Twiddles:
I have shown you what to do Clayjar, you are refusing to accept the fact that your evaluation could be as much of the problem as your assistance.
*Your* evaluation could be as much of the problem as *your* assistance. *You* are inexperienced and untrained. I am certainly nowhere near the skill level of the experienced divers, divemasters, and instructors on these forums, but I have studied extensively, practiced considerably, and trained religiously to recognize problems, preferably before they become uncontrollable.
Is it possible that I would believe a diver is irrational and dangerously panicking when they are in control? Yes, there may be, and that scares the hell out of me, which is why I work so hard. The better I am as a diver and potential rescuer, the more situations I will consider within my ability.
As of today, if I saw a panicked diver on the bottom on my main sites (which are all 80' or less), I'd go to him even knowing the danger. I trust my training and skills to be able to win a wrestling match, and I have three regulators I can go to. On the other hand, if I'm on nitrox on the Oriskany, and a diver in distress rushes past me down past the deck toward the bottom, to follow would be my death.
If you haven't taken nitrox yet, you probably aren't familiar with oxygen toxicity, but basically the results would be that I'd chase him down, and well before reaching him on the bottom, the high oxygen partial pressures would overload my central nervous system and send me into convulsions, at which point I would go unconscious, my regulator would fall out of my mouth, and I would drown. On air, the narcosis would be pronounced, and I'd be almost certain to be bent on ascent (unless some tech divers had spare deco they could drop for me), but I could probably be airlifted to a chamber and recover. On nitrox, oxtox and you're dead, and no chamber will help.
I'll put myself in danger for a diver in distress, and I'm trained to be as effective as possible when attempting a rescue scenario, but there *are* some cases when it *can* come down to throwing your life away with no chance to help. That would be stupid. (Note that this is not at all a "straw man argument" -- if you take the nitrox class, you'll find out that oxtox is nothing to be trifled with.)
Twiddles:
Your attempt to enlighten on how you would evade or what would protect you doesn't change anything other than to make it clear that you, rescue diver or not, have decided you have now attained the level of *evaluator* complete with ways to protect yourself, and even somehow help the person without really helping (IE ascending so hes closer to the surface when he finally passes out I assume) in the event someone challenges your *evaluation*.
I *am* a Rescue diver, and yes, I *have* attained the level of "evaluator". Frankly, that was at least half of our Rescue class. "The best rescue is the one that never happens." The whole point of your training is to find ways to break the chain of events before an incident develops or becomes an accident. If your rescue skills are called on, you have to act on your training and evaluate how to best help the diver in distress, assuming you can.
If you see a diver caught on the bottom in a net, flailing for all he's worth, do you swim right up to him? If you do, will you get entangled in the same net? Do you try to get his attention and calm him down so you can cut him out? If you can't calm him down, is there a way to cut the net enough to free him (or free the net so he can ascend with it) without becoming entangled? What would you do? We discussed that one at length, and let me tell you, none of us liked any of the answers very much. Perhaps you could restrain him enough to let your buddy approach and cut the net... but what if he *is* your buddy? What if you've tried and tried to free him, but you finally go out of air? Do you keep trying until you pass out and die yourself, or do you eventually give up and save the only one of you that you can? If you've given all you can, used all your air, and exhausted all your options, does giving up instead of dying make you a bad person? *Should* you stay there and die, even if you're not entangled?
In any rescue situation, successful or unsuccessful, you can be certain you will be second guessed. The result my instructors have seen most often is anger at the rescuer from the person they just rescued. ("I was fine! You owe me a weight belt!" they said one person argued after they had to jump off the boat to save him from drowning.) You don't do rescues to be thanked, and while they tell you that as long as you follow your training, eventually you'll win the lawsuits if anyone files them, frankly, none of that matters. During a rescue attempt, the only things that matter are the lives and health of the people involved.
Twiddles:
Whos the jerk? The guy screaming foul, when people attempt to *evaluate* themselves out of being human, or the guy listing all the reasons why evaluation is actual saving more lives then it takes? Maybee you need a rescue course to determine whether or not to be human, I don't.
Have you ever been near an actual successful rescue? Have you ever been near an actual *unsuccessful* rescue attempt? Have you ever been sitting there, powerless, while EMTs work on someone while knowing there was *nothing* you could do? Have you ever spent sleepless nights wondering if you could've done something different to prevent it? Have you ever thought that perhaps *you* caused it because earlier that day they had been doing something you loved? Does finally coming to the understanding that sometimes you *can't* do anything make you *less* human? Does the pain you carry for the rest of your life mean you're a subhuman monster? Does taking up diving and realizing that, although you want to save *everyone* and never feel that loss again, there may come a time when you have to accept that you might not be able to save everyone mean you're a jerk?
If it does, you, sir, are the Mother Theresa reincarnated, and I am the spawn of silt. If, on the other hand, the fact that I've expanded my training and experience as much as possible to *try* to *never* be in a situation where I can't help, means that I'm doing all I can while still knowing full well as I learn more and more that there *can* be a time when everything fails me... well, then perhaps I'm human after all.
Twiddles:
Heres another straw man for you to ponder; your a soldier another soldier goes down under heavy fire, do you grab him and attempt to pull him to safety, while your still being shot at or do you let him go since well frankly, you have evaluated you stand a greater risk of being shot by helping him? I mean you dont know him, hes not your buddy, hell he didnt even ask you for help? Did your answer change? Of course not, your too smart for that...
A rescue diver is not a soldier. I have never been a soldier, and I will not insult soldiers by assuming what I see on TV shows is who they are. If any of them want to reply to a troll such as yourself, that is their decision and theirs alone.
It kind of helps if you really don't know him at all, and if you both succeed alive you get medal and all the praises
spoken like a true infantryman.
