Do not ever say you are a rescue diver

[flyboy08]

I'm a RD. I just place my regulator on backwards on purpose so the DM wont ask me to assist

 

[boulderjohn]

I think the most common story I've seen is where a dive-charter will effectively ask a diver to act as a dive-guide or similar.

I have never been asked to do this, and I have never been on a dive where this happened.

What I hear about is the fear that they will be buddied with a beginning diver in the hope that the professional will be able to take care of that diver. Not only has this never happened to me, the opposite has frequently happened. My wife does not dive, and until I managed to certify some close friends, I was a single diver requiring an instabuddy on many hundreds of dives. In every case in which they knew my certification level, they went out of their way to get me the best possible companion.

On a trip in Florida many years ago, I checked in at the shop the day before, chatting with the dive shop owner as I did. The next day I got on the boat as a single diver, and the DM did not ask me about my certification. He put me with a father son team. Later, the owner got on the boat, and when he chatted with me, he asked me who I was diving with. I pointed to that father/son team, and his eyes grew wide. He left, then came back to tell me he had picked out new buddies for me. They were great, and we had a wonderful dive.

On another occasion in Cozumel, I was on a boat that was to have nothing but experienced divers. They mistakenly put a beginner on the boat, and since I was a single, he became my buddy. After the dive, the owner contacted me to tell me they were refunding my money. I had not said anything about the mistake--they acted on their own.

 

[Edward3c]

I have read many, many posts in which people assert that this could happen. I don't ever remember reading a post in which it did happen.

It has never happened to me. I have been a professional for 18 years, and I have always shown an instructor card for diving. Not only has no one ever asked me to do that, it has been quite the opposite. Believe it or not, the shop is generally looking for repeat customers, and they especially want instructors to be happy. They want them to send other divers their way.

About 5 years ago in Cozumel I was asked to assess the competence of one of their staff. I got the U.K. holiday company to change my diving to another operator, the original operator was blacklisted.

 

[boulderjohn]

About 5 years ago in Cozumel I was asked to assess the competence of one of their staff. I got the U.K. holiday company to change my diving to another operator, the original operator was blacklisted.

Not surprising. Dive operators don't want this sort of thing to happen, so they rarely make that kind of mistake.

 

[100days-a-year]

I tried never to dive with anyone who brought up their experience or certification level unsolicited.
And avoided charters and cattle boats like the plague.

 

[Dody]

So you traveled to the Philippines to dive with your wife, but from the get-go, you followed someone else.

The problem I see has nothing to do with anything you said to the DS. Heroes don't get to complain about being heroes.

Unless you are getting paid, your wife has an issue, or something real happens you're supposed to mind your own business. You can't fix stupid. Besides, maybe he never meant to be on the surface when he jumped in, I never do.

I have to admit that I don’t understand what you are saying. Where did I say that I followed anybody? The DS crew said we were a 3 divers buddy team and we complied. I am no hero as I did not risk my life to help the buddy who was in despair. As for the comment about the wife and minding my own business, I will take it as a joke.

 

[Dody]

A strong diver can equalize very fast and effortlessly- on most days anyway. You were the guys buddy and allowed him to apparently plummet in an uncontrolled manner and were unable to provide assistance. If that were me, I would feel bad about that.

On the other hand you are a paying customer, and I would have told the guide to F off, for sure. Witnessing similar incidents has caused me to try to be very aware of the amount of lead a buddy is using. If it looks stupid, I would rather say something on the boat, and look like a dick, rather than be presented with an eardrum challenging incident in the water. Perhaps that is a good lesson from this situation?

However, with the popularity of integrated weights, it is not so simple as just looking at the skinny guy’s weight belt.

Well. I did not allow anything. He just jumped and sunk and I tried to help. Wasn’t good enough but he screwed it not me. On another post, someone said that a strong diver can equalize at will. I am wondering what a strong diver is. I met a very experienced diver with over 1000 dives who sometimes had trouble equalizing. He told me that it was about his sinuses.

 

[drrich2]

Any rescue diver who wants to stay rescue-ready should keep a current open water lifeguard certification such as Red Cross Waterfront Lifeguard, keep current DAN, PADI or NAUI (or equivalent) CPR, First Aid, AED, O2 Administration, Marine Life Injuries and Wilderness First Aid certifications, practice rescue skills bi-annually at least, and maintain a Cooper Fitness Test level of "good."

That raises an interesting point, one of a few that come to mind.

1.) Sometimes discussions on the topic of 'a' Rescue Diver read like they're commodities; they are not. Yes, within an agency, in theory students were taught the same knowledge, trained in the same skills and tested to the same minimum standards to get certified. But reality often introduces more factors than theory does.

2.) Some people may take the course to become 'Super-Buddy' (or amateur lifeguard). Some may get it as a pre-requisite for something else. Some may want to improve their own capacity to anticipate, assess and handle risk mitigation.

3.) Not everyone took the course to become 'Scuba-Lifeguard' and not everyone does anything to stay fresh on the content. If someone got Rescue Diver certified over a decade ago, how much he/she retains now may vary widely?

Someone who took the course mainly to up their mindfulness and panic-resistance game may not remember the preferred extraction techniques for unresponsive buddies at boat or varied shore environs, CPR, etc...

 

[Trace Malinowski]

I've tweaked an ear a couple of times teaching freediving and had to cancel class for the day. You can have thousands of dives and have an equalization problem.

 

[Dody]

You

It isn't often you hear someone introduce themselves as a rescue diver, trotting out that particular certification is being their highest level. In fact, I have only seen it once, and I know of another case by reputation.

1. More than 20 years ago, I was diving in Cozumel. I was then just AOW. A middle aged man got on the boat with his beautiful new, young wife. She told the DM she was newly certified and on her first dive. Her husband told the rest of us on the boat that we were in good hands with him on the dive, because he was a rescue diver. He even got out his card and showed us. (I did not recognize the card and do not recall the agency--it was not PADI.) His wife turned out to be a pretty good diver, and she had zero problems. On the other hand, he was one of he worst divers I have seen in my life. The DM literally held his hand on the dives.
2. A couple years later, almost the same thing happened in Australia. A newlywed American couple boarded a liveaboard dive boat in Australia. When the boat crew announced that they would do a mandatory checkout dive, the husband, Gabe Watson, said they did not need one. Although his wife, Tina, was newly certified (NASDS), he was a NASDS-certified rescue diver, so he could take care of her. Incredibly, the liveaboard crew (Mike Ball) agreed to let them dive without the mandatory checkout dive. She turned out to be incompetent and almost immediately had problems, sinking uncontrollably. He tried to save her, but his attempts were so incompetent that some people assumed he had intentionally killed her. It eventually turned out that, no, he was really just that incompetent, with barely more experience than his wife.

So that is not a very big sample, but it does make me wonder. I wonder in general about people who feel a need to announce any kind of advanced certification on a recreational dive boat (which I have not seen often), and I suspect they are trying to convince themselves that they can do the dive, because they have doubts about it themselves.

You miss the point. When you are asked what is your highest cert, you either lie or say the truth. You should not care about optics or bias from others.