Advanced Maritime EMS?

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George Price

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Just a quick question for what happens after PADI Rescue Diver. Is there an organization that anyone knows of that offers more advanced rescue, patient management skills? Perhaps an EMT course that's oriented to the diving, boating community?
 
It's called Medical Person In Charge, or MPIC. You do a hospital rotation in the ER, but it isn't up to EMT standards. You do learn to start an IV and other things that a doctor has to order. They are relatively valuable and required on any commercial vessels that sail internationally. Give it a google for a class near you.
 
The Wilderness medical course is designed to teach an EMT/Paramadic to manage cases where you don't have immediate evac to a higher level of care. But it isn't exactly the same.
http://www.nols.edu/wmi/courses/documents/WUMPSchedule.pdf

The military has training, but becoming a ranger medic to get the course seems perhaps a bit more than you were looking for.
 
One of only two non-military/non-commercial Recompression Chambers in the US dedicated 24/7 365 standing by solely for recreational diving accidents, with Instructors & EMS Professionals who have extensive experience treating dive casualties over many years. . .

The best most comprehensive recreational non-professional Rescue Diver and Recompression Chamber Courses are held once a year by the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber on Santa Catalina Island/Southern California. You will learn and participate in the entire chain of care for the emergency treatment of dive accident casualties -from First Responder to working with LA County Baywatch Paramedics & USCG, for transport & delivery of the patient to the Recompression Chamber on Catalina Island.

Volunteer > USC Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber > USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Educational Programs > USC Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber > USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
 
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Curious what issues would require a separate course for diving. The most common major injuries would be:

Drowning
DCS
Over expansion injury

Drowning would best be dealt with by a life guard type course and transport to acute care. DCS in the field mainly revolves around O2 therapy and transport to acute care. Little can be done for over expansion injury except transport to acute care. Most everything is covered in a good in depth land based EMS course, strong core CPR/AED skills, a good evac plan and early O2 delivery.
 
On a different thread about reef hook diving, a Nurse Posted a detailed story about an emergency situation and how she handled it.
It was Lessons to be learned-Death in Palau by Detroit Diver for an incident a number of years ago. I really want this woman to design the course, with trained Rescue Dive Instructors so that There is training available even for worst case scenarios. Land based trained makes unconscious assumptions that aren't always true in a dive environment. I still plan to take EMT anyway, and have Rescue Cert, but really want more training, as you do, but can't afford to fly to Southern Cal for it.
 
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Land based trained makes unconscious assumptions that aren't always true in a dive environment..

Curious what those are exactly? The ABCD's are exactly the same either way.
 
Differences are the environment rather than needs of patient. For example, I took CPR with local Firefighter and Paramedic group, and then again a month later at the Dive Shop, and the first one we put victim on the stable floor and gave compressions. Then the Dive Shop talked about how a boat, with wet slippery floor is going to be more challenging to brace yourself as boat is heaving in seas. And then again, in the Rescue course we practiced only the rescue breaths while pulling someone towards boat since it is not possible to brace yourself and do compressions in the water. This stuff is obvious looking back, but practicing skills in the environment you might use them in highlights things that aren't obvious.
 
In a remote site you might need to support the patient for 12 plus hours. In urban EMS the only time you have to treat a seriously injured patient on scene for very long is a prolonged extrication. In a remote site you are essentially performing casualty evacuation, not EMS. And that isn't taught in many places.
 
Having performed CPR on a boat, at the mall, and in the dinghy, there really isn't a difference. They all barf in your mouth. Then you barf, then you keep going.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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