What do we think about taking rescue course with rental gear?

[Will1760]

Something to be considered and quite probably a failing on the part of BSAC and PADI. BSAC regard someone who has PADI AOW as equivalent to Sport diver when in fact they are not. Someone can attain PADI AOW without knowing about decompression tables and only using a wetsuit. Anyone only trained in ascending with a casualty only in wetsuits would probably loose control of a dry suited casualty. Whether to use rental gear or not is inconsequential in comparison.

BSAC recognise Rescue Diver as a Sport Diver equivalent, not AOW. Agree on the drysuit point; it wasn't something I really considered until I crossed over.
Source: Equivalent BSAC qualifications

 

[Boarderguy]

Disregard.

 

[Damselfish]

I have PADI OW (2001) and PADI DPV (2022) certs. That's it. I dive a dry suit and don't pop like a cork... No formal training. No coursework. Buddies I dive with gave a quick run down when I first got it and that was it. ALL is my previous diving has been in 7mm farmer John, 8mm semi dry, 3mm jump suit, and board shorts and rash guard shirt.

That assessment of you're trained a certain way or you'll die is garbage.

Diving a drysuit yourself is one thing but thats not what this is about. Getting a casualty in a drysuit up, when you have no experience with it, when things have already by definition gone south, is a different matter.

 

[Tracy]

Rental gear is expensive and rarely maintained as well as you will maintain your own gear.

You apparently maintain your gear to a much higher standard than I do.

 

[Boarderguy]

Diving a drysuit yourself is one thing but thats not what this is about. Getting a casualty in a drysuit up, when you have no experience with it, when things have already by definition gone south, is a different matter.

Thanks, long day and I misread it.

 

[60plus]

BSAC recognise Rescue Diver as a Sport Diver equivalent, not AOW. Agree on the drysuit point; it wasn't something I really considered until I crossed over.
Source: Equivalent BSAC qualifications

To get rescue diver you have to already have AOW. I should have said you have to have both AOW and rescue, but even then it is not quite same as sport diver because PADI AOW is only to 30m (not 35m as sport diver) and does not necessarily include decompression table knowledge.

 

[OMyMyOHellYes]

A lot of what I've read highly recommends owning your own BC/regulator setup for this course because it's helpful to be intimately familiar with the gear so that using it is second nature. That makes a lot of sense to me. But I'm landlocked in Colorado and get out diving only once or -- if I'm lucky -- twice a year for several days at a time. So far I haven't justified the expense for my own BCD or regulators (though I am getting close to doing that as well). What does the community think - would I be better waiting to take rescue until I have my own equipment?

Rental gear will be fine.

If rental gear is what you dive in, that's what you'd be diving in anyway, right?

Also, one of the things often overlooked: Rescue Diver is really not even a core diving course. Well, not a course that includes much in the way of diving. I did far less diving in that course than any other I've done (except for the shop classroom Nitrox course or the equipment specialist course, also in the dive shop classroom). My final exam dive for the course wasn't but 9 minutes long. A couple of dives were "loggable" at 20 minutes, but there were only a **couple** of those. Literally. I went back and reviewed the Perdix logs. During the course, there were only **2** "loggable" dives. That didn't include a bunch of real quick 15-20 foot dunks lasting 2-4 minutes to accomplish a quick practice or demonstration of skills ~ "your buddy is on the bottom. May be asleep or may be unconscious. Or may just be looking a cute shrimp up close. Go find them, figure it out, and get them and bring them up if you decide they need rescuing..." or maybe "OK, your buddy swims up to you in a frenzied panic. Control them and bring the topside without getting yourself drowned..." "Go find them, they are unconscious. Bring them up and start rescue breathing while you tow them back to the dock, get them and you out of your gear and carry them up the ladder and start CPR ...."

You don't really want a backplate and wing for the course, nor a back inflate BCD. It has nothing to do with getting out of the equipment.

Back to my point, it is not a diving course. Most of the course was spent bobbing on the surface, not submerged seeking good trim and buoyancy and getting from point A to point B. BP&W or back inflate are great for diving, not for bobbing on the surface. I did mine in the back inflate Scubapro Hydros Pro (which I love for a BCD). What I found was a lot of frustration and fatigue as I was always having to fin and fan my arms to stay upright for extended periods ~ discussion with instructor, dissection of what just happened, or could have happened, or should have happened, or just watching others or shagging their shared gear. The BP&W/back inflates, with all the air (and buoyancy) on your back want to orient you back up, face down in the water. They would be fine for the "go find and surface the victim" parts but once on the surface, it would tend to get awkward.

I probably should have considered leaving my BCD in the locker and renting for the class.

That's just my two sandollars.

 

[Dave Earl]

IMHO Rescue Course is still a very entry-level SCUBA qualification. 40 dives is not very many, really. If you're only diving a couple of times a year, or on holidays once-in-a-while, then there's no point buying your own stuff, and the extra confidence you get from the course is worthwhile. Plus you'll be doing it in the kind of hire gear you're most likely to be using when you dive.

Financially, I find it a bit nuts that people who might go for a dive on a holiday every year or two are encouraged to buy their own gear. Sure, it's better and way more comfortable, but with that kind of experience you're not going to be able to take much advantage of the benefits of your own gear, and before you know it your gear will be 10 years old and falling apart because of age, and you've only done 50 dives or whatever on it.

If money is not a problem, or you're realistically doing 20+ dives a year, then get your own kit ASAP.

 

[Belzelbub]

A question about the rescue diver course: I'm really close to signing up for EFR and rescue diver courses this spring, but there's something I often see in discussions about the rescue course that has me hesitating. A lot of what I've read highly recommends owning your own BC/regulator setup for this course because it's helpful to be intimately familiar with the gear so that using it is second nature. That makes a lot of sense to me. But I'm landlocked in Colorado and get out diving only once or -- if I'm lucky -- twice a year for several days at a time. So far I haven't justified the expense for my own BCD or regulators (though I am getting close to doing that as well). What does the community think - would I be better waiting to take rescue until I have my own equipment?

I know the original post is from a few months ago, but the thread was fairly recently active. I wanted to respond after completing my Stress & Rescue course to see what I thought afterward.

For starters, I would say it's best to have your own gear, but in your case, I can see why renting gear might make more sense. I wouldn't hesitate to take the Rescue course in rental gear if that's what you are using in most cases. Regardless of what you use, being comfortable with the gear, and being comfortable diving are more important.

I would definitely recommend taking this course. I just completed mine and it was definitely worth it. Course was through my LDS and through SSI. We actually took two courses React Right and Stress & Rescue. React Right was land based and consisted mostly of the First Aid type courses (EFR, CPR, AED, and O2 Provider). It wasn't required to do this course through SSI, but an active EFR, CPR, AED, and O2 Provider cert were a prerequisite of the Stress & Rescue course.

Stress & Rescue was definitely well worth it. We ran through numerous scenarios and potential solutions. Then we practiced them. The last day of the course was primarily putting everything together. While underwater, we were presented with unknown situations that we had to interpret and respond. There was a variety of different gear configurations present, which helped to ensure we knew how to react with gear that may not be familiar to us. (Back inflate BCs and BPWs, SPGs and Transmitter, Wrist computers and Consoles, and a variety of octo configurations) Overall, it was well done. Another group was doing another class, and their instructor talked to ours indicating that he really liked the way the class was run. There were surprises along the way. At one point, we were talking to the instructor and getting our gear ready while the assistant instructor snuck off and jumped in the water and acted like he was drowning. Completely unexpected, but we just had to assess and see what we could do. There was a throwable ring on the dock. My initial throw was a bit short due to the line getting tangled, but the second throw was better.

Throughout the course, the instructor provided real examples that he had witnessed. One that he used was very familiar to me, as I participated in that rescue (at the same location we did checkouts) several years prior. He included that one in the course as he wanted to highlight one where everything went as smooth as possible, and that he wouldn't expect that to happen quite so smoothly. During that rescue, there was another instructor that commented to his students that we were doing a rescue course. He was corrected and told that it was real.

 

[spc751]

From my experience I say do Rescue diver ASAP. Are you never going to need to help someone until you have a lot of experience? It may happen this afternoon and It may never happen but if something happens it is better to know what to do.