Rescue Diver vs Stress and Rescue, any important differences?

[slingshot]

Could anyone comment on the advantages/disadvantages of PADI rescue diver vs SSI Stress and Rescue? I've seen lots of posts on the differences between the agencies, including one saying "McD vs Burger King", others commenting that instructor quality trumps agency. However, if anyone has experienced specific differences thay they think make one or the other class better, I'd love to know as I'm looking into classes. I'm AOW with PADI, have done some PADI specialties, and am just shy of 100 dives, mixed California cold water and tropical. Thanks!

[Louma]

This is one course where the Instructor makes all of the difference. I tell people it took me 6 months to complete and they look at me like I'm crazy. My LDS owner in NJ (and Instructor) has the rescue students work the O/W pool sessions as rescue divers, had us work as rescue divers at the quarry and on the boats. My last day on the boat they had every diver come up needing rescue. I made 20 "rescues" that day. Free labor - sure, but I did learn how to rescue someone in need. Talk to the shops, see how the Instructor will teach it and go for the most thorough - not the cheapest or quickest.

[diverdown247]

I'm curious too. I'm PADI Rescue certified and would like to know if the required materials contain more or less relevant information.

[DeepSeaDan]

...is an important aspect you should consider in your research for the right Rescue Instructor.

Rescue is my favourite course to teach as it is a significant part of my work in the Fire Service. My diving experience & my professional Responder experience has imbued me with a "realistic" philosophy / approach to rescue. It further causes me to question a few of the established agency techniques. While presenting the material to meet the Standard, I do not hesitate to profer my personal opinion where necessary. This leads to alot of interesting debate & gets people "thinking outside the container". Most importantly, I stress the need for simplicity; the minute you begin to complicate matters with overly-involved procedures or too many options for a given scenario you begin to reduce the ability of the rescuer to act decisively. The reality is that most divers will not practice or even think of rescue techniques / procedures after they leave the course, thus it is imperative they learn simple, effective ways to deal with emergencies so that should they ever need to act, something of value will percolate to the surface & they will act safely & decisively.

Do your homework - it will be well worth the effort.

Regards,
DSD

[DeputyDan]

I like for instructors to feel confident enough to veer from the standard procedures but also like for them to say "this the the PADI way or this is the SSI way" and this is how I feel and what I think about it.

This gives different prospectives while teaching the basics and allows the student to broaden their horzions.

[divingjd]

I'm not familiar with the PADI course, but no one else has been able to give a direct comparison, so I will try to describe SSI's Stress and Rescue and see if anybody can draw a distinction.

1) Role of Instructor and Agency. SSI's general approach is what we refer to as an 80/20 rule. 80% of the course content should follow the SSI materials and 20% is at the discretion of the instructor. You will often read that the biggest difference is between instructors rather than agencies. With the SSI approach, there can be a pretty significant difference.

2) Emphasis on Stress. A big part of the SSI course is devoted to understanding the causes of stress, the physiology of stress and the panic cycle, recognizing the signs of stress in yourself and others, and managing stress in yourself and others. If you can recognize and manage stress, you can reduce the need for a rescue.

3) Rescue Skills. When you look at the academic materials for the course, only one out of the six chapters covers rescue skills. Three cover stress issues, one covers accident management, and one covers factors complicating rescues.

4) Open water sessions. When you go to open water, a greater proportion of the time is actually spent on rescue skills, but the stress recognition, prevention, and managment is also covered, along with accident management.

5) Approach to Skills. The course teaches a simple approach to skills, as DeepSeaDan described. The objective is to make it possible to remember the skills and to make them work in any situation with any gear configuration.

The full name of the SSI course is actually "Diver Stress & Rescue," which distinguishes it from the "Dive Leader Stress & Rescue" component of the training for Dive Control Specialist, SSI's entry-level dive leader training, which combines the roles of divemaster and assistant instructor. When we got to the Dive Leader Stress & Rescue, we covered things in greater depth and a higher degree of mastery was required, but we had already been introduced to the key components in the Diver Stress & Rescue class.

Stress & Rescue was, by far, the most useful course I took before DiveCon. Close second was a course developed by an instructor at our shop called Tranquility Diving. Tranquility covered advanced buoyancy skills, breathing control, proper weighting, and the whole mindset of being still, quiet, and relaxed - in a word, tranquil - in the water. Everybody who took that class dropped a significant amount of lead, improved air consumption, and generally became a much better diver.

[DeepSeaDan]

I'm not familiar with the PADI course, but no one else has been able to give a direct comparison, so I will try to describe SSI's Stress and Rescue and see if anybody can draw a distinction.

1) Role of Instructor and Agency. SSI's general approach is what we refer to as an 80/20 rule. 80% of the course content should follow the SSI materials and 20% is at the discretion of the instructor. You will often read that the biggest difference is between instructors rather than agencies. With the SSI approach, there can be a pretty significant difference.

2) Emphasis on Stress. A big part of the SSI course is devoted to understanding the causes of stress, the physiology of stress and the panic cycle, recognizing the signs of stress in yourself and others, and managing stress in yourself and others. If you can recognize and manage stress, you can reduce the need for a rescue.

3) Rescue Skills. When you look at the academic materials for the course, only one out of the six chapters covers rescue skills. Three cover stress issues, one covers accident management, and one covers factors complicating rescues.

4) Open water sessions. When you go to open water, a greater proportion of the time is actually spent on rescue skills, but the stress recognition, prevention, and managment is also covered, along with accident management.

5) Approach to Skills. The course teaches a simple approach to skills, as DeepSeaDan described. The objective is to make it possible to remember the skills and to make them work in any situation with any gear configuration.

The full name of the SSI course is actually "Diver Stress & Rescue," which distinguishes it from the "Dive Leader Stress & Rescue" component of the training for Dive Control Specialist, SSI's entry-level dive leader training, which combines the roles of divemaster and assistant instructor. When we got to the Dive Leader Stress & Rescue, we covered things in greater depth and a higher degree of mastery was required, but we had already been introduced to the key components in the Diver Stress & Rescue class.

Stress & Rescue was, by far, the most useful course I took before DiveCon. Close second was a course developed by an instructor at our shop called Tranquility Diving. Tranquility covered advanced buoyancy skills, breathing control, proper weighting, and the whole mindset of being still, quiet, and relaxed - in a word, tranquil - in the water. Everybody who took that class dropped a significant amount of lead, improved air consumption, and generally became a much better diver.

...would get along quite well in the philosophy department. I like the emphasis on stress recognition; I emphasize the fact that prevention is a much better option than having to perform a rescue, & stress recognition skills are a large part of pre-empting the need for rescue. I detail the regretable fact that resuscitative efforts for a v.s.a. casualty are rarely successful, thus preventing the accident must be our primary goal.

...Does SSI include alot of practical 1st Aid in their scenario work? I include an Annie-mannikin in the process to practice assessment, cpr skills & defibrillation. I also run folks through the use of a rapid neurological assessment. We also cover spinal complications via mobility restriction using a backboard. How about shore-based surface rescue? I bring along a varity of throw-aids for practice ( many folks have never tossed a life-ring, rope-bag or other such device, yet it is an early go-to option.

I like the sound of "Tranquility Diving" - it is what I enjoy most about the deeps.

Best,
Dano

[scubapolly]

Slingshot,
Based on what Don has written about the stress and Rescue course, if you have any desire to become a DM or higher, you might want to make sure this course fits the agency requirements for which ever one you want to take your DM through.

A properly taught rescue course can be the single most effective course you take if it is properly taught. One thing that I don't like about the way that many of these courses are taught is that they are very structured, and when it comes down to performing the skils "for real" chaos usually insues.

An example of many rescue classes: All students geared up on the dock, rolls assigned... "Ok class we now have a situation where there is a submerged victim on the platform at the bottom of the buoy over there."

My rescue class (I can't take full credit, it is the way my LDS has been running them for years). The students have been taught all of the components of a rescue in classroom and pool sessions. When it is time to go to the quarry for the OW portion of the class. I might say "Suzy, if anything should happen in the next hour I want you to be in charge". (this way you make sure the domninant personality in the group doesn't always take charge". Then we go about some other skills, do dives etc. Then we have a "victim" present themself at some point. Maybe they are working on liftbag skills with one of my DMs when that DM suddenly goes unconcious, maybe somebody breaks off from the group durring a dive and doesn't come back. Maybe somebody comes over as we are gearing up and says they can't find their buddy. Maybe someone is struggling at the surface. And my personal favorite is they all thing they have a free pass at lunch that nothing is going ot happen, when someone starts exhibiting the signs of DCS and they need to identify it.
I don't think many instructors put enough empasis on the fact that emergencies can happen anywhere, and that the people who are working together as a team might not necessarily have ever met before. Nor do they talk about having to keep spectators from being a hinderance, etc.

[divingjd]

...would get along quite well in the philosophy department. I like the emphasis on stress recognition; I emphasize the fact that prevention is a much better option than having to perform a rescue, & stress recognition skills are a large part of pre-empting the need for rescue. I detail the regretable fact that resuscitative efforts for a v.s.a. casualty are rarely successful, thus preventing the accident must be our primary goal.

...Does SSI include alot of practical 1st Aid in their scenario work? I include an Annie-mannikin in the process to practice assessment, cpr skills & defibrillation. I also run folks through the use of a rapid neurological assessment. We also cover spinal complications via mobility restriction using a backboard. How about shore-based surface rescue? I bring along a varity of throw-aids for practice ( many folks have never tossed a life-ring, rope-bag or other such device, yet it is an early go-to option.

I like the sound of "Tranquility Diving" - it is what I enjoy most about the deeps.

Best,
Dano

We did not really cover the first-aid skills, cpr, and defib. That is left to the separate courses. We did cover the five-minute neuro exam, but not the backboard. We covered shore-based rescue, including throwing a rope bag and running and managing search patterns from shore (a diver on a line). The emphasis was on getting a diver to the boat or shore and handing off to emergency services, which I think explains not covering some of the other material you cover.

Tranquility really was a great class. We talked about Zen and yoga and deep-breating exercises and spent 20 minutes just watching a video of dolphins at play. If you really understood that it was just as much about attitude and approach as it was about skills, you got a lot out of it. If you were just looking for the skills, I think you shorted yourself. I always say I am never as relaxed and peaceful as I am when I am underwater. People who think scuba is an adrenaline sport never understand that. Non-divers often think if you are a scuba diver you must be a thrill-seeker who also likes sky diving and bungee jumping.

[Thalassamania]

Rescue is a topic that is very instructor dependent. Picking a course by agency is not the way to do it. If I had to pick only by agency I'd likely go (in order) LA County, YMCA, NAUI, SSI, PADI.