dherbman:
Depends on what they did during the two years they were wet. Not really relevant to the topic of incidents amoung experienced divers, though. Are you saying it applies to the recent incidents?
Unless someone is diving very agressively for 2 years, maybe 5 days a week, I would not have confidence that they could possibly do enough to warrant the experience to undertake technical diving. I'm not aware personally of all the diving history of some of the recent deaths discussed here. Based on my experience in teaching technical diving and talking with other tech instructors, too many divers are undertaking tech training within the first year of diving, or before being really comfortable with gear. Perhaps I'm too old-fashioned in that I want true experience in my tech students.
Red flags to me, based on experience, include students who: (all true stories BTW)
- was dishonest on their medical history and another student later sees them taking an insulin injection (sent the student packing for lying)
- shows up for classroom with a computer-generated log of 50 dives in the last year and a "credit" of 100 dives over the last 30 years
- comes to an "orientation" dive (do this with students I've not seen in the water previously) with all brand-new gear and no clue how to use it
- took a chamber ride for an apparently undeserved hit on OW dives 3&4, and refused the echocardiogram for PFO recomended by hyperbaric doc
- thought the first dive after above chamber ride was conservative at 63 ft for 40 minutes, at night
- had undergone surgery for stomach-stapling 8 mos earlier and not disclosed that on medical form
- claimed to be advanced trimix and a technical DM, yet failed to make one dive of 5 attempts at a site that is a very easy dive, usually used for OW training; simply was unable to submerge on all 5 attempts
- on surface in adv. nitrox class at easy dive site with instructor, having difficulty managing gear, wanting to thumb a dive, but bullied into doing the dive by instructor
Particularly memorable was a class of 6 students - 2 PADI instructors with 1000+ to 3000+ dives apiece, 1 PADI DM with nearly maybe 800 dives and cave training, and 3 PADI DM's with 200 to 300 dives apiece. They all did very well, but there was a clear difference in the more experienced divers and they needed more time and practice on just about everything.
Do you see any of the recent accident victims detailed above? Do you see why I am convinced that there is no substitute for experience gained over time?
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