I am president of a university club and was sent this letter by our DO at the same time as he sent it to Dive magazine and i think that all dive clubs should be aware!!!!!!!
Simon Rogerson
Dive magazine
Ref, False SCUBA qualifications.
Dear Simon
I am the diving officer of a Yorkshire university dive club. I was
approached a boyfriend of a students asking if he could dive with us. He is
in thirties heavily built says that PADI qualified and I noted that he sucks
his thumb!
I agreed that he could join us at an inland dive sire. My suspicions were
raised when he could not produce diving qualification for me to see. The
dive site owner did find details of a PADI open water diver (on the PADI
data base) for the name and date of birth that he gave.
We were diving to a depth of 10 meters for 40 minutes I was very surprised
with his choice of equipment a wing with twin 12 ltr cylinders which I felt
was a slight over kill for the intended dive. He was chatting about all if
the dives that he had done. I commented to him that I was surprised to learn
that he had dived to in excess of 30 meters since we was not qualified or
trained to do so.
He was buddied with a very experienced dive leader. They entered the water.
This diver then proceeded to breaststroke under water with his arms ripping
the DV out of the dive leaders mouth! Continually inflate and deflate at the
same time both inflators for the two bladders on his wing. Going to and from
the surface like a yoyo. He then stopped on the bottom removed his DV mask
and hood then replaced them for no reason. The dive leader had seen enough
by this time and aborts the dive.
I truly believe that this person has never been trained and that he has
bought dive equipment and just gone diving and is a danger to himself and
others. A local dive shop has now advised me that they know this person and
he is not qualified and they refuse to serve him. In addition they advised
that the Police Underwater Unit had to rescue him from Kirby Lonsdale Devils
Bridge when he had speared his hand to a rock under water with a spear gun.
So if you are approach by a thickset thumb sucking diver who can not produce
his diving qualifications. I would urge you to treat him with the utmost
caution.
Kindest regards