This should probably be directed at Tom Mount and Bret Gilliam, as well as
the instructor trainers on this list.  George, Bill Me, Robert Carmaichael
and I have been painting an ugly picture of the present threats endemic in
tech instruction today. Each of us has been pushing for Jarrod Jablonski to
create a better agency, one with moral integrity, and one where ONLY good
instructors will be certified, and one with absolute and total control of
instructor behavior---following standards.  As this looks as though its
about to happen, it will unfortunately, not represent any immediate help to
the masses who desire advanced or technical training----GUE will be a small
agency, and people will have to fit into classes, run only in Florida.

To me, the BEST part of what GUE will do for the "world's divers", will be
to portray  the "Doing it Right" method of diving, so that the world will
realize how foolish Mount and Gilliam's approach has been, once the real
education begins to get out. And hopefully, when the world's divers see how
stringent GUE requirements for instructors and students are,  this will
FORCE IANTD and TDI into adopting more responsible training guidelines, and
force them to insure real instructor quality---which is now a disgusting
joke. I feel bad for the excellent IANTD instructors I know, who have
dedicated their life to safely teaching advanced and technical
diving----only now to have their livelihood ridiculed, due to the
association with other instructors, whose negligence has risen sharply, in a
definite relation to the money pouring into to technical dive training
today---the mass marketing of gear,  and both student and instructor
certifications, is breeding the worst kind of technical diver.....We are
getting students that are being motivated by a pervasive adventure
mentality, to seek out greater challenges,  and many of the instructors who
have been cranked out in record time, have no real understanding of the
dangers and risks associated with the sport they are now certified to teach,
 and can not even convey the risk assessment or skills needed to survive in
this harsh environment.  Many of this current crop of instructors do not
know what gear is appropriate for 200 to 300 foot dives, and a great many
have such a poor understanding of the decompression physiology, that they
drastically increase the risk  by  adding so much deco to a tech dive, that
you have to do deco for your deco. As this snowballs, the students are
forced to drag enormous reservoirs of deco gas with them, and are trained by
these morons to fear the surface, and to maintain themselves in deco as long
as possible,  typically as responsible only for themselves---with the others
on the dive each worried only about themselves.
As an example of this stupidity, on our recovery dive in Pompano, When
George and Robert went looking for Jane, they got in the water about 8
minutes before Derick's "team" went in.  George and Robert did about 25
minutes around 250 to 260, the last 5 trying to get the heavily weighted
body of Jane off of the bottom. They put a thin surface float line on her,
25 minutes into the dive, which was the precise time I was to be waiting as
safety at 120 feet, towing a float with extra gas if needed.  After
conveying the situation with a slate, we decided a second dive with a heavy
rope would be needed. George and  Robert did a rapid deco schedule, George
grabbed a fresh  Oxygen bottle, but decided he  had plenty of back mix left
for a second dive to 259.  I went with him, we hit the bottom about a minute
and a half later, followed the tracks in the sand from the sliding which had
occurred since they tied the float off, and after about 6 minutes, we had
found her, tied her off with the thick rope, and pulled her about 100 feet
sideways so she would not be caught by the side of the wreck when the boat
began pulling her up.  We  ascended rapidly---close to full swimming speed
for me, George on scooter  full power, up. Slowed at 120, and did less than
10 minutes deco on this dive.  George and I were out of the water, the girl
was pulled out of the water, the cops  came to put a sheriff on the
boat---we had to wait for them, and as we were all ready to go, Derrick's
team was still pulling deco, from a shorter dive that Robert and
George----and George had already done a second dive, and second deco----and
everything else, and we ended up leaving and going in to the Pompano
Sheriffs office in the inlet, while the dull "normals" were still pulling
deco.
Clearly, 2  entirely separate understandings of decompression on trimix
were exemplified here.  Derrick's conception of it, common to the Andre
Smith crowd, and many other IANTD instructors who learned from Mount,
instead of someone who "knows" how to "Do it right".  Both CAN NOT be
correct.  As the track record of the two approaches should speak for
themselves, Derrick and Tom's way will end tragically, more times than any
of us want to count, and George's way has proven itself to be far safer,
more efficient, and far more intelligent.
Also clear is the most tragic element in this case-----a certifying
body--IANTD, which has empowered a person such as Derick, to be responsible
for the lives of his students, and allowed him to take them on training
dives to over 300 feet deep, long before they have the requisite skills
 which they never could learn from him, anyway) ....With the horrifying lack
of screening which placed a "man" like Derrick, into this position where he
could endanger the lives of the students in his charge,   the result
becomes a cowardly lack of reaction, based on fear of deco, fear of deep
diving, and fear for his own life. One of MANY things GUE will do, is set
this issue in its proper perspective----each GUE instructor will be ready to
give his life, without thought, for a student in his charge, on a training
dive----if they don't like this, they are NOT!!!!! instructor material. And
Damn Tom Mount to HELL for not insisting on this within his own agency.  And
in GUE , Doing it Right philosophy, even the buddy would take this same
basic stance----you help your buddy---you don't leave them. Even PADI and
NAUI kicks the shit out of IANTD with this one. And as the accident occurred
initially at 40 feet ( where the OOA emergency was reported to the
instructor, PADI and NAUI skills were all that were needed to save this
girl.   Yet Derrick, the IANTD "wonder" instructer, fails as a buddy, and
fails as an instructor, and fails as a "man".  If he were in the military,
he perhaps could be shot for desertion in battle, which would have been less
of a crime than the one he perpetrated by his failure to act in this
tragedy. Perhaps someone with a maritime law background, has an idea how his
desertion( abandonment)  at sea, which caused the death of another,  could
be utilized to set precedent for future tech instructors---if IANTD or TDI
are not willing to exclude cowards from their instructor ranks. This was far
enough out so that maritime law should apply.


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