How has Rescue Diver helped you?

[ganu76]

One of the things I enjoy about this site is the chance to pick everyone's brain and hear all of the different ideas or experiences, so...

How has Rescue Diver helped you guys? Whether it be improving your situational awareness or general diving skills as a whole, or preparing you for an actual emergency you later experienced, what are the positive experiences you've already had from Rescue Diver?

(You don't have to convince me of the course's importance; I'm already heading that route come Spring/Summer. I'm just interested in your experiences... regardless of if it's you learning better bouyancy control or an actual emergency.)

 

[Diver0001]

Well....

I've performed an actual rescue along with several other people that involved a missing diver who had gone OOA and was left for dead on the bottom by his divemaster who freaked out and bolted to the surface when the sht hit the fan. Everyone on site fell back on their training and we found the diver, lifted him to the surface and had a helicopter with a trauma doctor, paramedics, police, and the fire dept divers complete with a boat on site in 10 minutes. There are a lot of nice things about living in Holland and one of them is that stuff like the EMS works *exactly* how it should.

The guy survived thanks to the combined efforts of my team, who found the diver, the fire dept who was already waiting on the surface with the boat when they got him up and the dr. and paramedics who pulled him back through the eye of the needle.

As an aside, the DM got off in court by claiming that he felt his life was in danger. Apparently you can get out of just about anything by saying you were scared. I'm sure the DM *was* scared. In fact he panicked and ran away and left another person to die when what he should have done is grabbed on to him and stuffed a regulator in his mouth. The DM didn't even raise the alarm. He just floated there on the surface like a stunned cow until the guy's buddy raised the alarm. That whole incident fundamentally changed the way I think about training (also rescue training but especially DM training). I won't train anyone for DM now until I'm sure that they're the kind of person who would run IN to a burning building to save someone.

R..

 

[cascas]

How has Rescue Diver helped you guys? Whether it be improving your situational awareness or general diving skills as a whole, or preparing you for an actual emergency you later experienced, what are the positive experiences you've already had from Rescue Diver?

Don't count on improving your diving skills. If it enhances your comfort level you've reached a large part of what can be achieved.
Will you be prepared when your Rescue course is done ? You will probably never know untill you encounter a situation where your help is needed. Untill then, just practise what you've learned.

RD thought me to always look around and check other divers around me. I will not run around telling everyone off, but I will point out possible hazards when I see them and hopefully prevent accidents from happening.

 

[HowardE]

One of the things I enjoy about this site is the chance to pick everyone's brain and hear all of the different ideas or experiences, so...

How has Rescue Diver helped you guys? Whether it be improving your situational awareness or general diving skills as a whole, or preparing you for an actual emergency you later experienced, what are the positive experiences you've already had from Rescue Diver?

(You don't have to convince me of the course's importance; I'm already heading that route come Spring/Summer. I'm just interested in your experiences... regardless of if it's you learning better bouyancy control or an actual emergency.)

When I first did my rescue class, I had already been diving for several years, and had logged around 800 dives.

While I can't say that the class improved my general skills as a diver, I can say that the course did refine my ability to safely assist and/or rescue a diver in trouble. It also presented to me several situations and solutions, that I hadn't even considered yet.

The required scenarios are good, and depending on how realistic your instructor makes them, they happen in real life. Knowing how to respond to situations is important. The training in rescue is so important, that DM and Instructors are also required to demonstrate abilities in these skills.

Aside from the in water skills, which not only build confidence and ability to cope with panicked divers... You do basic first aid and CPR which if you're not already CPR certified isn't a bad thing either.

---

As recently as two weeks ago, I had to rescue a panicked diver on the surface right here in Pompano.

A small group of divers (4) entered the water. I entered the water after them... They were on the tag line from the boat to the buoy, and one diver had a problem with his BCD (I later found out his inflator hose was leaking badly). The guy who was in trouble was already kicking and panicking on the surface. Reg out of his mouth, mask not on his eyes (yes it was up on his forehead). I could see from underwater (my face was in the water) the guy was in trouble by his erratic behavior below the water, and swiftly swam up to him and inflated his BCD, immediately followed by grabbing his weights (and passed them up to the boat). Got the guy buoyant, calmed the guy down, and swam him back to the boat ladder. It all happened so fast, very few people (except the boat captain) even noticed there was a problem.

This played out almost exactly like in my Rescue diver course; dealing with a panicked diver on the surface. It was practically textbook scenario, only in real life.

 

[They call me Tater]

I won't go into specifics but it helped me help others who were OK but in a stressful situation. I helped keep them calm and reminded them what to do all the while planning what I would do if the scene got worse. Thankfully it didn't but I feel that main usefullness of the course is preparation and prevention.

 

[rhwestfall]

I took rescue 23 years after initial certification. The reason being my now 10 year old daughter is likely going to be seeking certification soon, and I felt I needed my "A-Game" back. Almost all my diving has been with a very small group of people, and quite frankly, I had become complacent. My situational awareness of others was about as low as it could be, and diving was merely floating along blowing bubbles.

RD brought me back to reality. I really didn't learn anything new (OW and AOW were significant endeavors when I did them), but it got me paying attention to others again, and being a better buddy.

I have been blessed in that i have not had an emergency present itself, but have likely nipped things in the bud that may have had less than desirable outcomes had they gone un-addressed.

 

[DiveMaven]

Three months after taking Rescue, we went on a 2 week liveaboard trip. On the first dive of the trip, my regulator literally fell off the hose, causing a major free flow and emptying of my tank. I remember holding my reg in my hand and thinking through my options: wait for my buddy, do an out of air ascent (I had just started my safety stop), or using my octo. Since my tank emptied in a few seconds (it's amazing how fast 1000psi bleeds out from a hose!), I decided to wait for my buddy since he was coming toward me quickly. I remember thinking it was safer to complete my safety stop since I had just done a 60 minute dive, and before I knew it, my husband was there with his octo.

On the first day of the second week of our trip, one of the new divers had a major health problem at depth. My husband and I immediately sprang into service, helping to manage the scene, the other passengers, and the patient. He was airlifted off the boat by the Coast Guard to Miami.

On day 2 day of the second week, a buddy who had joined us for the second week, had an equipment malfunction with his computer hose leaking air at an increasing rate. I was able to immediately assess the situation, put him on my octo, and back to the boat we went before the hose completely blew.

Not much has happened since then, but we definitely felt Rescue gave us the confidence to deal with our emergencies, and we practice our skills regularly because of it.

 

[ganu76]

The reason being my now 10 year old daughter is likely going to be seeking certification soon

That is EXACTLY where I'm at. My 10 y/o daughter will likely start working on her cert the summer after she turns 12. I want to spend the time between now and then getting to where *I* need to be.

---------- Post Merged at 08:06 AM ---------- Previous Post was at 07:38 AM ----------

I will add that, though I have yet to take an RD course, I have assisted during an OOA experience. I attribute this near-accident to: immaturity on the OOA diver's part; poor leadership skills of the dive instructor that was present; and fudging by the OOA student when relaying his gas level.

Honestly though, that whole dive was a huge debacle from the start. I posted about it last summer.

I can say that I'm NOW glad to have been able to experience firsthand an OOA situation that ended well. It reinforced the idea that any dive which begins poorly typically doesn't ever "get better" as the dive continues.

 

[herbdb]

I dive primarily with my two grown sons. All of us took Rescue when my grandson started diving with us at age 10. Diving with kids brings out that protective instinct.

The course will help you look at the dive site, plan and your fellow divers to anticipate potential problems. The course is as much about heading off problems as it is about handling them.

I think every diver should continue their dive education through Rescue Diver.

 

[FinnMom]

A whole bunch of us from the same club took the class at the same time. There were many good points but by far our biggest benefit will be when we figure out what we're going to arrange that will make it easier to get an unconsious diver into the boat. I think we need a board of some sort.