Cross over from Public Safety Diving?

[Nugget1412]

I currently hold an SSI open water certification and I want to advance, the rub is I have several specialties but I'm not sure if they carry over. I have FFM, Dry suit, ice, and dive rescue 1 from Dive Rescue International, while maintaining my national registry paramedic. Are there any agencies that will recognize these for the rescue and medicine components as well as FFM and dry suit? It sounds lazy I suppose I just don't really want to pay to redo things I have and do regularly, with the public safety I also have around 30 dives.

 

[Nugget1412]

We can distinguish you, who wants to advance up the ladder because your goal is to teach diving or lead dives, from someone who wants to advance up the ladder to learn new skills (commendable) or just for the sake of advancing--collecting certification cards (perhaps not as commendable). In your case, you already have much of the skills and training involved, but you actually DO need the cards.

With this there is also some worse case scenario legality thinking, with my training and cards from DRI I am able to surpass (and have been asked to) the depth of my recognized standard open water, God forbid something happened to me in such an atmosphere insurance and other such line of duty protections may refuse support of my family because of that. Ultimately it's all about trying to teach others to follow the specialty I love and allowing me to learn even more about it.

 

[rjack321]

Partly, I actually have cards just not from a recognized agency which is why I ask about crossover.

You have the cards from a public safety agency and are asking about crossing over to an instructor path... with 30 dives. Might be a wee bit early in your diving career to think you have something to offer teaching others when you're still in the toddler phase yourself.