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Recent Diving Death Might Have Been Prevented with Better Training
11/15/2007
by Capt. Darrick Lorenzen |
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Here is an article I found in an Australian publication. It was written by a diving instructor after an entry level student, diving in Australia, flooded his mask and rapidly ascended while holding his breath. The student died. I thought our subscribers might find this article interesting as a result of the recent traffic in the forums concerning the “sorry state of recreational dive training.”
The recent tragic death of an introductory scuba-diving student should be cause to re-examine the culture of present day scuba instruction. I believe the current managerial/marketing ethos that masquerades as a teaching system is designed to promote turn over and profit, not safe teaching outcomes.
Since my involvement in the dive industry (about 40 years) there has been a steady decline in the industry’s teaching standards where we now have whole flotillas of amateur, poorly prepared divers receiving diving certificates after inadequate short training courses especially noticeable in North Queensland.
The difference between what is normal practice today and was once common practice for teaching lies at the heart of the problem. In the past, teachers expected novice scuba divers to be competent snorkel divers. Many instructors would use their own standards (which were more rigorous than the minimum requirements to evaluate individual candidates. Most organizations required a 100-meter swim test in the open ocean, not a pool. This minimum requirement was to see that people were water competent. The course was at least 10 days in duration!
People were expected to be competent with their own personal equipment (mask, fins, snorkel.) Most ethical operations required you to be water competent if you walked in off the street to enroll in a course.
These days after four days of training you are entitled to hire equipment and dive in the open ocean! Of course the standards are there, but are laughable; frequently given mere lip service. In earlier times people would go to diving clubs to learn diving, meet the members and proceed from there with some sort of mentoring. Gradually as the market aspects and potential money making opportunities became evident, dive shops eventually took over almost all training.
Today’s instructors are often just dive shop employees and there is a tremendous pressure on the instructor to conform to the business requirements of the owner-manager. One of the consequences of tightened “standards of teaching” is that there are no longer independent instructors. Instructors are unable to teach unless employed by the owner of a business. The vast majority of instructors are literally serfs, employed to conform to the needs of the entrepreneur. Hence, education of divers has developed into a business activity rather than an educational exercise.
The teaching of diving requires repetition; especially under various environmental conditions, including current, high seas and low visibility. It should also require proper rescue techniques. None of this is required in todays dumbed down course! Apparently this is justified because the equipment is so much better and easy to use. This might be, but the student is still the same old model with emotional, psychological and fitness issues. If anything the average diver is less fit than they used to be and in many cases unable to even snorkel competently in ocean conditions.
The problem actually compounds. It has always been an axiom, since the beginning of diving, that one should never dive alone; one should always have a buddy. What good is a buddy if when things go wrong the buddy is not capable of looking after themselves, let alone able to help someone else? Given that the current course structure does not require rescue training choose your buddy carefully.
Scuba diving is challenging, even though it may appear deceptively easy. It is an intensely physical activity that can require unusually heavy exertions. It demands discipline and repetition. We need to change the current culture of teaching. It is recreationally a fun thing to do, but it demands discipline, time and more than just four dives!
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