OZTeK 2105 Presentation

Randy Thornton

Randy Thornton

Administrator
Staff member
Dear All,

If any of you are going to be attending OZTeK 2015, I would to invite you to attend my presentation entitled "Is Our Training Failing Us? Developing a culture of sustainable safety practices for CCR divers."

The OZTeK program states: "Randy Thornton, TDI CCR Instructor Trainer and Training Advisory Panel Member, explores current training practices and potential shortcomings of existing training programs, which potentially contribute to a culture of carelessness within the CCR diving community.

If you are currently a CCR diver or are interested in becoming a CCR diver, this presentation will open your eyes to existing ineffectiveness of current CCR training and help you to develop your own standards and protocols that just might one day save your life!"

Hopefully, I can get through the presentation without stepping on too many toes! If you are in attendance, please come by and say hello! I would love to meet as many of you in person as possible.

Warm regards,
Randy
 
Won't be here, but I suppose you will be addressing the fact that TDI as an organization training rebreather divers happens to have no student training material related to rebreather diving?
:-)
 
uwxplorer said:
Won't be here, but I suppose you will be addressing the fact that TDI as an organization training rebreather divers happens to have no student training material related to rebreather diving?
:-)
Click to expand...

The purpose of my presentation is certainly not to defend TDI, but I will point out that they actually do have some CCR related training materials including a manual written by Kevin Gurr entitled "TDI- Diving Rebreathers Student Manual. A complete guide to air diluent closed-circuit rebreather diving."

You are correct however in noting that there is a great dearth of quality training materials for CCR related classes at virtually all of the training agencies.
 
Sadly I won't be there. But I would love to see your presentation if you are willing to post it someplace.
Richard
 
Randy Thornton said:
The purpose of my presentation is certainly not to defend TDI, but I will point out that they actually do have some CCR related training materials including a manual written by Kevin Gurr entitled "TDI- Diving Rebreathers Student Manual. A complete guide to air diluent closed-circuit rebreather diving."
Click to expand...

Never heard of it in all my recent classes. When was it published?
 
I don't want to completely derail this thread, but I went through a rEvo air dil class (no deco) in early 2012. Was there a manual at that time? From what I recall, the website was mentioning a unit-specific manual but there were none available. My instructor got me to buy Mel Clark's book and used TDI slides himself. I suppose instructors still have the freedom to suggest whatever material they want their students to read?
One year later, I went through helitrox and same thing, there was no TDI manual for it (from what I was told or could find out by myself), so we went with the entry level trimix manual and the deco procedures manual, which both had the word "rebreather" in them maybe a handful of times (they were clearly OC tech manuals).

Returning to topic, I am curious as to what the sentence "If you are currently a CCR diver or are interested in becoming a CCR diver, this presentation will open your eyes to existing ineffectiveness of current CCR training and help you to develop your own standards and protocols that just might one day save your life!" means.
Keeping an opened mind and constantly revisiting habits and routines is one thing, "developing standard and protocols" is another ball game.

I guess I will have to wait until after the conference if you are so kind as to enlighten us "who may one day not be able to save our lives"...
 
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uwxplorer said:
I don't want to completely derail this thread, but I went through a rEvo air dil class (no deco) in early 2012. Was there a manual at that time? From what I recall, the website was mentioning a unit-specific manual but there were none available. My instructor got me to buy Mel Clark's book and used TDI slides himself. I suppose instructors still have the freedom to suggest whatever material they want their students to read?
One year later, I went through helitrox and same thing, there was no TDI manual for it (from what I was told or could find out by myself), so we went with the entry level trimix manual and the deco procedures manual, which both had the word "rebreather" in them maybe a handful of times (they were clearly OC tech manuals).

Returning to topic, I am curious as to what the sentence "If you are currently a CCR diver or are interested in becoming a CCR diver, this presentation will open your eyes to existing ineffectiveness of current CCR training and help you to develop your own standards and protocols that just might one day save your life!" means.
Keeping an opened mind and constantly revisiting habits and routines is one thing, "developing standard and protocols" is another ball game.

I guess I will have to wait until after the conference if you are so kind as to enlighten us "who may one day not be able to save our lives"...
Click to expand...

There was no book mentioned in my MOD1 either, wasn't on the syllabus used which (was a manufacturer's syllabus). We did cover everything in that as far as I can tell and it wasn't short (~6 or 8 pages) but I have zero textbook/reference if something were to be missing from my notes.

jon.kieren said:
TDI always welcomes feedback regarding quality assurance issues. You can email any specific concerns directly to training@tdisdi.com.
They also now publicly posts detailed course descriptions and the most up to date standards for nearly all TDI programs offered on the website: https://www.tdisdi.com/tdi/get-certified/tdi-diver-level-courses/
Click to expand...

Perhaps the "culture of safety" might start by all CCR agencies actively trying to find out what students miss instead of relying on the students themselves to figure out what is deficient or absent from their instruction. Just a thought. I know at least one agency won't issue a C-card unless their post class student survey is completed and its been that way for over a decade - its not unprecedented at all.
 
Obviously, there is plenty of blame to spread around with accidents, near misses, mishaps, deaths, worst dive ever, etc. etc. It starts at the top of the pyramid with agencies and filters all the down through Instructor Trainers, Instructors, divers, manufacturers, distributors, etc. etc. Hopefully, I'll have some interesting insights to share at OZTeK that will cause a few people to start thinking in terms of what we can do as a community as well as individually to gradually change the tide. Right now, I'm afraid of where the tide is taking us!
 
Will see you there. Gone through and marked my talks to attend and looking forward to yours. Probably see you on the Friday night. Cheers.
 
Yes, I'll be there.

To be honest, my feelings are that our training has failed us to the point that a lot of it is near-useless.

[Large snip of original rant here for brevity]

Developing personal protocols is vital, and they have to be constantly modified to keep up with current best practice and research - after all, there comes a time when your last mix course was 10 years ago, and what was taught in it - which was world class at the time - is totally outdated. The irony is that the standard way of diving barely seems to have changed since then.

[Snip of list of problems here - you've seen them all anyway]

As a result of this, my style of diving no longer even vaguely resembles a normal agency diver. I occasionally worry about it, but then decide that I'm probably not the one who should be worried.

Looking forward to the talk,

Thanks,
Robert
 
Any chace you could record the presentation? I'm always eager to learn and looking for valuable information wherever it presents itself.

Thanks,
Dan
 
I'll see you there.

Have to say, I think the PADI Tec 40 and 60 CCR manuals were very good, and the courses/training very thorough. The fact that the skills and standards for each dive were clearly laid out within the student manual was also a good idea - it would be very obvious if one's instructor was not covering the skills they were meant to. (Of course, I wouldn't have expected anything less from Mr Mesley ;-) ).

Less than a week to go - looking forward to it!

Deralie
 
For anyone going I'd advise catching the presentation by
Barry McGill
for a taste of the diving on offer in Ireland.
I'm sure he will have plenty of photos and videos of the deeper
wrecks and expeditions that he has been running.
 
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