Posted by Tribes on April 22, 2003 at 10:09:50:
Near Miss
I was talking to a customer the other day. She had just finished her entry level class at Catalina (she was taking a class at the evil empire, on the dive boat Island Time). She was telling me about one of her dives. Her and buddy were told to descend down the anchor line and wait there. As she was descending she looked up to see her buddy ascending at a rapid rate. She then hit the bottom. Looking around she saw nobody was there (no instructor no DM no buddy). She looked at her gauge and found that she was at 90 ft.
She was telling me what went through her mind (she thought she was going to die). Should she drop her weights, she had tried to kick up but wasn’t getting anywhere. Should she put air in her BC (the instructor had told her to let all her air out of her BC before she was to ascend). Where was the instructor, where was the DM, where was her buddy?
She finally put some air in her BC and was able to kick up.
Another near miss.
A number of years ago, on the dive boat Wild Wave. A class from one of the local college was at Catalina. The instructor told his class to go down the anchor line and wait on the bottom. When the instructor finally got into the water he found his class at the bottom of the anchor line (at 120 ft.). There was a panic. This dive had two embolisms, two decompression injury’s, and one ruptured ear drum (nobody died).
Another near miss?
Last year an instructor took a entry level student to Farnsworth Bank, the student didn’t survive the dive.
This was not a near miss.
Instructors need to have there shit together. We are responsible for the well being of our students. Being an instructor or DM for that matter is a serious job (not to be taken lightly). WE should be professional. There should be no near misses in our classes.
Tribes