Again, stuartv, I read a lot of care and thoughtfulness in your comment, and I will also cherish and consider it carefully like I did with Zef and Marie's comments.
But I must repeat myself here: "you should trust PWD to know what we can and can't do, that we know better than you the limitations and potentials of our bodies. If something we say about our abilities sounds unexpected to you, you might want to ask clarifying questions to learn more before forming opinions."
Anyway, great questions (even though they could be asked differently)! And don't worry, I've spent all these years thinking long and hard about them, even before I got disabled (mostly because I'm size XXS and tiny and not a physically gifted person at all, far from it!). I'm not sharing with you a spontaneous idea, but something I have drawn many pros-cons charts and brain maps and career paths, and all that. I've mostly said No to myself, until the evidence overwhelmingly shows there's a way for me to do it.
(important to note that I never really cared for being dive pros. doing DMT isn't a dream or whatever. just something i think would benefit me - and others, one of the many things I can do to better myself)
Do you think you could/should be allowed to work as a firefighter, if you wanted to? Do you think you could get an unconscious person out of a burning building if you had to? Do you think being a scuba professional carries any less of a burden in terms of requirements for strength and stamina? At first blush, that may sound overly dramatic. Maybe it is - but if so, I think it's only by a little bit. The standards for being a dive pro may not be as stringent as for being a firefighter, but that is not what I am talking about.
No I wouldn't be a firefighter because I don't WANT to handle the physical DISCOMFORTS. But I'm telling you, yes I CAN *eventually* do almost everything anyone can do, just with an ocean of pains, which I must then clench my teeth and just.do.it and wait for it to be over. It's not a way I'd rather live, even if I technically can. I don't wanna!
If disconnecting your own LPI is exhausting to you, how well do you think you will do when you have a student/customer whose inflator sticks, they are starting to experience a runaway ascent, they begin to panic, and you need to wrestle past their flailing arms to disconnect THEIR LPI, then try to control them while managing both your buoyancy to avoid either one of you corking and possibly getting very hurt? How well will you do when you are the DM on a boat in sporty seas and a diver is non-responsive on the surface and you have to get them out of the water and into the boat? Or you have to surface a non-responsive diver and then make a long swim towing them to a boat or shore in sporty seas? If I interpret "backup diver for my club" correctly, it could ultimately entail any of those scenarios.
That's what the Rescue (and I assume DM) prepares me to do! In my Master Rescue course with RAID, we explored my strengths and weaknesses, hone in on my strengths (situational awareness! calmness when responding to emergencies! super quick to react correctly! perfect Cpr/1staid!) and learn to manage my weaknesses (connect and disconnect those stuck LPIs until my fingers give out and I was ready to scream the heads off at anyone passing by! bring good knives/shears/trilobites to cut anyone out of any entanglement quick! figure out a physically smart way to tow unconscious divers up the boat! long swims are easy for me (despite how much I hate them) just as breath-holding). Work with your abilities, not against them.
You think it's a big deal that you were able to carry a 13kg backpack for a month. I'm not trying to be mean when I say this, but that's only 29 pounds. If carrying 29 pounds on your back all day (presumably, with a pack that is properly padded and supportive) is a big deal to you, do you really think you have the strength and stamina that a dive pro should have? The strength and stamina to rescue another diver in difficult conditions? A diver who could be a 6+ foot tall, 200+ pound man?
I'm 5'2", 110lbs. 29lbs is more than 1/4 my body weight.
I used to backpack with 40-44lbs, almost 1/2 my body weight. Can't do that anymore. Can still pick up the backpack and walk and all, but the EXCRUCIATING PAINS and then I have no energy to enjoy anything anymore.
If a bigger diver gets in trouble, I will definitely help and participate in the rescue. The Rescue course also taught me different things needed to be done during a rescue that I can prioritize for myself (calling help! managing first responders! instructing rescue team what to do!) while assigning other rescuers for the tasks I'm less good at.
I'm not sure why your marine conservation trainer program requires you to be a DM,
We can make a separate post for this, but my guesses are:
- Even better situational awareness from experience herding fun divers/students
- Overall understanding of the rec dive industry and things affecting a specific part of conservation work (this program also includes activities that can heavily engage fun divers, and rec activities are also among the top reasons affecting the work this specific program aims to do)
- Experience and skills sharing and spreading passion for eco diving with others
but if it's because you would potentially be responsible for other divers, while in the water, you have to ask yourself, standards aside, do YOU believe you have what it takes to accept responsibility for the safety of other divers in the water? Will you be able to accept it if there is an accident someday and someone gets really hurt and you know in your heart that if they had had a different DM that day, that was not disabled, they probably would not have gotten hurt?
I am a scuba instructor. I am a reasonably strong and fit man. And I can tell you that every time I get in the water with students, I have a little bit of ice water feeling down my spine because of the responsibility I feel for making sure they get out safely. I dread the day that something were to happen and I might feel like it was in any part because I was somehow inadequate in my skills, my knowledge, my preparation, my judgment, my presence of mind, my strength, or my stamina.
These are excellent questions that should be asked of any prospective dive pros! And they are actually the easier questions for me because I've always had the answers
FYI I work in social development/humanitarian aids as well as animal rescues. The idea of life and death loudly reminds me of its cruelty during every single natural disaster and every single time i pick up orphaned/abandoned newborn kittens from the dumpster (thus my screen name). Just the Sunday before last, I found four one-day-old kittens. For the first week of their lives, i lived and breathed in constant fear that any of them could die any moment, PRECISELY *BECAUSE* OF MY LACK OF ABILITIES TO CARE FOR THEM PROPERLY LIKE A MAMACAT. The fear of losing a living, breathing creature then exceeded any human-related emergencies i've been in.
The good thing is, the NGOs I've worked for have trained me very well to handle these issues. I've learned to accept and work with my limitations. I've learned to take down barriers if people refuse to take them down. For the paths blocked by heavy barriers I can't lift, sometimes i can find a different one leading to the same destination
If you fairly consider the responsibility you would be taking on and you think you are up to and want to do it, then more power to you!
This is it! Here's all that should be said
too far away!) and circle back to you guys
should work while fun diving, but can I do that when I'm a DM or working as an Eco Diver? or a student on a rec, tec, or pro course? the expectation seems to be if you're working or studying, you're supposed to take care of your own stuff.
