The Rescue course is first to gain the ability to anticipate possible problems and only second to deal with problems. This anticipatory learning is based, among other things, on the fact that during the Rescue course we encounter and have to deal with various emergency situations. This teaches us the importance of a partner or several partners, belaying, prepared rescue equipment, etc. Dealing with problems in oneself or one’s partner must assume experience with the conditions in which one intends to dive and with the equipment one realistically has at one’s disposal.
However, in order to master rescue skills you need time and conditions that allow you to first, repeat the skills repeatedly in comfortable conditions and then practice them in the conditions in which we will dive. That is, maybe in the blue warm water of the reefs or in the dark lake, in the currents and waves in the sea, with dives from a boat.
That is, the basis of diving safety is the prevention of problems, and practicing various emergency situations will knock down the learning of how to react and prevent problems. This takes time and multiple repetitions.
Scenarios
- For example, if you are practicing extracting an unconscious diver, then you need to learn how to extract him and practice sample scenarios during which the problem will be:
- Loss of consciousness of the injured diver
- Loss of consciousness of the injured diver + empty cylinder in the victim, which means that the rescuer has to inflate his BCD by mouth.
- Loss of consciousness of the injured diver + failure of the injured diver’s BCD and the need to drop ballast on the injured diver
- There are many possibilities – participants can be in foam or dry suits – a dry suit is an additional source of buoyancy that must be controlled.
- On the one hand, if the casualty is wearing a dry suit it is an additional source of buoyancy, i.e. something that increases safety to some extent, but it can also be a cause of some problems for the rescue diver during ascent, since he will have to manage the expanding air in the dry suit in addition to the air in the casualty’s BCD. This can be compounded by an additional difficulty – whether the dry suit bleed valve is unscrewed or screwed on. Well, and the problem, especially for a diver who has no experience in dry suit diving himself in mastering this equipment with a partner
Diving incident scenarios should assume that we provide assistance:
- alone – this poses some manual and physical strength problems for the rescuer.
- in several people – we provide assistance in two or more people, and here, on the one hand, it is easier, on the other hand, there is the problem of effective management of such a group of rescuers, dividing roles and efficiently bringing the injured person under proper care on the shore or in the boat.
The next factors that the Rescue course should include are the environmental conditions associated with expeditions i.e. operating from a boat, in a current, or in a wave. In such situations, acting alone is even more difficult. On the other hand, we can assume support from a boat or pontoon operator familiar with such activities. This can help us, but it is necessary to master the ability to cooperate with such people, to divide roles, so that the injured person is efficiently stripped of his equipment after being brought to the surface and placed in a boat or on shore.
In practice, it is impossible for a Rescue course to include all possible scenarios involving different types of accidents or with different environments or using less typical equipment. That’s why it’s very important to attend a workshop every so often after the Rescue course, which will be oriented not to learning basic rescue skills (because those are mastered during the course) but to using those skills with slightly different equipment or in more complicated conditions. Providing assistance to an injured person just in a dry suit, in sidemount equipment. Providing assistance with a wave, using boat or pontoon handling are all skills we can learn at this type of workshop. In addition, you can practice scenarios where we have the opportunity to learn about the management of rescue operations, but also at this type of workshop we can develop these skills a lot – through the most important element of learning – repetition.
That is, a good Rescue course is one that will first provide instruction in basic skills such as helping a tired or panicked diver to the surface of the water, bringing an unconscious diver to the surface, ascending on an alternative air source to the surface. Then there are the skills involved in providing assistance on the surface, including performing artificial respiration to an unconscious, non-breathing diver on the surface, combined with the efficient stripping of the diver’s equipment, both alone and with several people.
These skills then need to be developed through various scenarios related to the causes of the entire incident i.e. assuming various equipment failures and providing assistance to more than one person. In addition, ideally, there is an opportunity to practice these skills in different environmental conditions, such as a calm outing on a sandy shore, a rocky steeper shore, a boat ladder. If on the course itself, for logistical reasons, there were no such opportunities, it is a good idea to think that later, as part of the workshop, to practice the skills of providing assistance in more complicated conditions
That is, when choosing a good Rescue course, we orient ourselves as to whether it will be conducted first under conditions such that in a comfortable (even idealized environment) we will have the opportunity to practice rescue skills repeatedly and then whether there will be an opportunity to gain practice in rescue skills under various conditions and scenarios as part of the course or later workshops. That is, first ideal conditions like Deepspot, multiple repetitions with different contingencies, then using your skills while diving in the sea, from a boat, with other people supporting you.
I would also draw attention to repeatedly practicing the so-called Exercise #7, which is the rendering of aid to an unconscious breathing diver on the surface of the water. This exercise should be mastered perfectly, because this is a situation when our actions can make a big difference.
