Rescue Diver Course - I can't recommend it based on my recent experience

[TONY CHANEY]

I would not put too much stock in what Mike just posted. I do not believe the training should be to military levels. I can say while working as a Respiratory Therapist in a trauma hospital and assiged to all code teams, even in the perfect hospital setting, codes (PALS / BLS / ACLS) is very stressful and the ones that don't know what they are doing or are too slow to react just hug the walls and watch the action. Anyone care to ask Firemen, health care providers, poilcemen, etc. how stressful it is? IMHO, the only thing that can really decrease the stress in a rescue situation is time. And time is just something that you do not have and even less in the water.

 

[GCullen94]

I'm not going to repeat everything that has been said about how actually the course was good, I wish my course was like that. I think some of your openion from the course comes from the fact you have 0-24 dives. If that is true then most of your dives have been training dives. This is not your fault as dive shops push class after class. There are many debates on what is best and how many dives a diver should have before taking higher level classes. When a rescue situation happens in the real world you rairly rise up to the occasion, instead you fall to what you truly know. This is why technical diving classes are so demanding, not because you may have 21 failures in a dive, but to show you how to manage them. I would love to have my stress limit tested during class to see how far I could push myself.

Being part of a rescue is not fun, it is not easy and it is not something you look forward to. It is something that must be done to save someone else

 

[blandmc]

Wow - I didn't expect such a huge response to my post. Thanks for all the positive and encouraging comments from the board both in the "cowboy up ya pansy" and the "yea they hazed ya bit much categories." :cool2:

To give ya some background, you are correct I don't have many dives, but I grew up in the water and I was on swim teams my whole life and I am still a very avid swimmer. I am extremely comfortable in the water. True, this is not the same as having SCUBA experience, but it certainly helps. I have been CPR certified for 22 years also... so I am pretty comfortable with first aid and rescue practice, etc. I also come from a military family and have been involved in fighting disciplines since I was 5... so very comfortable in physical and mental stress and pushing beyond my limits. No worries there. My point in this background is I suspect I am much more likely to have been prepared for the course than the average diver, despite only having 16 logged dives under my belt.

Even with that, the general feeling I got from the course was that they went far overboard. And I would be fine if it had been a bit more good-natured. But I really felt the hazing atmosphere and some VERY negative vibes from the instructors. The attitude I felt was like "Who is this @$$hole and if we have to go through the crap of training him, we are going to pummel the hell out of him." I have been around trainers like that my whole life and I don't think it is that valuable. Yes - those who go through it usually come out better for it in the end, but I don't think it is necessary to go to that extent and I think you do overall more harm than good with that attitude.

It could have been done better.

 

[TONY CHANEY]

Just a question? Did the Instructor and crew know about your background that you just shared with us? If so they might have stepped up the class alittle in order to be able to stress you. All the classes I went thru and ones I assisted in while in Okinawa were as a Marine or with other Marines and my Instructor was a retired Marine. I think that he stepped up the level alot knowing that we can handle the extra stress. It might have been a credit to your abilities prior to the class. OBTW, did the instructors and crew do the exact thing to other students as they did to you?

 

[blandmc]

Good points, Tony - but no the open water instructors did not know my background. They never asked. Thus my point.

There were no other Rescue Diver students on the boat on either day.

 

[CamG]

This is a great read.
Brings back fond memories of my Rescue class and the training.
It was pretty stressful and intense with realistic panicked divers.
We suffered only hurt pride if we were careless.
Those of us who were aspiring DMC's were treated to advanced techniques as you describe on a regular basis.
In my three years of assisting I used Rescue skills numerous times usually heading off panic situations with preemptive stress relief either with clean decisive actions.

I feel grateful for the training and even in the Tech world been challenged to perform Rescue techniques some of them were incredibly difficult.
Thanks to all those who train us to be better divers.
Personally MSDT Mark, Dale M, TJ, Tim S, Bobby F. you guys have made me the diver I am today. Thank You!
The aspect of being able to handle yourself underwater but also handle others is not an easy skill set.
Train well be prepared then try to handle it before you ever get wet!
The greatest skill I have been taught was to identify stress in myself and others and relieve it by proper dive planning.

CamG

 

[Lorenzoid]

So I take it that when you wrote the title of this post, you were referring to YOUR course with that particular dive op that you "can't recommend," not the PADI Rescue course in general. You seemed to already know that the course is typically not quite as intense as the one you took. The title of this thread makes it sound like you are condemning the entire PADI Rescue course based on your one data point.

It is interesting to see the wide spectrum of intensity with which instructors are seemingly permitted to teach the scenario portion of PADI Rescue. My wife's Rescue course experience was on the extreme opposite end of the spectrum--she said her scenarios were easy, predictable, and not numerous. She had to rescue her instructor and no one else--the instructor, a small woman in her mid-20s, had no assistants. My own Rescue course experience fell in the middle of the spectrum, I suppose, as the instructor had several DMTs enthusiastically assisting. What does the PADI instructor manual say about this?

 

[Mike]

Well, obviously many of you disagree with me. Just makes me so glad we specifically researched our rescue instructor prior to committing to the course and ended up with a highly intelligent and mature individual who focused on the information and repetition of the skills under controlled conditions, emphasizing comprehension and execution, and we successfully avoided some neanderthal who's personally so board with teaching that they need to turn the training into a circus for their own entertainment.

I'd still like for anyone to point out where PADI directs you to put the student diver under direct stress in the simulated rescues and further where PADI specifically cites the benefits of the student and wants you to do this.

Here is the link again: ftp://207.215.212.62/stuff/PADI/DIM/Guides/Rescue.pdf

Untill you find it, I'll just say the evidence of the failure of this methodology to instructing is in the OP's very post starting this thread.

 

[nimoh]

page 7 under course goals:

"Prepare divers to manage realistic rescue situations"

 

[Mike]

Wrong, try again.