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IANTD TEACHINGS For Profit Ceritifcation agaencies, such as IANTD thrive on conveying images of diving adventure, excitement and glory to the aspiring technical diver. They would have you believe that armed with their version of technical diving training almost any diving objective is within your each, limited only by your acceptance of risk. In the interests of self promotion and to whet the appetites of the ever swelling pool of uninitiated recruits from the ranks of sport diving, these organizations promote practices that are blatantly foolish, teaching standards which are riddled with inadequacies and misinformation and an almost complete disregard for the physical health requirements imposed by extreme diving. This sorry state of affairs not only places the uniformed at mortal risk, but has helped to compile a shocking death list. What IANTD and others dont tell you is the list of fatalities in technical diving compiled over the last 5 years and a short personal history of the unfortunate individuals who believed in pursuing the adventure of the final frontier. We knew a great number of these people and in many instances were personally touched by their deaths. Most of these deaths were caused by what you might euphemistically call diver error. Many of these so called errors are part and parcel of the training practices promulgated by these for profit agencies. Let me name three of the prime offenders: High PPN2 (>3.9 ATA), High O2 (>1.4 ATA) and trying to do things cheaply so as to save money (dont invest several extra dollars on Helium, line arrows and tank markings) . Sure, all of us out there can tolerate > 3.9 ATA N2, but nobody will deny that it progressively clouds your judgement and when the crap hits the fan beyond 3.9 things have a very convenient way of snowballing out of control (ask anyone who regularly does it and ask about the baseball bat criteria). Why not spend the 5$ or 20$ extra/dive and add the necessary helium to keep the PPN2 within range? The reason most people argue is that it costs too much, its too hard to get or I dont have the time or IANTD says I can be trained to overcome the problems associated with high PPN2 (and thus save money). Some of these agencies (despite their own teachings which suggest that air is a bad gas for almost everything) will try to tell you to overcome the Helium problem by using ntirox at depths beyond its usefulness. High PPO2 is not even worth discussing, because its misuse is so dangerous and obvious. Go ahead and try to swim on 1.6 ATA PPO2 and after 45 minutes you feel horrible, have fogged vision and will be staring at death. Ask anyone who has flirted with the toxicity limits of O2. How many times have you noticed bronchial irritiation and congestion following long (and prescribed High PPO2 decompressions ). These certification agencies have conveniently scaled, what they claimed were allowable PPO2s, downward as the fatality list grew. They are now proposing all kinds of outlandish schemes for bottle and regulator identification when the underlying problem is improper use of Nitrox by incorrectly trained or physically unfit people in the first place. But by far and away the biggest sin is teaching people that they can technical dive on a budget. Sure they tell you that all of the equipment and training will cost you plenty, but when the time comes to dive, do it as cheaply as possible. This means that use cheaper oxygen, when you can, in place of helium (Deep nitrox) or worse use poor mans mixes instead of the correct mix, beause the one bottle of helium which you bought has to last you and your buddies all year (they love to teach you all about trimix diving, but when it comes to brewing up the right mix they pull the good deep on air foolishness and go with the 17/17 stuff). If you dont believe me just ask anyone. The very worst example of cheapness is the pathetic cave diving instruction which teaches students not to spend money at all on basic things like line arrows. Dont even ask how many people have been killed over the past five years because they became confused in North Florida or Mexican caves, but for several $.75 arrows. Ask yourself what your own life is worth. When we are afflicted by a serious illness or injured in an accident the cost of recovery is never an issure, so why is it an issue in so called technical diving ? Would you spend an extra $25 to still be alive? How about 75 cents? When we reexamine the cost vs life checklist the numbers that come up are pretty disturbing. Be advised and take a long hard look at the real agenda of these agencies. You may not like what you uncover.
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