NSDiver
Contributor
Just did my Rescue Diver checkouts this weekend at Beaver Lake, AR, and the course really lived up to my expectations.
There were four of us in the class, and we got down to the lake (North Dam site for all familiar parties) at about 10 on Saturday. Started out by practicing some of the things we had talked about and done in the pool. First was a few tired diver tows, nothing too tough, but enough to make all four of us a little winded.
Next, two "panicked" divers (one was a divemaster, the other an instructor) were about 150 yards from shore flailing about and generally looking like they were trying to drown. I approached the divemaster (my dad, who took the class with me, approached the other one). I did everything I could by the book, staying about ten feet from the panicked diver, and tried to get him to inflate his BC - of course this didn't work, and the diver kept deflating his BC instead of inflating it (i.e. "Diver - press the blue button... no, not the black button, the BLUE button"). So I proceeded to tell the diver that I would help him, and did the underwater approach.
Once underwater and trying to get behind him, I realized that he wasn't going to make the approach easy: he kept turning towards my bubbles and making it hard for me to get behind him. After a minuted or two of dancing around I made a quick dart underneath him and popped to the surface, piggybacking the tank and grabbing the valve as fast as I could. I got his vest inflated, but he was somehow able to get around on me and rip the mask off my face (broke the strap) and push me underwater. I descended, a little frustrated, and tried again. The second time was a little easier, and I managed to get him in. In a real situation, I probably would have just waited out there a little longer for him to get tired (he was huge), but I won't ever forget how difficult it can be to get control of a panicked diver.
Next we practiced in water rescue breathing and egress, as well as some first aid. This would come in handy for Sunday's "rescue scenarios."
After that we did some practice with calming down panicked divers underwater, and some airsharing, and getting unconscious divers to the surface. Getting the unconscious diver to the surface turned out to be harder than I would have thought, because the divemaster (same one who nearly killed me when he "panicked") had intentionally ridiculously overweighted himself (30 lbs with no suit on).
We also practiced missing diver procedures. One of the instructors yelled out to us that we had a missing diver, so I took charge, got a description of the "diver" (a blue milk crate), and sent someone to the parking lot to check and see if he had left without telling anyone. Then I sent two into the water to place a marker buoy and snorkel around looking for him while my dad and I geared up and dove down looking for him. The search dive was tough, done in 4' of vis - the combination of the OW students and the instructors kicking up silt to make the search more difficult. We managed to find the crate about 8 minutes after the scenario started.
After going over all of the procedures the first day, we spent Sunday doing "scenarios." The first one was pretty good. We had two divers underwater, one with a very badly cut leg, the other panicking and trying to get the diver out of the situation. My dad and I came across the two divers and calmed them down, and brought them to the surface while applying some pressure to the leg. We got the cut diver out of the water, and I sent someone to call for "pizza." We elevated the leg, kept pressure on the wound and put some pressure on the point in the leg. At this point, one of the other students, not in our Rescue class, came over and told us that she was a doctor. I had just taken off my shirt to wrap the wound with, and the doctor tied it around the leg above the wound. She asked where the cut was (at this point still believing the scenario was real), and my dad told her "under my hand." My dad took his hand off the "wound" and she finally realized it was just a drill... Funny, but we still learned a lot from this interaction.
We also did some more tows and egresses. It was tough to tow a diver out of the water while providing rescue breathing, while perhaps removing equipment to make the tow and egress faster.
We did another missing diver scenario (this time a real person), where we had to find him and provide rescue breathing. We did another one with an unconscious diver who was about 200 yards from shore. During the last scenario, our instructor was near the unconscious diver (apparently, he was supposed to be that divers buddy, though we misunderstood and thought he wasn't part of the scenario), and disappeared after we pulled the unconscious diver out. We followed his bubbles a few hundred yards down the shore, and though he was glad we at least kept track of him when he went under, he lectured us for not bringing him in with the unconscious diver.
All in all, an excellent class that was well worth the money and the time. I learned a lot and would urge anyone and everyone who dives to take this course. This was certainly my longest post ever, and looking back over it I am sure that I didn't even cover everything that we crammed into the weekend. If you read this far and are not rescue certified, get enrolled in a class.
-Nick
There were four of us in the class, and we got down to the lake (North Dam site for all familiar parties) at about 10 on Saturday. Started out by practicing some of the things we had talked about and done in the pool. First was a few tired diver tows, nothing too tough, but enough to make all four of us a little winded.
Next, two "panicked" divers (one was a divemaster, the other an instructor) were about 150 yards from shore flailing about and generally looking like they were trying to drown. I approached the divemaster (my dad, who took the class with me, approached the other one). I did everything I could by the book, staying about ten feet from the panicked diver, and tried to get him to inflate his BC - of course this didn't work, and the diver kept deflating his BC instead of inflating it (i.e. "Diver - press the blue button... no, not the black button, the BLUE button"). So I proceeded to tell the diver that I would help him, and did the underwater approach.
Once underwater and trying to get behind him, I realized that he wasn't going to make the approach easy: he kept turning towards my bubbles and making it hard for me to get behind him. After a minuted or two of dancing around I made a quick dart underneath him and popped to the surface, piggybacking the tank and grabbing the valve as fast as I could. I got his vest inflated, but he was somehow able to get around on me and rip the mask off my face (broke the strap) and push me underwater. I descended, a little frustrated, and tried again. The second time was a little easier, and I managed to get him in. In a real situation, I probably would have just waited out there a little longer for him to get tired (he was huge), but I won't ever forget how difficult it can be to get control of a panicked diver.
Next we practiced in water rescue breathing and egress, as well as some first aid. This would come in handy for Sunday's "rescue scenarios."
After that we did some practice with calming down panicked divers underwater, and some airsharing, and getting unconscious divers to the surface. Getting the unconscious diver to the surface turned out to be harder than I would have thought, because the divemaster (same one who nearly killed me when he "panicked") had intentionally ridiculously overweighted himself (30 lbs with no suit on).
We also practiced missing diver procedures. One of the instructors yelled out to us that we had a missing diver, so I took charge, got a description of the "diver" (a blue milk crate), and sent someone to the parking lot to check and see if he had left without telling anyone. Then I sent two into the water to place a marker buoy and snorkel around looking for him while my dad and I geared up and dove down looking for him. The search dive was tough, done in 4' of vis - the combination of the OW students and the instructors kicking up silt to make the search more difficult. We managed to find the crate about 8 minutes after the scenario started.
After going over all of the procedures the first day, we spent Sunday doing "scenarios." The first one was pretty good. We had two divers underwater, one with a very badly cut leg, the other panicking and trying to get the diver out of the situation. My dad and I came across the two divers and calmed them down, and brought them to the surface while applying some pressure to the leg. We got the cut diver out of the water, and I sent someone to call for "pizza." We elevated the leg, kept pressure on the wound and put some pressure on the point in the leg. At this point, one of the other students, not in our Rescue class, came over and told us that she was a doctor. I had just taken off my shirt to wrap the wound with, and the doctor tied it around the leg above the wound. She asked where the cut was (at this point still believing the scenario was real), and my dad told her "under my hand." My dad took his hand off the "wound" and she finally realized it was just a drill... Funny, but we still learned a lot from this interaction.
We also did some more tows and egresses. It was tough to tow a diver out of the water while providing rescue breathing, while perhaps removing equipment to make the tow and egress faster.
We did another missing diver scenario (this time a real person), where we had to find him and provide rescue breathing. We did another one with an unconscious diver who was about 200 yards from shore. During the last scenario, our instructor was near the unconscious diver (apparently, he was supposed to be that divers buddy, though we misunderstood and thought he wasn't part of the scenario), and disappeared after we pulled the unconscious diver out. We followed his bubbles a few hundred yards down the shore, and though he was glad we at least kept track of him when he went under, he lectured us for not bringing him in with the unconscious diver.
All in all, an excellent class that was well worth the money and the time. I learned a lot and would urge anyone and everyone who dives to take this course. This was certainly my longest post ever, and looking back over it I am sure that I didn't even cover everything that we crammed into the weekend. If you read this far and are not rescue certified, get enrolled in a class.
-Nick
