to be empty at the surface. If he turned your air off and the leak allowed the pressure to bleed off of the hose with your gauge to read 0 psi.

No the air was not turned off cause i remember still seeing a bunch of bubbles coming out of it during the 3 minute safety stop. There really wasnt alot of air left in the tank after performing the 7 skills and starting the tour so once the leak started it really didnt have alot left to lose. Once we got back to our table i looked at what was left, and was in fact reading 0psi left.

---------- Post added ----------

You do realize safety stops are optional right? No one in their right mind (even an instructor!) would do one if going OOA was a possibility.

I still think you're trolling,but then I'm a cynic

Name the shop and Instructor and maybe I'll believe you.

I was sharing air. There really was no crisis. I was breathing comfortably on his regulator, and my instructor had plenty of air so why not make a safety stop? Even in practice we all had a tendency when air sharing to rush to the surface, but were always told to slow down. You both are breathing fine sharing air.Theres no need to rush to surface. Im not going to name shops or instructors, just so you will believe me. If you want to call me a troll then so be it. you have a right to your opinion. I havent lied or embellished my story. Though maybe im guilty of being dramatic in my story telling. Im not some lonely person that really needs a connection to other people so i make crap up to get reactions. You can think what you want. I wrote my story to help me in some way process what happened, and i just decided to share it with people on this board, since it does involve scuba diving.

 

[Chutton47]

As a medical professional this does not make to much sense. Bleeding in the lungs is caused by just a few things..infection, cancer, TB, etc. PE is not very likely based on the symptoms and the resolution of them so quickly. If exertion caused it than it should happen any time you ran or such. It sounds like you had a panic attack hyperventilated causing a shift in pH that lead to bronchospasms. The coughing caused a little irritation in the lungs with a little bleeding.

 

[requin02]

Maybe some mistakes were made by the instuctor by letting me continue !

This is not some mistake, it is THE mistake and i still can not believe it. With a dive trip planed in October what is that nonsense about denying your dream? We are in june ffs. As for certification goes, remember the training is designed to help you be safe (and ur buddy) so accomodative, easier training skills is not the way to go just the get the cert asap.
i wanted to date Nathalie Portman but she denied my dream by getting married.

requin

 

[mr_adrian70]

Seconded. I'm glad you got checked out, and glad you're feeling better.

Any guess what your fastest ascent rate was? (Or did you have a computer on that would tell you?)

Did they tell you how long to rest before trying to dive again?

Do you know why the instructor decided to let you finish your skills that day, instead of scheduling a make-up dive? Did you insist on finishing?

He let me due to my insisting that i was feeling better, and there was no more actual dives needed to get certified. It was all surface work. I thought i could do it! I tried to be the big tuff guy. I was feeling better until i started snorkeling and got about 10 ft out. Then i realized i made a mistake. I thought i was better and over it. But mentally and physically i was still damaged from what happened. Having my face in the water, and being able to see into the depth were my traumatic experience happened triggered something in my sub conscience that i couldnt control. Physically i thought i was feeling better when i was at rest sucking on O2 but as soon as i started exerting myself again my lungs felt raw, and unable to function properly. So i started hypervenilating again. When i couldnt breathe the panic came back even worse the second time. One of the hardest things ive ever had to do physically, and mentally was finishing those skills at the surface after what happened to me below.

---------- Post added ----------

This is not some mistake, it is THE mistake and i still can not believe it. With a dive trip planed in October what is that nonsense about denying your dream? We are in june ffs. As for certification goes, remember the training is designed to help you be safe (and ur buddy) so accomodative, easier training skills is not the way to go just the get the cert asap.
i wanted to date Nathalie Portman but she denied my dream by getting married.

requin

He did tell me that he was going to go ahead and certify me but i really did need to come back, and dive the hole again several more times and pratice my skills, and gain more confidence before going on my trip to Nicaragua in October, and diving in the ocean. They have dive outings to the hole every month that i do plan on going to atleast a couple of times before i leave despite the expense of renting equipment, and hotel rooms. I really want to go back to the hole and have fun instead of truama! I said maybe he didnt want to deny me my dream of diving just to defend him cause i think hes a great guy, and im grateful to him. I can try and defend the intructors choice to let me continue, but honestly i dont know why he made the choice he did.