I am reminded of the movie "Flatliners"
Just because Mr Sutton feels qualified to monitor a diver's descent into near unconsciousness and back does not mean this should be attempted by us mere mortal average Joe CCR instructors.
I assume that the testing performed by FAA is conducted under the supervision of a fully trained and qualified medical person and not just someone who read about this on the internet.[/UOTE]
Hey Dave, glad you've come to the party. Glad to see another of the old gang here.
I don't trust the "average" diving instructor to be able to teach mask clearing...
This however is a training area that is done routinely by lay technicians in the aviation industry. I ought to know... I was doing it as a trainer for years at my day job teaching corporate pilots. I even put photos up on burger world several years back. So to say "because a TDI instructor cannot do it nobody can do it" is disingenuous.
It's interesting to note the reactions here. In aviation the answer to the question about training is "Of course I went thru it.. Doesn't everyone?" While the answers here range from skeptical to violently disagreeing. That alone tells me that the rebreather training community is doing a pretty poor job of ACTALLY teaching divers about the reality of hypoxia. We tell divers it exists. But we don't teach any of the subtle clues that you might be experiencing it. It's NOT a binary "on/off" paradigm in your brain. Go read up on TUC (times of useful consciousness). During that time period you can self assist. There is a period after TUC when you can still see and hear... But are just a detached observer. Get there underwater and you are dead. Funny, I got that way on Monday when a student in the fighter pulled 6 G without telling me.. No anti G straining in advance and I was done. Watched vision close in and tunnel, then was lost... Then came back. Typical day in a fighter.
One thing the diving community has taught is that loss of consciousnesses due to hypoxia will kill you. Really? Drowning kills you. Go hypoxic in the water and you drown. Stand up too rapidly and faint and you fall down. No different at all. I remember on Monday thinking "this sucks.. I hope he finishes the loop before I pass out completely and smack my face on the stick like the last time this happened". Then he relaxed the G and I was back in the fight. No biggie.
One thing to note: taking a student to unconsciousness is NOT the excercise. If the is done, the student gets ZERO benefit, as he will not remember anything and as a result the training opportunity is lost. Hypoxia often takes many minutes to progress from normal to unable to assist own rescue (which happens before loss of consciousness). Depending on the RATE of onset, detection of own symptoms and correction of the problem is a VERY real possibility. This is EXACTLY why the subject is taught to aircrew.
How about putting an introduction on the intro page so we can welcome you to the forum? And BTW, call me "Dave". Mr. Sutton was my Dad. ;-)
Dave
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