beanojones
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For you, a rescue class is learning how to deal with the outlying circumstances that hopefully an average diver never will actually see. For some of us, it is our job to be ready to keep bad things from happening, and arrange our gear and our divers gear so that bad things are less likely to happen and when they do nothing more than putting air in the BCD can solve the problem. It's not a rescue exercise, it's a bacis skill that has to be ready every single moment from morning to evening.
Outlying is not non-existent. It's just something you have not seen. There's lots you haven't seen.
So what exactly does what your inexperienced divers ( your dive 1 students) do have to do with what panicked divers do? Well, nothing. Nothing at all. High stress is one thing. Non-functional active panic another.
It's basic to rescuing a panicked diver that they are doing counnterproductive things, and the rescuer needs to break their cycle. One of the counterproductive things is fins becoming ineffective, or even getting kicked right off the feet, and the surface area of the thigh dominating the stroke. It is emphasized in some rescue classes, even. And you know what? Fully inflating BCDs with high lift breaks the cycle before it starts, because no one can descend against a 50 pound BCD fully inflated. They cannot even get their face in the water usually.
So we usually don't have to deal with things getting full blown, because we make gear choices that work better, despite the fact that the internet thinks they don't.
This also goes back to the whole problem of our only source of positive buoyancy often being our BCD and lung volume. Don't keep skipping that. Because the difference between ditching a weight belt for positive buoyancy and not, is that the BCD is the only source of buoyancy. It's why I mentioned the skill not teaching much with and properly weighted diver in the tropics.
The reason high lift BCDs work for both divers and rescuers so well is the same reason a rescuer is suppsoed to approach a panicking diver with a obvious source of flotation that allows the victims to lift their head well clear of the water. Because that, and only that, is going to break their panic. Hand em flotation, let them get their head well clear of the water, and let them wear themselves out, or calm themselves down.
When you help teach rescue classes, what (possibly non-real world) things to you put in the responding divers hands to help a panicked diver at the surface? I say possibly non-real world because the first person responding to a panicked diver is usually another diver. I have yet to see anyone but another diver be the first on the scene**. Another diver doesn't have all that nonsense people put together for rescue class (the bagged ropes etc.). They have their gear and that's it.
And guess what commonly used piece of gear can double as device that you can hand a diver that gives them the ability to lift their head clear of the water? A high lift BCD.
As instructors we are usually pulling floats with beginning divers, so we get to use those, too. But it would be less useful to stress those in a rescue class since no one but an instructor pulling intros usually has one actually in their hands at the moment of response. I always have my ridiculous lift BCD on when I am with divers.
** actually boat crew people also come rescue but they just use dive floats usually. Those are amazing high lift devices, truck inner tubes in fact, that just happen to not be BCDs. I guess we should have the boat crew hand struggling divers smaller, less useful sources of positive buoyancy when they need help, though. Like a 17 pound lift BCDs since those are more useful, apparently. Or a riding mower inner tube.
Outlying is not non-existent. It's just something you have not seen. There's lots you haven't seen.
So what exactly does what your inexperienced divers ( your dive 1 students) do have to do with what panicked divers do? Well, nothing. Nothing at all. High stress is one thing. Non-functional active panic another.
It's basic to rescuing a panicked diver that they are doing counnterproductive things, and the rescuer needs to break their cycle. One of the counterproductive things is fins becoming ineffective, or even getting kicked right off the feet, and the surface area of the thigh dominating the stroke. It is emphasized in some rescue classes, even. And you know what? Fully inflating BCDs with high lift breaks the cycle before it starts, because no one can descend against a 50 pound BCD fully inflated. They cannot even get their face in the water usually.
So we usually don't have to deal with things getting full blown, because we make gear choices that work better, despite the fact that the internet thinks they don't.
This also goes back to the whole problem of our only source of positive buoyancy often being our BCD and lung volume. Don't keep skipping that. Because the difference between ditching a weight belt for positive buoyancy and not, is that the BCD is the only source of buoyancy. It's why I mentioned the skill not teaching much with and properly weighted diver in the tropics.
The reason high lift BCDs work for both divers and rescuers so well is the same reason a rescuer is suppsoed to approach a panicking diver with a obvious source of flotation that allows the victims to lift their head well clear of the water. Because that, and only that, is going to break their panic. Hand em flotation, let them get their head well clear of the water, and let them wear themselves out, or calm themselves down.
When you help teach rescue classes, what (possibly non-real world) things to you put in the responding divers hands to help a panicked diver at the surface? I say possibly non-real world because the first person responding to a panicked diver is usually another diver. I have yet to see anyone but another diver be the first on the scene**. Another diver doesn't have all that nonsense people put together for rescue class (the bagged ropes etc.). They have their gear and that's it.
And guess what commonly used piece of gear can double as device that you can hand a diver that gives them the ability to lift their head clear of the water? A high lift BCD.
As instructors we are usually pulling floats with beginning divers, so we get to use those, too. But it would be less useful to stress those in a rescue class since no one but an instructor pulling intros usually has one actually in their hands at the moment of response. I always have my ridiculous lift BCD on when I am with divers.
** actually boat crew people also come rescue but they just use dive floats usually. Those are amazing high lift devices, truck inner tubes in fact, that just happen to not be BCDs. I guess we should have the boat crew hand struggling divers smaller, less useful sources of positive buoyancy when they need help, though. Like a 17 pound lift BCDs since those are more useful, apparently. Or a riding mower inner tube.
