The reality of diving is summarised in this rule of thumb.
"A diver certified for Open Water is the equivalent to earning one's driver's license.
Achieving Advanced in diving means you're clear to head out on the highway.
But only after having completed your Rescue Diver course will I let you drive around with my mother." - Prof Oakley & Hazel
Scuba
diving is unlike all other recreational hobbies. It allows us to
explore an amazing world that defies the gravity that we're accustomed
to and is home to an entirely different realm of species. Such a unique
experience can produce a wide array of effects on each of us both
mentally and physically. With diving in particular, small problems can
lead to much larger safety and health problems when not dealt with
properly. Becoming a Rescue Diver helps you to both recognize and
respond to these situations as they become apparent.
As
of today, I am a certified Rescue Diver. Completing this course with
TRACC has been one of the most entertaining, frustrating and empowering
things I've ever done.
Unlike
other dive facilities, there was basically no time restraint which
meant plenty of time for practicing [unscheduled] rescue scenarios.
While I can't admit to always being excited about this aspect, I think
it had the desired effect; by the end, not only did I find myself
keeping an eye on all potential safety hazards for those around me, but
over time (debatably too much in some cases- weight belt (?!?)) I
actually did learn from my mistakes. Here are a few of the things that I
learned:
1- Anything can happen at any time.
While
loading a boat full of divers, Sonny (staff member) managed to impale
his eye on the cleat in the front of the boat, blood everywhere.
Despite having gone on a leisurely dive, Tom (intern) became an unresponsive diver at 10m underwater.
Matteo (volunteer) became a drown victim while on the way to help me rescue Gon (dive instructor).
Jason
(staff) was found unconscious, not breathing and drifting with the
current, away from the boat at the surface after a work dive.
Gon,
a certified dive instructor, managed to do a textbook list of "things
not to do while diving" throughout an entire dive. For example, despite
having serious anxiety and doubts about diving, she was going for the
dive; her breathing was rapid and uncontrolled underwater; she attempted
to touch EVERYTHING (lionfish?! Cone shell?!)- Oh, and of course she
also ended up unconscious around 9m...
There was such an abundance of missing divers that I dare say I'll tie ropes to everyone!
In an attempt to help someone as quickly as possible, I often managed to do more harm than good.
In
one scenario I left so abruptly to fetch an unresponsive swimmer that I
neglected to consider how much more quickly I could have brought the
victim to shore, had I just grabbed the fins that sat beside me.
On
another occasion I left the boat (with nothing but fins) to help a
unresponsive diver at the surface without having realized that she had
already removed her BCD- hence, we had no flotation device.
In almost every scenario I encountered, the victim wore a weight belt.
In basically all of these scenarios I neglected to remove the belt first.
This
added drag (in the water) and mass (on land) which inevitably resulted
in slowing down the rescue, potentially critically affecting victim
survival.
For one beach shore
rescue the victim I'd dragged out of the water and onto the shore was
wearing at least 8 kg on his weight belt. The staff member was already
significantly larger than me to begin with and I'd not done myself any
favors by neglecting to remove the belt.
Make life easier. Drop the weights first.
4- Learn from your mistakes
At
times, my mistakes seemed to outnumber my accomplishments. Why didn't I
think to bring fins? ?..remove the weight belt (again)? ...ask a
bystander if the victim was wearing a BCD? At this point, some of you
may be hoping to never be in a situation where you're the victim and I'm
the only one around...
The
GOOD news is that I did improve! The training and ongoing scenarios
with TRACC gave me the confidence in a rescue situation that I didn't
have before. After making a mistake, THAT mistake was typically one of
the first things that came to mind when another situation came up. I
now have a list of things that went well or poorly and why; this is what
I've started to revisit with each scenario and will continue to come
back to when/if a rescue situation ever comes up.
The
dedication of the staff at TRACC to helping me with this course was
immense! They were dragged through the water and sand (not always very
gracefully), stained with fake blood (that stuff REALLY doesn't want to
wash off!) and always up for finding ways to get hurt and die.
From the
bottom of my heart, thanks guys!
More info about learning to dive or volunteering to help save the ocean with TRACC in Malaysia -
Turtle Snorkellers -
Divers
TRACC seriously recommends that all divers get certified to rescue.
This is why.
Tracc has a vacancy for
a scuba instructor starting immediately.
We need our divers to
be well trained; peak performance buoyancy is an integral part of
everyone's open water course, because novice divers crash landing on
our beautifully planted coral is just not an option. But, we don't
have many students, just four or five a week, and we allow you two
weeks per course so that you have plenty of time to do the job
properly.
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