Unified Team Diving
Contributor
UTD joins forces with HSA (Handicapped Scuba Association)
This past weekend 10 UTD Instructors and Instructor Candidates took part in the first HSA Instructor Development Course held at UTD Headquarters in Carlsbad, CA. (See Photo Album) Before we jump into my thoughts and blog, I want to thank Jim Gatacre and Denise Dowd, with assistance from UTD/HSA instructor Dave Bentley, for taking the time to come to HQ and put on this incredibly fantastic 14 hour per day 3- day instructor class. We, the UTD team, appreciate their dedication and commitment to their cause, agency, and course. Additionally, and probably most importantly, we appreciate their belief in certifying safe, comfortable, competent, and confident divers who have different needs and/or abilities than able-bodied divers.
HSA is not a new agency – they have being training divers with special needs for the last 30+ years. I believe however that this is the first time they have trained instructors and an agency with a Hogarthian/DIR/UTD background, and most importantly, an agency with a unified team mindset. The 10 students included both back mount and side mount divers. Each configuration however maintains consistency with UTD philosophy and protocol.
Jim and Denise's dedication to training well qualified, safe, and comfortable divers was apparent. Jim enforced the need for buddy breathing, CESA's, and so on, even if students are quadriplegic. I really appreciated his determination that they are divers first and foremost, and that there are no shortcuts just because they have different abilities.
The course started on Friday with six hours of lecture followed by four hours of pool. We worked both as instructors and divers with special needs to ensure that we both experienced the role of the instructor and the disabled student seeking certification. Saturday was even longer, with six hours of class followed by six hours of pool. I think that I lifted 10 different quadriplegic divers out of the water as the instructor...at the end of that session I was spent. Monday we met early and boarded the Marissa Dive Boat in San Diego. A big thank you to Lora Meyer for running a great charter that allowed us to us mimick what it would be like to take a paraplegic diver on board, to the bathroom, and to deploy them off of the swim step. We loaded many many quadriplegic divers back onto the boat. Again, the physical aspect of this class was intense. After a late lunch, it was back to the office to work on Standards and Procedures for another six hours and finally at 8pm we took the big test. Man, this class is not for the faint of heart.
So, what did we learn and why did we pursue Handicapped Diver certification? As some of you know, UTD is an INCLUSIVE agency, and we believe that over the last 20 years of cave/hogarthian and DIR diving we have learned how to use configurations, techniques, principles, protocols, and philosophies that we believe are the safest and of the highest in the industry. We are determined to share these roots, knowledge, skills, protocols, and principles with as many different divers and disciplines as we can.
Recapping our last five years, you will see that we entered the market with what we knew – the back-mounted DIR configuration, skills, and protocols. We very quickly moved into closed circuit rebreathers, side mount, scientific, public safety, and even surface supplied diving. We tackled each one of these areas or disciplines of diving by bringing our dedication to our UTD covenants, principles and protocols, making a "Unified Team" through consistent, compatible, scalable and interchangeable systems. This makes mixed team diving possible. This is exactly what we wanted to achieve working with HSA – we wanted to meld together our principles and philosophies by making UTD/DIR diving principles, protocols and procedures available to divers with special needs. For example, in the past cave diving was very difficult, if not impossible, for a paraplegic. Due to the weight of the steel doubles, manifold, SS backplate, and so on, it would be very difficult to get to the water's edge. Once in the water, the balance of these top heavy tanks and systems would be extremely challenging to balance. However, with the UTD Z-Side-Mount system, cave diving is now available to all paraplegic divers. They can take each tank to the water's edge individually, slip into the water, don the tanks from the water edge, and not have the weight of the tanks rolling them around. Side mount is significantly more stable in the water than back mount, and with the UTD Isolator Manifold, all divers can now enter into the overhead environment within a mixed team (DIR back mount, side mount, UTD mCCR rebreather). This allows each diver to be consistent, modular, and scalable. Our UTD system can now open new doors and opportunities for scuba divers with special needs, whether it be open water, cave, wreck, tech, or even surface supplied.
I really believe that the HSA instructor course was a true eye opener for all of us, and once again want to thank Jim and Denise for their time and dedication, as well as congratulate Jeff, Kelli, Mary, Erol, Jason, Randy, Jayve, and Mark on their successful completion of the course.
AG
This past weekend 10 UTD Instructors and Instructor Candidates took part in the first HSA Instructor Development Course held at UTD Headquarters in Carlsbad, CA. (See Photo Album) Before we jump into my thoughts and blog, I want to thank Jim Gatacre and Denise Dowd, with assistance from UTD/HSA instructor Dave Bentley, for taking the time to come to HQ and put on this incredibly fantastic 14 hour per day 3- day instructor class. We, the UTD team, appreciate their dedication and commitment to their cause, agency, and course. Additionally, and probably most importantly, we appreciate their belief in certifying safe, comfortable, competent, and confident divers who have different needs and/or abilities than able-bodied divers.
HSA is not a new agency – they have being training divers with special needs for the last 30+ years. I believe however that this is the first time they have trained instructors and an agency with a Hogarthian/DIR/UTD background, and most importantly, an agency with a unified team mindset. The 10 students included both back mount and side mount divers. Each configuration however maintains consistency with UTD philosophy and protocol.
Jim and Denise's dedication to training well qualified, safe, and comfortable divers was apparent. Jim enforced the need for buddy breathing, CESA's, and so on, even if students are quadriplegic. I really appreciated his determination that they are divers first and foremost, and that there are no shortcuts just because they have different abilities.
The course started on Friday with six hours of lecture followed by four hours of pool. We worked both as instructors and divers with special needs to ensure that we both experienced the role of the instructor and the disabled student seeking certification. Saturday was even longer, with six hours of class followed by six hours of pool. I think that I lifted 10 different quadriplegic divers out of the water as the instructor...at the end of that session I was spent. Monday we met early and boarded the Marissa Dive Boat in San Diego. A big thank you to Lora Meyer for running a great charter that allowed us to us mimick what it would be like to take a paraplegic diver on board, to the bathroom, and to deploy them off of the swim step. We loaded many many quadriplegic divers back onto the boat. Again, the physical aspect of this class was intense. After a late lunch, it was back to the office to work on Standards and Procedures for another six hours and finally at 8pm we took the big test. Man, this class is not for the faint of heart.
So, what did we learn and why did we pursue Handicapped Diver certification? As some of you know, UTD is an INCLUSIVE agency, and we believe that over the last 20 years of cave/hogarthian and DIR diving we have learned how to use configurations, techniques, principles, protocols, and philosophies that we believe are the safest and of the highest in the industry. We are determined to share these roots, knowledge, skills, protocols, and principles with as many different divers and disciplines as we can.
Recapping our last five years, you will see that we entered the market with what we knew – the back-mounted DIR configuration, skills, and protocols. We very quickly moved into closed circuit rebreathers, side mount, scientific, public safety, and even surface supplied diving. We tackled each one of these areas or disciplines of diving by bringing our dedication to our UTD covenants, principles and protocols, making a "Unified Team" through consistent, compatible, scalable and interchangeable systems. This makes mixed team diving possible. This is exactly what we wanted to achieve working with HSA – we wanted to meld together our principles and philosophies by making UTD/DIR diving principles, protocols and procedures available to divers with special needs. For example, in the past cave diving was very difficult, if not impossible, for a paraplegic. Due to the weight of the steel doubles, manifold, SS backplate, and so on, it would be very difficult to get to the water's edge. Once in the water, the balance of these top heavy tanks and systems would be extremely challenging to balance. However, with the UTD Z-Side-Mount system, cave diving is now available to all paraplegic divers. They can take each tank to the water's edge individually, slip into the water, don the tanks from the water edge, and not have the weight of the tanks rolling them around. Side mount is significantly more stable in the water than back mount, and with the UTD Isolator Manifold, all divers can now enter into the overhead environment within a mixed team (DIR back mount, side mount, UTD mCCR rebreather). This allows each diver to be consistent, modular, and scalable. Our UTD system can now open new doors and opportunities for scuba divers with special needs, whether it be open water, cave, wreck, tech, or even surface supplied.
I really believe that the HSA instructor course was a true eye opener for all of us, and once again want to thank Jim and Denise for their time and dedication, as well as congratulate Jeff, Kelli, Mary, Erol, Jason, Randy, Jayve, and Mark on their successful completion of the course.
AG
