DR safety problem & PADI

[Greenwood_60]

Not sure what more they can do...they cant jail people. The best they can do is no longer sanction the activities of people and stores that do not adhere to standards.

Why do they have to wait until there is an incident? The dive shops can be given fair warning. I say if it continues, cut them off.

[phillip1]

I agree the "professor" is an irresponsible OW diver who should be reprimanded big time by PADI for directly putting unsuspecting OW students in harms way. We did not direct this at him directly only at all DR dive shops, but from now on PADI has asked us to report any LDS/Instructors violating safe cavern limits and we will do so from now on.

[Walter Pickel]

I agree the "professor" is an irresponsible OW diver who should be reprimanded big time by PADI for directly putting unsuspecting OW students in harms way. We did not direct this at him directly only at all DR dive shops, but from now on PADI has asked us to report any LDS/Instructors violating safe cavern limits and we will do so from now on.

I appreciate what you guys are doing Phillip!

[Bobby]

Got the same response about a course director and shop in Crystal River, FL. He was taking OW students in past the light zone and Dive master students through a restriction. PADI response was that they had a good safety record and could not verify that this was being done during training dives. The reality is that unless a law suit threatens their $$ then real action is not going to happen. At least they sent the letter in the DR.

Bobby

[phillip1]

I would like to clear up a misunderstanding, I wrote in earlier posts that the NACD did not help us, in fact they did but somehow the letter they emailed me got misplaced and I never got it. The NACD assumed I had received it and I assumed they were not really into helping us out, I was dead wrong.

Since reading my earlier post and being notified of this mistake Larry Green has been in contact with me and the NACD is helping us out big time with the original NACD version of the letter that they thought I had received and gave out.
This is going to be a big help and we will be distributing this letter to all the LDS's here in the next week or so.

I wanted to publicly thank everyone at the NACD for helping us out and to make clear that it was a misunderstanding that we did not receive the safety letter in the first place.

This is awesome! now with the main training agencies now helping out to improve safety in the DR we are definitely moving in the right direction and will hopefully prevent any accident from happening.

Thank you

[matt_w]

Why do they have to wait until there is an incident? The dive shops can be given fair warning. I say if it continues, cut them off.

I was not suggesting they wait for an incident. PADI does seem to indicate that anyone who persists with unsafe activities will be cut off.

[Greenwood_60]

It has also come to our attention that some dive operations and dive guides have been taking certified divers who are not trained in cave diving into the local cave systems. Although these may not be course training dives, they still violate the intent of the Safe Diving Practices and may place insufficiently trained or inadequately equipped divers in harm’s way. As a PADI Member, you must realize that should an incident occur, your actions while acting in the capacity of a dive professional will be scrutinized and that violating the Safe Diving Practices, especially while supervising divers, increases your liability. Further, depending upon the specific circumstances, this could also jeopardize your PADI membership.

This is from the PADI letter in post #7 of the thread. The emphasis is mine, and is the wording I have issue with. The shop doing this already think they are safe, or they wouldn't be doing the tours. So why would they worry about PADI's recourse if PADI is only going to lift a finger if something goes horribly wrong? At that point, they have much bigger issues than PADI's slap on the wrist.

Like I said earlier, if PADI were to take action "if this practice continues", those dive shops would have something real to worry about.

I am very happy to hear the NACD stepped up. I was surprised they didn't, and this makes more sense.

[Neptuno]

NAUI standards are quite clear on this and easily understood. If anyone wants a clarification HQ will be glad to give it to you.

I talket to NAUI some time ago, they promise me a letter with the naui heather and they even sent me a draft, but the last I heard from them is that they were going to add it in the book or something, but never really got the letter to give around.

to get it clear, we don't know of anyone from naui locally doing this unsafe practices, all are padi really, but does help the extra support.

I think the letter is not good enough, but it is a big step forward, and at least they did hear finally our problem, lets see if they really sanction this practices or is only BS to be cool.