Difficulty level of emergency rescue diver?

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Disagree. A couple of hundred dives IMHO is way overboard..

You're right too many dives. I have been with AOW divers with 50 dives who were excellent divers and yet been with those with 50 dives and still have not mastered buoyancy and bicycle kick their way around. I believe the OP should concentrate on getting his basic diving skills improved first.

14 dives since certification is very few and that could be over a couple of years.
I do that many dives in 5 days of diving.

Zef said:
Taking lots of scuba cert classes does not make you a well rounded diver, it makes you a well rounded student.
 
For SOME (that are capable) it's best to do A FEW COURSES (many of which are available) as soon as PRACTICABLE (able to be done or put into practice successfully) where one of them gives you that nudge and everything falls into place

Do you often consider your signature line?

Definition of PRACTICABLE




Lets see a AOW with a total of 14 dives, then does rescue asap. OK sure can be done will it make everything fall into place then the diver still write he doesn't even have buoyancy control?

Just my humble opinion but this diver needs to become far more proficient in diving before doing rescue.
 
Personally you should not even consider the Rescue course atm. I would recommend you have a couple hundred dives in various conditions from easy going dives to dives where you really struggle in currents or low vis or night dives.
Recommending a couple of hundred dives prior to rescue is not helping the OP or anyone else.

To the OP, several key parts of rescue class are physically stressful, you are moving a helpless victim. Part of that teaches you how to manage a victim while working within your capabilities. And to teach you how much better it is to avoid the emergency in the first place, by watching yourself, buddies and others around you, than to have the high stress need to deal with it.
 
Well I know this thread is nearly a month old now but I'm just getting caught up!

I completed rescue today. I got my OW cert July 2018, AOW July 2019 - both on vacation. I've done 20ish dives locally as well. (I left my logbook at home by mistake and honestly don't remember the exact dive # I'm on). I'd guess I'm around 30. I have also completed PPB.

Rescue was TOUGH. I was lucky and it was just my instructor and I. I had a blast and learned so much. My confidence as a diver soared. I am very glad I did it. But I wouldn't recommend a new diver still having trouble with basics take rescue. You really do need to feel comfortable first or it will just be unnecessarily difficult. Basics should feel like they are just a part of you. For the OP, I'd wait a little bit, but there's no magic number of dives that means you're ready. It is up to you to dive as much as you can and when you feel comfortable, go for it. Rescue is an amazing course.
 
An Update to this post
I would like to thanks everyone here who shared their valuable opinions. Thanks a lot for taking out the time and providing your guidance.

Sorry for the long post in advance.

I finally did the rescue course of SSI. I couldn't resist the opportunity. I did 4 fun dives to get back to comfortability along with a refresher. I talked with my instructor and he too said to me that rescue is perhaps the most challenging course.

I would like to add that main motivation for doing the rescue came on second dive where I myself panicked. I mean I ashamed that I panicked because of my mask. It just kept flooding again and again. After 30 min, I tried to push the mask and blow through my mask real hard. What it did was that it moved the mask a little up and entire mask started getting flooded. Intially it started getting a little blurry for me as water filled in and it already was a bad visibility day. I immediately panicked that at 25m, I will loose the sight of my instructor and buddy. As the water was filling in, I tried to draw the attention of my instructor to me and grabbed his BCD immediately. Thankfully, he didn't threw me away. He signalled that lower part of nose was visbile which is why water was getting in. But I was too panicked and stressed out to understand the signal and I started swimming up. At the depth of about 10m he forcefully removed my hand from his BCD but I was already at 7-8m. I even forgot about the safety stop. He had to go down as there were other divers as well. But I came up, got to the boat. I truly was ashamed on what I did. The more I thought about it, more I felt guilty. All those skills of mask removal, swimming with no mask and everything just went for a toss the moment I panicked.
This was the turning point for me.

I did two more dives and at the end of 4th dive, I discussed about my skills and if I can take the rescue. He was honest with me. He said that my breathing skills are fine, buyoancy is alright. People make mistakes and it happens. If I keep my 2nd dive aside and do 1-2 shore dives to hone my skills further, I can complete my resuce course.

What I did was did all my fun dives with the same instructor so that he knew me a little before going into the course. On the first day of the course which is mostly doing OW skills again, after completing them up, we did some PPB skills as well. We did the same after the end of 2nd day of course.

I have to admit it is a little challenging and you should be confident inside water. However, most physically demanding skill was ofcourse picking up the unresponsive diver and carrying him to saftey and most mentally demanding skill was handling a panicked diver. My instructor warned me right at the start that don't be fooled by training videos. No panicked diver is as calm as shown in the video and no one moves their hand up and down in such rythmic fashion so that it becomes easier for you to grab his arm and turn him and I was to free to remember myself on what I did when I panicked inside the water and pretty much dragged him from 25-10m in few seconds. I was lucky that I just missed saftey stops and not decomp stops.

Additionally it also depends on the instructor on how and when he wants to add little twerks to course. For ex, after finshing up the skills we used to go for a small fun dive of 20-25 min to max 15m depth. He would let me go infront and sometimes either he would start acting as a panicked diver and would try to pull my mask/regulator out or he would go missing and I would have to search him or he would just become upnresponsive at any random instant.

At the end, as everyone points out, my confidence level is much higher and I feel I am more aware of myself and my surroundings as a diver. It really was a fun course and every instructor out there wanted to join in and become a panicked diver.
 
I think that was only for people who did not have PADI AOW, but rather some kind of equivalence from another agency. In any case, it went away about 2009 or so.

For the OP, Rescue is demanding but not difficult. You can probably do it, and it is a great confidence builder. But it is very much about preventing problems by having an increased awareness of what is happening with the other divers. If you are still inward focused, do some more diving. Once you begin to have an increased situational awareness, you are ready for Rescue.

curious on how is it challenging ? I did Combat Life Saver 3 times (one before each deployment). The first time it required sticking someone with and IV but they eventually took that out because they realized that it’s more important to just emphasize stop the bleeding. Anyhow yeah we had to study for the final test but I don’t know if I’d call it challenging
 
curious on how is it challenging ? I did Combat Life Saver 3 times (one before each deployment). The first time it required sticking someone with and IV but they eventually took that out because they realized that it’s more important to just emphasize stop the bleeding. Anyhow yeah we had to study for the final test but I don’t know if I’d call it challenging
I did not say it was challenging.
 
I mean I ashamed that I panicked because of my mask. It just kept flooding again and again. After 30 min, I tried to push the mask and blow through my mask real hard. What it did was that it moved the mask a little up and entire mask started getting flooded. Intially it started getting a little blurry for me as water filled in and it already was a bad visibility day. I immediately panicked that at 25m, I will loose the sight of my instructor and buddy. As the water was filling in, I tried to draw the attention of my instructor to me and grabbed his BCD immediately. Thankfully, he didn't threw me away. He signalled that lower part of nose was visbile which is why water was getting in. But I was too panicked and stressed out to understand the signal and I started swimming up. At the depth of about 10m he forcefully removed my hand from his BCD but I was already at 7-8m. I even forgot about the safety stop. He had to go down as there were other divers as well. But I came up, got to the boat. I truly was ashamed on what I did. The more I thought about it, more I felt guilty. All those skills of mask removal, swimming with no mask and everything just went for a toss the moment I panicked.
This was the turning point for me.

Congratulation for the course!

Please, don't feel ashamed. The mask is a problem for a significant portion of divers. Water is not our natural environment, and even if there are some people who are talented at the beginning, in the long run, what makes the difference is the attitude and the practice. And, most than everything, the fun!

We all had problems, so take it easy and enjoy the journey :)
 
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