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I've been complaining about this for a while now. I continue to hear stories about instructors doing "half-assed" classes (meaning classes that don't meet standards, or taking students that have not met pre-requisites). The typical one is the two dive trimix class, that is often taught to students that are nitrox certified and have dive "a few" deep wrecks on the new set of doubles they put together at the beginning of the season. I've never been able to do much about the individual stories, because I have only second and third hand information. I used to cut a lot of corners back around 1993, because most of my students were already "technical divers" and by standards, I could give credit for experience. It was not necessary to do 16 dives with them before putting them on trimix (the TDI progression is Nitrox - 0 dives, Adv Nitrox - 4 dives, Deco - 4 dives, Extended Range - 6 dives, Trimix - 4 dives). But now, we have "real students" -- Those that need the material and skills taught to them in stages, separated by experience on their own. Apparently there are some instructors out there, who couldn't possibly remember the days when tech diver students were already tech divers, but still think they can skip a bunch of stuff and go right to trimix. I continue to hear from prospective students about how they can go to other instuctors, go from nitrox diver to trimix diver in one season, for half the cost of my course(s) with one third the number of dives. I don't want these "card collectors" in my classes anyway. I strongly discourage (and often prohibit) students from using convoluted or unfamiliar equipment on training dives. In fact, I'm running a course right now, where I asked that one student replace the combo inflator/second stage regulato on his BC with a standard power inflator. I also asked that another student NOT put a hose on the inflator mechanism of the backup bladder of a dual bladder BC because it created a hose routing problem. I'm a little embarrassed that I'm even bragging about my classes. The stuff I'm doing is nothing to brag about, it's basic diver training stuff - nothing extra-ordinary, everyone should be doing it. Full face masks, communication equipment, etc. have no place in tech diver training - this stuff belongs in a specialty course. How do we stop this nonsense of standards violations? Simple - Send evaluation forms to all students of new instructors and randomly to students of established instructors. Maybe the students won't bother sending them back, or maybe they'll lie? That's OK, the threat that an honest evaluation uncovering standards violations will get back to the training agency and result in an offending instructor being "found out" might be enough to either make the "half-assed" instructors straighten up their act, or get out of the business. "Hey man, send me some money, a release and medical form, do your classroom work by correspondence, book a Doria charter. When you get back, I'll give you your trimix ticket! No sweat man! Piece o' cake!" THIS HAS GOT TO STOP. Sincerely, C. Randy Bohrer, President Underwater Applications Corp Original Message Follows: From: "Ken Sallot" <ken@co*.ci*.uf*.ed*> Organization: CIRCA, University of Florida Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 15:28:20 EST Subject: Re: Fw: "Murder on IANTD Express, cont. Dan, If this is true then "Derek" should have his instructor card revoked. If everything I have read about this incident is true, then there was severe gross negligence here which will only result in hurting this sport. Being a former TDI trimix instructor, I would never even consider taking a student on their first dive in a trimix class in 300' of water. Let alone their first trimix dive. My schedule was usually first dive in confined water, maybe a place like Orange Grove, to check on bottle handling skills, task loading, run some stress management drills, and simulate decompression. However, the first trimix dive would never be deeper then 210-220', and that would only be in situations where I felt that the students were prepared for it. If after the first dive (the confined water drills) the student was not prepared for a trimix dive, then we'd do more diving in shallow water to work with the gear and drills. I know it might be "allowed", but there is no reason for a trimix student to do their first dive to 300'. You know, in a place like Pompano/Lauderdale a perfect first dive for a trimix class would be either the Lowrance (210' on the sand) or the Hydro (175' on the sand). What the hell were they doing at 300'? As for not having enough "gas to do the rescue", what good would this guy have been at depth if the student ran out of gas? Also, what's the story with those dive communicator things? Jesus this is really scary. Although I don't necessarily agree with the tone of some of the other messages in this thread, you do have to question what the hell is going on when the trimix training fatalities for 1998 are overwhelmingly high. Ken -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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