Rescue Diver course... good idea or bad?

[wetb4igetinthewater]

I also found my original OW class to have been poor in hindsight. One of the top instructors in my area complimented me on that realization. I decided also to make up for it by pursuing additional training with both SSI and PADI. I've done both SSI's Stress and Rescue (and React Right) as well as PADI's Rescue diver. They were quite different, the former focusing on prevention and the latter focusing on rescue. Though that could have just been the shop, as I am right now in Sydney on business, where I dove with a local diver who has gone through SSI, and his course was more like the PADI rescue diver course I took. So your experience may vary.

Personally, I consider myself a solo diver who (almost) always dives with a buddy whose responsibility is to bring back my body. I need to take care of my own emergencies first, as what happens if my dive buddy also has one? That means large tanks, maintained equipment, and a pony bottle (rented one for the HMAS Adelaide that I dove Saturday - forgot my adapter to attach it to my tank, a bit of a pain to sling, but worth it) or spare air at least for shallower dives (tanks can get empty really fast on free flow). I'm at 97 dives, and after going to South West Rocks, I'll have the 100 necessary for the SDI solo diver course.

It sounds like you are on a similar track as me. I strongly encourage seeking out additional training if it works for you. Different people learn differently. I like the combination of the books, homework, skills practice, as well as picking up tidbits for different instructors. In the 11 PADI and 3 SSi diving specialties, and 3 non-diving PADI ones, I've had about ten different instructors.

Diving manuals make great bathroom reading as well. I have a bad memory, and that sort of short refresher helps me a lot.

 

[Steve_C]

Did my rescue with SDI. A major point stressed, like the one mentioned above was that the best place to take care of a problem is before you get in the water. To date I have never done a rescue in the water (have helped remove a cramp or two and had a couple air shares) but no rescue. However, I have applied the take care of problems before you splash a number of times especially with instabuddies who have been out of diving for a while or for whom this is there first ocean dive past cert. It is surprising how often I wind up with a very new to ocean diving instabuddy.

 

[freename]

Thank you all, for your input. To be honest, I was expecting more comments like this one:

My best advice is to the OP is to continue your diving and be very comfortable and confident in your own diving skills before deciding to take a Rescue course which is designed to focus on helping others. Sure, maybe you could successfully complete the Rescue course, but what's the rush? You will likely get much more out of a Rescue course if you're not having to focus on your own diving and can instead focus on the Rescue course material.

And no, I don't take it as an attack - your perspective, I think, is entirely valid. Indeed, part of me wonders if I will be competent enough to not be "that student" who holds up the class. But I am reasonably comfortable, I think... so I think I will just have to speak (in more depth) with the instructor to make sure that I am at a suitable level... and to make sure that I'm not over my head. Or perhaps better phrased, that I'm going to a depth I'm capable of handling. Ha!

From the sounds of it, I think this will be worth at least going to the shop in person to ask more questions (I've only spoken to them on the phone so far... it's a bit of a drive).

... as for the solo diver, I am honestly considering that route (not that I would want to dive alone) - but it is a *long* way off still!

 

[NAM001]

freename

You have hit on many areas of diving that so frequently appear on SB. I would get some dives under my belt first to where you are the master of your own problems. Then venture into the mastering of someone else's problems. One thing the course will teach you is that dont take a risk that could end up with 2 victoms instead of one. It sounds like that is the potential position you are in till you get more experience. Next on the list of courses or reading is SOLO. Not to push the practice of it but for the purpose of being able to do it. Those times when your buddy takes off , like it or not,,,,you are on your own. Those 2 courses will teach you perhaps more about your self and your limitations than any other's you can take at recreational level.

 

[Goodtime Adventures]

I think the reason you have not been provided with many of the undesirable responses you expected is because you are in the correct mind set, thinking about the right things and asking the right questions (this is something that was evidently not true of the OP in the other thread you mentioned). So yes, do the course. It sounds like you are very much ready for it. You will acquire new knowledge, skills and confidence that will help you in any of the given situations you have been thinking about. Its not easy, and will push you outside your regular comfort zone, but that's the point.

Have fun

 

[MikkelBC]

I have just completed my rescue diver course and I enjoyed it. My motivations were a lot like yours. However, I must say that the single thing that has done the most to bring my diving skills forward was taking the GUE fundamentals course. Before that, I did not realise what I needed to learn and much less how to learn it. GUE instructors are the most passionate instructors out there. Just make sure in advance that your instructor agrees that you are at the right level to start the fundamentals course.

Rescue is a good course and you will learn a lot from it, but compared to fundamentals, it is easy peasy.

Mikkel

 

[nkped]

Full disclosure, I was one of the guys who did not quite pass rescue. The instructor almost passed me on the final exercise of getting a diver out of the water and starting oxygen or rescue breathing, but decided, correctly, that there were too many problems around the edges. I was invited to give the final exercise another try but decided I really didn't have the motivation to do that.

I am realistic enough to know that my perspective might be affected by not passing, but here goes anyway.

I didn't enjoy addressing scenarios I hope I never have to deal with in real life. That probably meant they were important subjects for additional training and I probably have benefited from that training.

I did this in a dry suit in Puget Sound so I got physically beat up, not injured but just knocked around.

Nothing we did in the course scared me and there wasn't anything I felt I couldn't do.

With all of that, Rescue is a good thing to do. I just have trouble relating to all of this gushing about how rewarding or enjoyable it is.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I don't think the class is meant to be enjoyable. What's enjoyable is all the "come to Jesus" moments you can avoid later on, because you will now know enough to recognize the buildup to those situations and take steps to make sure they don't happen.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[NAM001]

Well put Bob

I don't think the class is meant to be enjoyable. What's enjoyable is all the "come to Jesus" moments you can avoid later on, because you will now know enough to recognize the buildup to those situations and take steps to make sure they don't happen.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Lorenzoid]

So my prediction that you would not receive a single response trying to dissuade you from taking Rescue was correct.

The closest you received to that was a word or two of caution along the lines of: "You will likely get much more out of a Rescue course if you're not having to focus on your own diving and can instead focus on the Rescue course material." That's true, but as others have said, the threshold for not having to "focus" on your own diving is pretty low--I think so long as you've gotten past the point of flailing around in the water, you're ready for Rescue. In fact, until I read that other thread you mentioned, I wouldn't have believed there was any diver with more than a dozen dives under his belt who was NOT ready to take Rescue.