Among the classes I took last year was a rescue diver course. I quite enjoyed learning a great deal more details about the rescue skills that had been drilled into me since my first scuba diving course, and of course, I learned much about self-rescue and incident prevention.
Anyway, I did the course, finished the checkout, and got my card, but as I'd never been in a "real" emergency, I always had a tiny twinge of uncertainty in the back of my mind. I know myself, and I knew how I would respond in an emergency, but without having been tested in fire, I didn't *KNOW*. Leave it to me to find a way to try myself in the most unexpected manner...
So, yesterday I dropped off my regs at my LDS for service (after a long non-diving weekend -- thanks weather
). While I was there, I helped them a bit with diagnosing a network problem they were having. When I hit the "ISP's gotta come out" wall, I headed home to find a Rottweiler and her three puppies outside my front door.* After a nice little growl, bark, and gradually warm to me session, I was finally able to go home to my cats.
(*My front door opens onto my parents' backyard, as I rent a one-room apartment from them. The dogs belong to one of my sisters, and her family is off visiting relatives out of state, so my parents are dog-sitting. The dogs were not unexpected, then, but the timing surprised me, and having to introduce myself, all alone, to the rott, which I'd never met before, was more interesting than a solo dive in a strange place with a ripping current... and I'm a *cat* person.)
Anyway, I stopped by on the way home today to check up on the LDS's networking (common courtesy, after all), and then I headed home. As soon as I got here, my rescue sense had me on edge. I didn't think, "Hey, something isn't right!" but I certainly felt it. (It's like that feeling you get right before something bad happens on your dive... or right before something bad would've happened had you not had the feeling.) Within moments, I noticed canine whining from the backyard (and not puppy-wanna-play whining, either). I immediately went outside, placed the whining near the pool, and saw waves in the water that shouldn't have been there.
*ZOT!* Rescue mode engaged.
Let me interrupt myself with just a bit of background. *I* am a *cat* person. I like cats. I identify with cats. I'm like a "cat whisperer", except for the small detail that cats tend not to like people in their heads. I'm *not* a dog person. I'm not mean to dogs, but I find them smelly and obnoxious and not at all relaxing. Dogs make me ill-at-ease. (Note: add an "except Wiggles" in all the dog stuff here, as J.'s family's dog gets a free pass. Wiggles is really almost a cat in pom's clothing, anyway.) Basically, I have a predisposition to not want to mess with dogs. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes...
*ZOT!* Rescue mode engaged.
I immediately rushed directly to the pool, and in stride, I saw one of the puppies with its nose just barely above the water. It was treading, but barely. (Would it be out of line to say it looked *dog* *tired*?
) Immediately, my hands went in my pockets to toss aside my cell and wallet, should I need to jump in, as I quickly spun to see what I had to work with.
"Reach, throw, go" would've flashed though my head, had it had a chance, but while I didn't take the time to think it, that's precisely what I did. As there was a convenient pole, I grabbed it and used it to push the puppy close to a wall, at which point I tossed the pole and managed to catch the puppy. It must've been treading water for a while, as not only did it look desperately tired in the water, but it was uncontrollably shaking and shivering.
As animals tend not to listen well, I skipped telling it to drink some warm fluids and went straight to wrapping it up in towels and blankets to dry it off and slowly warm it up. Of course, this involved sitting down on the porch stairs with a swaddled puppy on my lap (and two siblings and the rott mother climbing all over me) for well over an hour before it was finally warm enough to have completely stopped shivering.
That was plenty of time to think about my response. The whole puppy-rescue scenario couldn't have lasted even a minute from seeing the water moving to lifting the puppy out. In that very brief time, not once did I think about not liking dogs or anything like that. Somewhere in the back of my head, I noted the bystanders (momma rott and the distraught whining puppy), but that didn't come to the front until I had the puppy on land. (Then I was a bit conscious of having a rather unfamiliar rott judging me.)
I don't like dogs, especially ones licking or climbing on me, but while I had the puppy bundled up, that's precisely what I had for over an hour. It didn't phase me, other than to make me chuckle to myself quietly and note that I have to do laundry tonight to have my work pants clean for tomorrow morning. When there's something important, even "just" a puppy rescue, what I like is simply not relevant, as it should be. (Of course, having the puppy wrapped up in my lap with the inquisitive but apparently accepting momma rott nuzzling both it and me -- right below the neck -- was a bit... surreal.)
Anyway, you could say that a puppy rescue from a swimming pool is nothing compared to rescuing a distressed diver, but truth be told, the skills that I learned or practiced in rescue were tested perhaps more than they had been before. It wasn't a diver, but the puppy certainly appeared to be in mortal peril, and while it may have been fine even with a slow response, perhaps my training saved its life. Regardless, I was able to see myself handle a rescue in the manner I had hoped I would handle it, and perhaps, I'm a bit more confident this evening that I could indeed handle the snap decisions of a diver rescue.
(I don't know that I could do mouth-to-snout, so I'm really glad I got there by the time I did.)
Anyway, I did the course, finished the checkout, and got my card, but as I'd never been in a "real" emergency, I always had a tiny twinge of uncertainty in the back of my mind. I know myself, and I knew how I would respond in an emergency, but without having been tested in fire, I didn't *KNOW*. Leave it to me to find a way to try myself in the most unexpected manner...
So, yesterday I dropped off my regs at my LDS for service (after a long non-diving weekend -- thanks weather
). While I was there, I helped them a bit with diagnosing a network problem they were having. When I hit the "ISP's gotta come out" wall, I headed home to find a Rottweiler and her three puppies outside my front door.* After a nice little growl, bark, and gradually warm to me session, I was finally able to go home to my cats.(*My front door opens onto my parents' backyard, as I rent a one-room apartment from them. The dogs belong to one of my sisters, and her family is off visiting relatives out of state, so my parents are dog-sitting. The dogs were not unexpected, then, but the timing surprised me, and having to introduce myself, all alone, to the rott, which I'd never met before, was more interesting than a solo dive in a strange place with a ripping current... and I'm a *cat* person.)
Anyway, I stopped by on the way home today to check up on the LDS's networking (common courtesy, after all), and then I headed home. As soon as I got here, my rescue sense had me on edge. I didn't think, "Hey, something isn't right!" but I certainly felt it. (It's like that feeling you get right before something bad happens on your dive... or right before something bad would've happened had you not had the feeling.) Within moments, I noticed canine whining from the backyard (and not puppy-wanna-play whining, either). I immediately went outside, placed the whining near the pool, and saw waves in the water that shouldn't have been there.
*ZOT!* Rescue mode engaged.
Let me interrupt myself with just a bit of background. *I* am a *cat* person. I like cats. I identify with cats. I'm like a "cat whisperer", except for the small detail that cats tend not to like people in their heads. I'm *not* a dog person. I'm not mean to dogs, but I find them smelly and obnoxious and not at all relaxing. Dogs make me ill-at-ease. (Note: add an "except Wiggles" in all the dog stuff here, as J.'s family's dog gets a free pass. Wiggles is really almost a cat in pom's clothing, anyway.) Basically, I have a predisposition to not want to mess with dogs. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes...
*ZOT!* Rescue mode engaged.
I immediately rushed directly to the pool, and in stride, I saw one of the puppies with its nose just barely above the water. It was treading, but barely. (Would it be out of line to say it looked *dog* *tired*?
) Immediately, my hands went in my pockets to toss aside my cell and wallet, should I need to jump in, as I quickly spun to see what I had to work with."Reach, throw, go" would've flashed though my head, had it had a chance, but while I didn't take the time to think it, that's precisely what I did. As there was a convenient pole, I grabbed it and used it to push the puppy close to a wall, at which point I tossed the pole and managed to catch the puppy. It must've been treading water for a while, as not only did it look desperately tired in the water, but it was uncontrollably shaking and shivering.
As animals tend not to listen well, I skipped telling it to drink some warm fluids and went straight to wrapping it up in towels and blankets to dry it off and slowly warm it up. Of course, this involved sitting down on the porch stairs with a swaddled puppy on my lap (and two siblings and the rott mother climbing all over me) for well over an hour before it was finally warm enough to have completely stopped shivering.
That was plenty of time to think about my response. The whole puppy-rescue scenario couldn't have lasted even a minute from seeing the water moving to lifting the puppy out. In that very brief time, not once did I think about not liking dogs or anything like that. Somewhere in the back of my head, I noted the bystanders (momma rott and the distraught whining puppy), but that didn't come to the front until I had the puppy on land. (Then I was a bit conscious of having a rather unfamiliar rott judging me.
)I don't like dogs, especially ones licking or climbing on me, but while I had the puppy bundled up, that's precisely what I had for over an hour. It didn't phase me, other than to make me chuckle to myself quietly and note that I have to do laundry tonight to have my work pants clean for tomorrow morning. When there's something important, even "just" a puppy rescue, what I like is simply not relevant, as it should be. (Of course, having the puppy wrapped up in my lap with the inquisitive but apparently accepting momma rott nuzzling both it and me -- right below the neck -- was a bit... surreal.)
Anyway, you could say that a puppy rescue from a swimming pool is nothing compared to rescuing a distressed diver, but truth be told, the skills that I learned or practiced in rescue were tested perhaps more than they had been before. It wasn't a diver, but the puppy certainly appeared to be in mortal peril, and while it may have been fine even with a slow response, perhaps my training saved its life. Regardless, I was able to see myself handle a rescue in the manner I had hoped I would handle it, and perhaps, I'm a bit more confident this evening that I could indeed handle the snap decisions of a diver rescue.
(I don't know that I could do mouth-to-snout, so I'm really glad I got there by the time I did.
)
