Rescue Diver

Hopefully, since we are now getting short glimpses of spring, divers are starting to plan for outings and courses for the summer.  Open water divers will want to schedule their adventure dives for Advanced Open Water. For those who want to delve more deeply into a particular dive experience, specialty courses, such as Underwater Navigator, Peak Performance Buoyancy, Wreck diver and Night Diver are your ticket.  But if you are a diver who really wants to stretch his skills and expand from caring just for himself to caring for others, then Rescue Diver is the course you want.

There are many reasons people give for wanting to take the Rescue Diver course beyond just a stepping stone to Divemaster or instructor.  For example, a diver may have a child or loved one as a dive buddy, or they are the most experienced diver in their group.  These divers feel that others are relying on them to be ready to help if there is an emergency, so they want to prepare themselves.  Sometimes, the diver was a witness to an emergency and didn’t like having to stand around not knowing how to help and have vowed to be ready the next time.  Whatever the reason a person takes the Rescue Diver course, they always come away saying that it was the most challenging and rewarding course they have taken.  As an instructor, it is so rewarding when a former student shares a story of how their training kicked in at the appropriate time. 

Here is an excerpt from an e-mail we received from Sarah Barrett, a student of ours who has recently earned her dive instructor certification in Florida:

“Two days before our divemaster course was over, we were teaching an open water class with two open water students: Sam, who was 67, and actually his dad who was probably in his 80's. We had done some of their confined water skills in the morning, and then in the afternoon we took them both out for the open water dives. On the second dive towards the end, I looked over upon ascent, and Sam was signaling to another kid in my class that he was out of air, although you could see he was still breathing from his primary. Aaron, the kid in my class, gave Sam his alternate anyway, and they ascended together. Once we all got to the surface, Sam spit his regulator out of his mouth and started yelling "It felt like I wasn't getting any air!" over and over again, so we calmed him down a little and said it was time to swim over to the boat. While on our way to the boat, we were holding onto the mooring line, and Sam tried to grab a piece of it, but over and over again would grab the air-we immediately knew something wasn't right. Claude, my divemaster instructor, said "Sam are you ok?" and Sam kept saying "No." Before we knew it Sam had put his head back in the water and fell unconscious. Me and Aaron immediately started towing Sam back to the boat as fast as we could, while Claude removed his weight belt, and we unclipped his gear as we got closer to the boat. Claude yelled to the captain that we had a REAL emergency, and I yelled at the first mate to get the O2. This was the scary part-Sam's face was so blue it scared the living crap out of me. I had never seen anyone look that blue before. As I kept Sam's airway open, we all lifted him onto the back of the boat (and he was probably 250 so it wasn't as easy as it sounds.) We then got him onto the boat and gave him oxygen right away, and within a minute or two he was able to open his eyes and tell us that he was ok. After we got back to the canal obviously we had to meet the ambulance and the coast guard, and Sam was taken to the nearest hospital. He is ok and his dad, Jim, actually came back the next day to finish his open water.

             Needless to say I was blessed to have had my rescue training with you guys, because right when Sam went unconscious, I didn't think, I just acted. It felt amazing to have helped actually save someone's life, and I just wanted you two to know that you did an amazing job in preparing me for a situation like that. I'm also glad it had such a good ending and that Sam was okay!”

The course starts with the prerequisite Emergency First Response course.  In the EFR course, the student learns first aid, CPR, AED and oxygen use.  During this course we start to introduce some diving scenarios in order to start participants thinking how these skills apply in a diving situation.  Moving into the actual Rescue Diver course, we spend a couple of nights in the classroom working our way through the manual. Then the fun begins! We spend an entire day practicing rescue skills and playing out some situations with the help of volunteer “victims” in open water.  The next day, we return to the open water where the instructor and volunteers set up real life scenarios that the Rescue Diver candidates must react to and act upon. Scenarios are played out until each candidate responds appropriately and with confidence.  It is exhausting and exhilarating at the same time! Best of all, successful candidates earn not only the certification card, but the coveted Manta Divers’ red touque.

Emergency First Response course is scheduled for April 1 & 3 at 6:30 at the shop

Rescue Diver course is scheduled for May 20 & 22, classroom, June 6 & 7 open water training.