Encountered first PSD/DIR Diver

[dittrimd]

The subject line may not be correct as I am not sure if this guy was actually a PSD diver or not but he did participate with our training exercise. Here is the story:

Two weekends ago my dive team did a combined drill with a neighboring towns surface/ ice rescue team. It was a great drill with a lot of participation. The site was not that great for diving as there was 13 inches of ice and 5 feet of water. In addition the water was very stagnent and kind of smelly.

Anyway when we arrived and were told that there would be another diver working with us. Now I did not get the whole story but it seemed he was not part of any offical PSD team. I believe he dives out of LDS as an instructor or something. Anyway he had the Halcyon rig with double steel tanks (not sure about the manifold) He had his primary reg which appeared to be a long hose. (I did not measure it) He had the necklace reg and he had a small 13 cu pony with Argon for inflation. He had what appeared to be a black trilam suit. Whatever the details this rig looked big and bulky and I wonder how well it works for him if he does do PSD.

What was more interesting was what he did in the water. At first he was just a surface victim in the hole. Then he put on his gear and tended himself! He put an ice screw in and fed his rope through. He then went under to simulate a victim under the ice which is where our team came into play. We put divers into another hole and worked our operations from there. The drill went well and we practiced our spider crawl with ice picks under the ice since swimming was not an option. I did not like the self tending thing as who would know he was having a problem.

It was a good drill and it was interesting to see the DIR guy and his gear. As I have started to read more about DIR and its practices I try to evaluate what could benefit PSD diving. I try to do this will all diving techniques and information I come across. I am always looking to improve the diving experience and above all safety.

Not sure if any other PSD divers have looked at different techniques like DIR but it would be interesting to hear about it.

Mark

P.S. on a surface support note make sure to purchase different color ropes. The surface support team we worked with had all the same color ropes. When the yanked on what they thought was the stokes rope to pull in the victim they actually yanked on of the tenders. I never really noticied that our dive team had different color ropes.

 

[bridgediver]

Hi Mark

If the guy is trully DIR then he would NEVER be solo diving. Buddy or team diving is a cornerstone of DIR --FWIW. Having no buddy AND no tender kind of puts him in a dangerous middle area that I don't think works.

All of my sport diving is pretty much DIR with a certain group. All of my PSD diving is done with another group. I consider both "teams" top notch in their discipline. Thus far I have not been able to find a way to bridge the 2. They are vastly different - the only equipment that is consistant to both are my fins! All the procedures, training and focus is completely different through necessity IMO
However, I'd be happy to discuss the merits of each. Maybe you can think of a way that I can't.

Thats why I have a strange signature line (something Georoge Irvine once said)

 

[dittrimd]

It was mainly his gear I was looking at but his diving acumen was also a part of it. Plus the gear was what I noticed first and it looked out of place at a PSD water rescue drill.

At any rate I would love to share thoughts on applying DIR type thinking to PSD diving.

My first I discussion about DIR was with respect to gear. When I started looking further into DIR and learned that it is much more than a gear selection issue although that is part of it. DIR is more of a frame of mind on how to best approach to a diving situation which presents a risk to the divers. Why not take the same approach and apply the DIR "concept" to PSD diving. This does not mean that you are going to take all or even some of the current DIR concepts and blindly apply them to PSD diving. I would say that most of us have been doing DIR as part of our natural progression as PSD divers. DIR diving is really a soup to nuts common sense approach to diving. It is an effort to evaluate a dangerous situation and try to find solutions that help reduce or eliminate the risk all together. Don't we all as PSD divers do that right now? If not we should be. This stuff can be very dangerous and part of our natural progression as PSD divers should be to improve our techniques so as to reduce our exposure to risks. I know for me I am diving much differently than when I first started. Part of that progression has been because of formal training, part learning from other more experienced PSD divers and some of it is just plain old figuring it out for myself.

Here are some of the biggest changes for me and my team since I joined 6 years ago. (Disclaimer: This is not a statement about what I think all PSD divers should do rather what has worked for me and my team.)

Then: Wet suit Now: Dry suit. Then: Single tank with octo off first stage Now: Main tank with 19 cu pony (Hard mounted to ME!) and complete redundant reg. Then: Regular Mask Now: Full face mask with coms. Then: long stiff fins Now: short flexible fins. Then: Weight belt Now: integrated weights(Although I am looking into eliminating all removable weights. Then: Vest BC Now: Rear wing BC (I am looking at Harness/Back plate/Wing setup). We are always tethered but I used to tie off to my BC then it was a LGS upper chest harness and now it is a full 5 point class three harness.

Our dive team used to be minimum two divers in the water tethered together and to shore. Through training and the addition of our coms we now do mostly solo divers with 100% safety diver and 90% back up diver.

One of our biggest short comings on an individual diver are non standard gear. Most of our divers are using some or all of their personal gear which is different from the next guy. In emergencies this will be a problem so here is an area where we could apply some DIR concepts. Everyone has the same gear or lest say with respect to safety items. Tanks, Regs, BC's Weights are all life safety items which need to me all the same. Mask, Fins, accessories could be left to the individual as long as it did not jeopardize the divers safety.

As for team procedures there are always going to be opinions. Not all teams will encounter the same problems and situations. One of the biggest challenges to PSD Dive Team the wide variety of types of team that are our there and how they are organized and funded. Some are paid law enforcement, some are paid fire, some are volunteer police teams (this is a group of paid officers from various towns pooling resources), and some are volunteer fire department teams. These teams could cover only one town or city; they could cover a county or even a statewide team. They are all funded from various sources, federally funded US Government team, state funded teams, county, or city teams. In some cases the individuals subsidize these teams by purchasing and maintaining their own gear. (Give me a "Yeah Volunteers!!")

There is a huge list of contributing factors which make it hard to work towards one common PSD standard. Throughout the industry there is not even consistency of training amongst PSD training programs. As with DIR diving the line between a safe approach to diving and a good marketing strategy to sell specialize (expensive) dive gear can get blurred. I could put together a whole thread on some of the common practices taught at these PSD classes which are hard to accept!! So I won't even go there. At any rate that is enough for now but I am always interested in hearing what you feel some of your best practices are both as individual PSD divers and as a dive team.

Can't wait to hear from you all,

Mark

 

[bridgediver]

Wow that's a mouthful! I'm not sure if you're looking for responses or not but I agree with what you're saying in principle. The main tennants of DIR is the attitude and approach to diving. This all includes good team/buddy skills (in our case the tender is the buddy), fitness, constant practice and training at a high level, standardized equipment, contingency planning, safe dive planning etc

Why not take the same approach and apply the DIR "concept" to PSD diving.

Yes. Good idea. But this is where I may disagree with you. The whole point of DIR is that it is a HOLISTIC system meaning that it works best by adherence to every component.
Could we develop a DIRPSD? Absolutely. The only thing different IMO would be the specific equipment and the procedures that we use (and here is where I disagree) but they would need to be STANDARD to truly be approaching what DIR means.

We say this all the time: "What works for one team doesn't always work for another" WHY?? Is there not a basic PSD equipment configuration that should work for all forms of PSD? We're doing the same job! Sure there is but people take criticism of their gear selection like a personal attack and then the phrase leaps out. They don't listen to the reasons why a certain peice of gear is better than the rest. They may try something new 3-4 times without gaining a good proficiency level of the item and say that it doesn't work for them. Or if its a complex skill they'll try to repeat it from a book instead of getting proper instruction and probably botch it up - again will say it doesn't work for them.
Or worse: "Our team can't afford that", which really means, we don't have the money to make our team as safe as it can be. Maybe thats OK for some things but which things? When is the risk too great?

The sport diving DIR environment is far more varied than the PSD world. If they can create a basic equipment configuaration and procedures that can be the foundation of any dive from a standard reef dive to 60' to a 3000' cave penetration or a 400' scooter dive along a wall then I think that the PSD community could build something similar for what we do. Altitude, salt, fresh, zero vis, good vis - it all shouldn't matter in building a foundation
The problem is, nobody wants to listen and evaluate without bias and ego getting in the way.

But hey, let's see where this goes...

Mask, Fins, accessories could be left to the individual as long as it did not jeopardize the divers safety.

We could even start here. What sort of "accessories" are required for a standard shore based PSD line search? The more we bring the more we risk, right?
Fins - a good set of fins that produce power may mean the difference, especially if in a current. Can you also manuver with them in various ways? backwards, helicopter turns, silt reducing kicks? Most fins aren't able to accomplish all of this efficiently.
Mask - high or low volume? What kind of strap?

To me, this is all safety equipment. A loss or bad choice of any of these can result in the increased stress and risk to the diver, a less efficient dive also may make the difference of a save or not

As for team procedures there are always going to be opinions. Not all teams will encounter the same problems and situations.

Agreed, because each situation is unique with a whole host of different problems. Some of which you won't have thought of. Why not train for every possible failure or problem in case? We shouldn't have to wait for the experience ourselves to find that there may be a potential problem that we haven't trained for. Most situations will have occured to someone else somewhere else before

One of the biggest challenges to PSD Dive Team the wide variety of types of team that are our there and how they are organized and funded. Some are paid law enforcement, some are paid fire, some are volunteer police teams (this is a group of paid officers from various towns pooling resources), and some are volunteer fire department teams. These teams could cover only one town or city; they could cover a county or even a statewide team. They are all funded from various sources, federally funded US Government team, state funded teams, county, or city teams. In some cases the individuals subsidize these teams by purchasing and maintaining their own gear. (Give me a "Yeah Volunteers!!")

How the team is organized, when it trains, its role etc doesn't really matter. The PSD dive is what matters. How is it done? This is where standard procedures and equipment can shine

Throughout the industry there is not even consistency of training amongst PSD training programs.

This is no different then the sport dive training agencies.

As with DIR diving the line between a safe approach to diving and a good marketing strategy to sell specialize (expensive) dive gear can get blurred. I could put together a whole thread on some of the common practices taught at these PSD classes which are hard to accept!!

Mark

You lost me here...

 

[daniel f aleman]

Wow! You need to network with other PSD units... make a phone call:

http://www.smartdivers.com/

 

[bridgediver]

Wow! You need to network with other PSD units... make a phone call:

http://www.smartdivers.com/

Ummmm.... we do network with alot of other teams.

Why do you suggest calling these guys?

 

[daniel f aleman]

My link was directed towards the OP. SMART are one of the best teams in the US, and they are called in when there is no local team available.

 

[Yotsie]

I have to agree with Bridgediver, PSD is a whole different type of diving. Circumstances and unique conditions dictate what tactics and equipment will be used. What works for Bridgediver in Canada, may not work for my team in California. What SMART does in Texas, may not work out here or up there either. Each area has characteristics that may cause you to even change up what you already put into motion. I've been on many calls were a certain technique just won't work and something else may need to be used. This could mean a change in equipment too. My team dives both self contained and surface supplied systems. Circumstances dictate what system will be used. To try to regulate a team to certain equipment or way of doing things will doom the team to failure. As far as it's safe, I game to try anything to bring a mission to a successful conclusion. Safety will not be compromised though.

As far as networking with other teams. I believe that is what some of us use this section of the fourm for. I for one have learned a lot, as well as celebrated when one of our teams succeeds and pray when teams have trouble with their missions.

Public Safety Diving must remain flexible, which goes against the DIR concept.

 

[H2Andy]

It was a good drill and it was interesting to see the DIR guy and his gear.

as has been stated, the cornerstone of DIR diving is team diving, and no DIR diver is supposed to dive solo

if he was diving solo, i wonder what other DIR principles he was breaking?

in other words, don't look to this guy for a model of what DIR diving is

btw, DIR diving does not mandate double tanks. single tanks are ok in the right environment

as to a specific team (i.e. your local team), the DIR idea of standarization of equipment and training could be very implementable. it helps in an emergecy to know what your buddy is wearing, how he/she is wearing it, and where he/she is wearing it. you need to think about if the pluses outweigh the minuses.

also, a standarized training program could give confidence to your team members that they are diving with people with their same training and skills

(DIR works; i've gone diving with a diver from Ottawa i've never met, and we both knew exactly what the other was wearing, what procedures to follow, and what we would expect of each other)

in overhead environment, such as ice, i'd probably want doubles, though

 

[bridgediver]

I don't know Yotsie. I agree that tactics need to be flexible but the strategy of how a PSD dives is generally the same no matter where you go. ie - we all work with a tether, we are all pretty much solo diving and have redundant air, exposure protection, bouyancy, back up divers, tenders, comms etc. This should never change whether we use SS or standard scuba gear

There is a foundation here that can be built upon. Much like the DIR diver equipped with a single 80, he needs to have the equipment, training "built" onto him to do the deep scooter dive to 300'. We should be able to build from a basic PSD equipment configuration

Daniel - Are you a PSD? And I don't ask to put you on the spot but I see several questionable things in the pictures on that website. Of course maybe I'm missing the context but they just don't look right to me and most PSD's that I know would identify these things just by looking at a few of those pictures.