father, son dead testing Christmas gifts on Christmas day

bartmc said:
What does being a certified diver do for you? Am I not able to go load up on several thousand bucks worth of gear and go cave diving with no experience if I so chose?
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You can get all the gear you want. You just can't get your tank filled with comp air unless you have a dive card. Of course, you could possibly buy your own compressor, but I wouldn't sell it to you without seeing your dive card first.

It's one of the last bastions of self-regulation and it works quire well despite this recent serious failure. One of the reasons it works so well is the limit of liability is typically to one's self. It's hard to kill someone else, or a group of people making a scuba diving mistake, but it can happen as seen in this case.

<edit: I stand corrected. There's a doof on ebay selling a dive compressor, and it appears he doesn't require any dive card cert. Oh well...)
 
bartmc said:
What does being a certified diver do for you? Am I not able to go load up on several thousand bucks worth of gear and go cave diving with no experience if I so chose?
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Everything else aside...yes you can....and somebody would have to retrieve your body.
 
bartmc said:
What does being a certified diver do for you?
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Certain knowledge how to handle equipment, how to use it. There is absolutely no guarantee once you purchased the equipment you could even know how to put it together and knew how to draw your first breath underwater. Also you learn how to handle all kinds of emergencies, some of them as simple as having the mask slide off your face. By misusing the equipment you could drown or even have your lungs burst. So if you think there is nothing to learn or it is a trivial knowledge or that it can be self-taught you are mistaken. It is a bit like asking what being a certified pilot does for you, there are examples of people getting into airplanes and flying with no valid certification.
 
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olasek said:
Certain knowledge how to handle equipment, how to use it. There is absolutely no guarantee once you purchased the equipment you could even put it together and knew how to draw your first breath underwater. Also you learn how to handle all kinds of emergencies, some of them as simple as having the mask slide off your face. By misusing the equipment you could drown or even have your lungs burst. So if you think there is nothing to learn or it is a trivial knowledge you are mistaken. It is a bit like asking what being a certified pilot does for you, there are examples of people getting into airplanes and flying with no valid certification.
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That's Not what I was asking. Having my green plastic card keeps me out of trouble with the FAA should I decide to go fly my plane tomorrow.

I raced motocross for years, had a friend killed and another paralyzed, no certificate needed. Pt 103 guys seem to get by without government issued plastic.
 
docmirror said:
You can get all the gear you want. You just can't get your tank filled with comp air unless you have a dive card. Of course, you could possibly buy your own compressor, but I wouldn't sell it to you without seeing your dive card first.

It's one of the last bastions of self-regulation and it works quire well despite this recent serious failure. One of the reasons it works so well is the limit of liability is typically to one's self. It's hard to kill someone else, or a group of people making a scuba diving mistake, but it can happen as seen in this case.

<edit: I stand corrected. There's a doof on ebay selling a dive compressor, and it appears he doesn't require any dive card cert. Oh well...)
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Ahh so it's not like a government issued card, I thought you might get a ticket or something.
 
Scuba certification is not a government document or licensing procedure.
They are taught and issued by various scuba training organizations. The scuba industry is self-regulated,not government regulated.
 
That's Not what I was asking
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And I answered - the dive card is not to keep you "out of trouble with the government" it is to keep you out of trouble from yourself. And like other stated ultimately you can get your way and do what you want - including self- annihilation.
 
bartmc said:
That's Not what I was asking. Having my green plastic card keeps me out of trouble with the FAA should I decide to go fly my plane tomorrow.

I raced motocross for years, had a friend killed and another paralyzed, no certificate needed. Pt 103 guys seem to get by without government issued plastic.
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IIRC, the pt-103 guys are having a ball up there, but are crashing with regularity. the good news is that few of the mishaps are fatal to the pilot, and almost never fatal to anyone else, which is how it should be.
 
bartmc said:
What does being a certified diver do for you? Am I not able to go load up on several thousand bucks worth of gear and go cave diving with no experience if I so chose?
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Yep, as long as you own your own compressor and gear, none of which require you to show your card, no need for certification.
 
docmirror said:
You can get all the gear you want. You just can't get your tank filled with comp air unless you have a dive card. Of course, you could possibly buy your own compressor, but I wouldn't sell it to you without seeing your dive card first.

It's one of the last bastions of self-regulation and it works quire well despite this recent serious failure. One of the reasons it works so well is the limit of liability is typically to one's self. It's hard to kill someone else, or a group of people making a scuba diving mistake, but it can happen as seen in this case.

<edit: I stand corrected. There's a doof on ebay selling a dive compressor, and it appears he doesn't require any dive card cert. Oh well...)
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Most any compressor shop will sell you one without a card.
 
Seriously, as long as you have a single 80 on your back and you stay out of overhead environments, the only thing about diving that will get you killed is holding your breath as you come up. If you do multiple repetitive dives without surface interval between, you may get bent, but that is rarely fatal. As for knowing how to take your first breath underwater, just inhale.
 
I know someone who is both a flight instructor and a scuba instructor and he told me that getting his scuba instructor's certification was much harder than getting his CFI.
 
Everskyward said:
I know someone who is both a flight instructor and a scuba instructor and he told me that getting his scuba instructor's certification was much harder than getting his CFI.
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What!!!!!! Hopefully that is bs.
We did PADI instructor training and certification exams 3 times a year...its not easy but it ain't rocket science....so if your buddy is being honest then that is scarey to contemplate about the quality of CFI training out there.
 
John King (John & Martha) speaks here about the scuba industry to draw the parallel with risk taking in aviation.
Anyway, in the 1970-ties there was no scuba certification, scuba was a macho thing to do and people were dying left and right. The industry recognized it won't last long with such a death rate so scuba certification was born, it since decreased the death rate more than 10-fold.

http://www.kingschools.com/news/newsarticle.asp?articleid=14
 
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Self regulation worked even in this case.

A shame the kid had to die though.
 
olasek said:
Has it?:confused:
To me this case is a perfect illustration how you can bypass self-regulation.
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I'm sure you will find the certified father got both tanks filled. HE then strapped it to his kid, and they hopped in the water. The responsibility is on the certified diver, and he broke the rules(don't give a tank to a non-cert person).
 
genetk44 said:
What!!!!!! Hopefully that is bs.

We did PADI instructor training and certification exams 3 times a year...its not easy but it ain't rocket science....so if your buddy is being honest then that is scarey to contemplate about the quality of CFI training out there.
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I don't think he was kidding. Seems like he said it was a multiple day affair which included being observed teaching a class.
 
The exam is a couple of days depending on how many candidates there are.....but to say its harder to become a scuba instructor than a CFI.....no way I believe that.
 
genetk44 said:
The exam is a couple of days depending on how many candidates there are.....but to say its harder to become a scuba instructor than a CFI.....no way I believe that.
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I couldn't say since I am not a scuba instructor (and have never been scuba diving) Are you a CFI? When I took the test it wasn't hard but they cracked down after that.
 
olasek said:
Has it?:confused:
To me this case is a perfect illustration how you can bypass self-regulation.
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It worked in the sense that we can't protect people from doing something stupid. No amount of regulation or goverment oversight would have changed the outcome of this.
 
weilke said:
It worked in the sense that we can't protect people from doing something stupid. No amount of regulation or goverment oversight would have changed the outcome of this.
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And I agree, but saying that something worked in this context I find a bit bizarre.
 
Everskyward said:
I couldn't say since I am not a scuba instructor (and have never been scuba diving) Are you a CFI? When I took the test it wasn't hard but they cracked down after that.
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Nope..not a CFI.my only claim is about 13 hours dual and alot of reading for PPL....but when you consider the career path from novice to scuba instructor and novice to CFI I would say that the CFI thing is way more work and harder.
Scuba has no meterology to speak of,no FARs or legal mumbo jumbo, minimal navigation.
 
weilke said:
It worked in the sense that we can't protect people from doing something stupid. No amount of regulation or goverment oversight would have changed the outcome of this.
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I think I disagree with this. If we look at gen aviation accident stats in N Korea, I would say they have a perfect record. Not sure if there is such a thing as scuba in N Korea, but guessing not, so again - perfect record. All we need to do to stop scuba deaths is - be like N Korea.

(tongue firmly in cheek)
 
Considering the numbers of certified scuba divers plus the hundreds of thousands of folks who have done resort course scuba dives the number of deaths injuries are pretty low...so the self-regulation is working very well.
But regulation,wether by government or by the respective industry itself cannot prevent or deter stupidity or just bad decisions by people.
 
olasek said:
And I agree, but saying that something worked in this context I find a bit bizarre.
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We are certainly not lacking regulation in aviation yet people continue to pull spectacularly stupid stunts on a regular basis.

It 'worked' in this case as the benevolent goverment did not make any attempts to keep this guy from killing himself yet the same day thousands of other divers in locations from Maine to the Keys successfully completed their dives.
 
genetk44 said:
Nope..not a CFI.my only claim is about 13 hours dual and alot of reading for PPL....but when you consider the career path from novice to scuba instructor and novice to CFI I would say that the CFI thing is way more work and harder.

Scuba has no meterology to speak of,no FARs or legal mumbo jumbo, minimal navigation.
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I'm sure he wasn't talking about starting without any knowledge, just about going from commercial pilot to CFI. I think he meant that the testing about the teaching process was more rigorous.
 
The C-Card is actually nothing more than some feel good liability for the guy who fills your tank and occasionally the dive boat operator. It doesn't even rise the the level of your pilot certificate, there's no regulatory requirement to have or display one other than to convince others that they should believe you are a diver.
 
genetk44 said:
The exam is a couple of days depending on how many candidates there are.....but to say its harder to become a scuba instructor than a CFI.....no way I believe that.
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Becoming a Scuba Instructor vs CFI


A bit of apples and oranges here. While both involve certificates or ratings leading up to becoming an instructor, in terms of the knowledge tests, to be a scuba instructor I had to take a battery of tests and get 80 or better on each one. For CFI, one test and I only needed a 70 or better.


In terms of practical tests, scuba had multiple dives with an instructor trainer and many classroom evaluations, while CFI had an oral with a mock lesson and one flight with an examiner.


[Note: It gets even stranger for the Coast Guard Captain's license. A battery of tests on which you have to score 90 or better, but no practical test at all. Just log the minimum number of days at sea in the last 5 years. ("At sea" meaning only that you were on the boat while it was underway. Being the ship's cook counts for sea time.)] (Nothing against ship's cooks, but how does that experience relate to driving the boat?)

All that said, CFI required more knowledge and time commitment but both require that I be responsible for sending rookies out into the world with enough information and skill to keep them from killing themselves.
 
upstateny said:
[Note: It gets even stranger for the Coast Guard Captain's license. A battery of tests on which you have to score 90 or better, but no practical test at all. Just log the minimum number of days at sea in the last 5 years. ("At sea" meaning only that you were on the boat while it was underway. Being the ship's cook counts for sea time.)] (Nothing against ship's cooks, but how does that experience relate to driving the boat?).
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Now with the MCA/RYA Yachtmaster system it gets even more interesting. With about $6000 and 6-10 days on the water, anyone can be captain on 75% of the yachts in the trade (up to about 110'). Many of the deckhands who have a season in the business are getting these tickets, and they have as much helm and decision making experience as a cook. I keep trying to warn these kids that with that ticket they up their liability to criminal status. I.e. before if you made a mistake and it got someone killed, it was an accident, once you hold that piece of paper the same mistake becomes manslaughter.
 
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