I am thinking about completing the NAUI Rescue Diver class in the coming months. Does anyone know what NAUI's requirements are for the class? What materials covered, type and number of dives, ect. Also what kind of physical shape one should be in for the class.
NAUI Rescue Diver requirements?
- Thread starter smorneau
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NAUI as an agency sets minimum standards that Instructors and Students have to meet to become certified. Instructors are given the liberty to increase those standards as they see fit and often they do.
I don't know what the agency minimums are but I do know that CPR and First Aid certifications are required to graduate from the class. Some shops will hold their own class to meet this guideline, others won't. I'd ask the Instructor or Shop what their standards are to pass the Rescue Class.
I would strongly recommend preparing physically for this class. Cardio, leg, and arm strength. Train for endurance as well.
I would also recommend that you should be able to control your buoyancy to an extent and be comfortable performing all basic scuba skills in midwater (feet/knees off the bottom). You can pass the class w/o these skills sets but you'll come out of the class missing a lot (since your focus would be on basic skills instead of the rescue class material)
As an example just to get you going, UC Santa Cruz's Rescue Diver Class requires you to do the following (For both a NAUI Rescue and TA cert):
- Prerequisite of 10 logged Ocean dives as a certified diver
- Attend all lectures
- 1 Pool Session
- 1 Ocean Session
- Written Multi-choice exam with at least 80% passing score
- Attend Adv & Club Review Pool Session
- TA 2 Basic Skin dives
- TA 1 Basic Pool Session
- TA 1 Basic OW Checkout Dive
- CPR & First Aid
- O2 First Aid
The pool session consists of training for the ocean session.
The Ocean session consists of rescue land carries, OOA Drills, self-help drills, search and salvage drills, and full scuba rescues.
S&S Drills include:
- Circle searches
- square navigation
- reciprocal navigation
- parallel searches
Full Scuba Rescues consist of:
- Rescue of unconscious scuba diver from 15ft
- transport unconscious diver at least 100yds
- carry unconscious diver onto beach through the surf zone
- perform crowd control and CPR/First Aid
(All continuous from start to finish; no breaks)
I don't know what the agency minimums are but I do know that CPR and First Aid certifications are required to graduate from the class. Some shops will hold their own class to meet this guideline, others won't. I'd ask the Instructor or Shop what their standards are to pass the Rescue Class.
I would strongly recommend preparing physically for this class. Cardio, leg, and arm strength. Train for endurance as well.
I would also recommend that you should be able to control your buoyancy to an extent and be comfortable performing all basic scuba skills in midwater (feet/knees off the bottom). You can pass the class w/o these skills sets but you'll come out of the class missing a lot (since your focus would be on basic skills instead of the rescue class material)
As an example just to get you going, UC Santa Cruz's Rescue Diver Class requires you to do the following (For both a NAUI Rescue and TA cert):
- Prerequisite of 10 logged Ocean dives as a certified diver
- Attend all lectures
- 1 Pool Session
- 1 Ocean Session
- Written Multi-choice exam with at least 80% passing score
- Attend Adv & Club Review Pool Session
- TA 2 Basic Skin dives
- TA 1 Basic Pool Session
- TA 1 Basic OW Checkout Dive
- CPR & First Aid
- O2 First Aid
The pool session consists of training for the ocean session.
The Ocean session consists of rescue land carries, OOA Drills, self-help drills, search and salvage drills, and full scuba rescues.
S&S Drills include:
- Circle searches
- square navigation
- reciprocal navigation
- parallel searches
Full Scuba Rescues consist of:
- Rescue of unconscious scuba diver from 15ft
- transport unconscious diver at least 100yds
- carry unconscious diver onto beach through the surf zone
- perform crowd control and CPR/First Aid
(All continuous from start to finish; no breaks)
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You don't want to know what our rescue class consists of... It's a university course, but here it is.
16 pool sessions
5 classroom sessions
O2 admin, CPR/AED
Rescue at OWT consists of pulling one of the AI's up from the bottom and towing him 200yards. Said AI is in doubles.
You tow your buddy 500 yards while giving rescue breathing then 500 yards back but you can use a pocket mask and do a chin tow.
Search pattern techniques
Scenario. We drop a dummy in the quarry while everyone is chilling on a SIT and two people have to take fixes, one guy goes out skin diving, while one "calls" 911 and waits at the gate for them, two divers are getting geared up to go find the dummy. They have 4 minutes to get the dummy on the doc on O2 or they fail and get to do it again. It's rather intense, but I have a former Navy combat diver as a boss and he doesn't like to remember that they are just college kids.
so for us the materials is negligible, they do at minimum 10 dives and you have to be in really good shape. Oh, there's a mandatory mask fin snorkel ditch and don as well as a 1200yd circuit. 25yd underwater swim, 375 swim, don MFS while treading water, 25yd underwater kick, 375 kick. you have 15mins to do that, then don scuba gear 200yd dive with mask on back of head and 200 yard just kick around. That is all required for our open water divers too.
With what was said above about NAUI. You can clearly see that we don't follow the "minimum" standards and cover a lot more. With PADI's class in a can mentality, every class is identical. You have to talk to the specific shop about any NAUI class because the requirements are almost always exceeded which is why a shop will choose to teach with NAUI
16 pool sessions
5 classroom sessions
O2 admin, CPR/AED
Rescue at OWT consists of pulling one of the AI's up from the bottom and towing him 200yards. Said AI is in doubles.
You tow your buddy 500 yards while giving rescue breathing then 500 yards back but you can use a pocket mask and do a chin tow.
Search pattern techniques
Scenario. We drop a dummy in the quarry while everyone is chilling on a SIT and two people have to take fixes, one guy goes out skin diving, while one "calls" 911 and waits at the gate for them, two divers are getting geared up to go find the dummy. They have 4 minutes to get the dummy on the doc on O2 or they fail and get to do it again. It's rather intense, but I have a former Navy combat diver as a boss and he doesn't like to remember that they are just college kids.
so for us the materials is negligible, they do at minimum 10 dives and you have to be in really good shape. Oh, there's a mandatory mask fin snorkel ditch and don as well as a 1200yd circuit. 25yd underwater swim, 375 swim, don MFS while treading water, 25yd underwater kick, 375 kick. you have 15mins to do that, then don scuba gear 200yd dive with mask on back of head and 200 yard just kick around. That is all required for our open water divers too.
With what was said above about NAUI. You can clearly see that we don't follow the "minimum" standards and cover a lot more. With PADI's class in a can mentality, every class is identical. You have to talk to the specific shop about any NAUI class because the requirements are almost always exceeded which is why a shop will choose to teach with NAUI
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