solo training vs firefighters training whats the difference

[DivingFirefighter]

I feel your pain about the lack of dive buddies!! but...

Here is my two cents, I've been a firefighter for 13 years. I agree that some people are capable of solo diving. I haven't done it personally, yet, but I may in the future. My concern that I would express to the OP is that in firefighting you have more options for self-rescue, there is a warning system built in to most SCBAs that is hard to ignore for low air. With SCUBA diving, if you have a low on air or out of air situation, the options are pretty limited. My suggestion to the OP is pay to dive with the dive shops 3 or 4 times, be very out going and meet some new people. I had to perform an exercise recently for my Divemaster cert that really showed me how quickly and easily it is to find yourself starting to panic, and I consider myself to be fairly confident and competent diver.

As for everyone else, I think a lot of people are concerned about government intervention in dive training and diving in general, due to potential increased accident rates from solo diving. I have no problem with people who choose to solo dive, just please for your family, friends and the sake of the rest of diving community PLEASE do it safely and responsibly!

 

[MRadke]

I've been a firefighter for 25 years with hazmat technician certs and ice rescue training and experience. This will be my 5th year diving. I felt that many of the skills crossed over very well to scuba. The most important of those being to keep calm, breathe and think.

I approach scuba the way that I approach fire entry. I carry a few more tools than most and have them organized in a manner where they can be accessed in a hurry, without looking. I carry my survival kit into a fire, much the way I carry my survival kit into the water. Whether you are proficient at either fire entry or diving really boils down to how well your head is bolted on. I am sure you know firefighters that are better off outside doing ventilation.

I intend to make my first official solo dive this weekend. It should be an easy dive. It's in a clear lake with a max depth of 40 feet that I've done a lot of snorkeling and free diving in. It is a depth that I am very comfortable doing a CESA from, which is I feel is a whole lot safer than an out of air situation 40 ft into a smoke filled building. I feel that I am ready for the dive that I have planned. If you have to ask someone whether you are ready, you may already have your answer.

Good Luck with your decision.

---------- Post added August 9th, 2013 at 10:01 AM ----------

Ok I spent two winters in Webster, to me "rit" is Rochester Institute of Technology.

You are in the "solo" forum, gloves tend to be off.



At the University?

In fire fighting, RIT is Rapid Intervention Team.

 

[Stealth Mode]

IMHO, you appear to have a self-centric mindset. Perfect for solo. Same as me.

Very unacceptable for either PSD or FF.

I had to throw this one in, I am a SOLO Fire Fighter and I dive solo.There are SOME similarities in both but I definitely sought a LOT of info about solo diving.I am also a Fire Instructor for the State of Florida (7 years now,fire fighting for 20).IMO fire fighter training by itself would not be enough without further dive support training.Even though I am A solo fire fighter I still work WELL in a team setting,as long as I am the leader. Just kidding........ I also believe that all of the skills can be self taught so long as you have done a lot of research and FULLY absorbed and comprehended the information regarding ANY type of diving.

 

[lowviz]

I had to throw this one in, I am a SOLO Fire Fighter ...//...

As in UGV or World of Warcraft?

...//... I also believe that all of the skills can be self taught so long as you have done a lot of research and FULLY absorbed and comprehended the information regarding ANY type of diving.

I suppose, but I wouldn't enter either a cave on scuba or a burning house on scba with only books and the internet as my guide...

 

[Stealth Mode]

As in UGV or World of Warcraft?

I am a SOLO firefighter,we are the only ones on Earth that I know of.I am A Forestry firefighter and we build fire lines with dozers (single seat) our training is beyond hard core.I am also a structure firefighter and Fire Instructor.

I suppose, but I wouldn't enter either a cave on scuba or a burning house on scba with only books and the internet as my guide...

Why not if you can perform all of the skills required and you had researched it properly.Why would a C card alone guarantee you are properly trained,it depends on your instructor.In cave diving if you taught yourself reel work with lost line recoveries,redundant air supply,total gas management principals,emergency drills and procedures,no less than 3 lights,use of the arrow cookies,air sharing drills,advanced deco procedures,etc. These things are not magic,but I also believe that most people wouldn't be capable of self teaching.I know that it would require ALOT of discipline and careful attention paid to not jumping into extreme situations.However it is NOT impossible.

 

[lowviz]

...//... I also believe that most people wouldn't be capable of self teaching.I know that it would require ALOT of discipline and careful attention paid to not jumping into extreme situations.However it is NOT impossible.

No, not impossible. Just highly unlikely and one would miss so much of the "first responder" or "cave community" experience. That is a fairly radical statement from me as I'm not a "joiner" or "follower" type, I prefer going my own way. But sometimes there is a lot to be gained by going your own way, in the same direction as the highly skilled...

 

[derwoodwithasherwood]

I'm another 25 year veteran of the fire service and have been diving solo for somewhere around 10 years now. I started off in a rural volunteer department and ended up in one of the largest municipal departments on the continent, so I've done everything from 3 guys fighting a barn fire to a shopping mall that "blowed up real good" to a subway train on fire. When I started, portable radios were expensive and limited to one per crew (if that) and RIT hadn't been invented yet.

My solo diving has been pretty tame compared to some. No deeper than 70', usually less than 40'. Usually in a tea-stained lake and low visibility, hunting for something that fell overboard. I carry a 19 cu. ft. pony and 2 of everything else. But I've never faced a serious emergency while diving solo. For that matter, the worst I've faced diving period was someone kicked my regulator hose, yanking it out of my mouth mid-inhale. So I guess I've been lucky -- but then, I try to make my own luck. Now that my bona fides are out of the way:

I do believe that the mindset is potentially similar between diving and firefighting -- particularly the ability to make calm, rational decisions in the midst of a life-and-death situation. That said, it's a mindset that not even all firefighters have mastered. No doubt you've heard the expression "candle-moth syndrome" at some point in your career? So ask yourself: after the incident, do you ever find that others in your crew noticed things that you missed? Or are you the one that finds the dead cat everyone else tripped over? Do you have to switch hands and retrace your route when you find the victim, or do you KNOW that the shortcut to the exit is just a few feet away to the right even though you can't see it? When you arrive at the incident, are you running or walking towards it?

As for skills, there is some cross-over of course, but considerable important differences too. You were probably trained to "swim" out of an entaglement, and all the crap strapped to a firefighter does tend to grab on to loose wires like a burr in a child's hair, but it's usually pretty clear which way is up even in a smoke filled building. Not so much underwater. You don't have to maintain neutral bouyancy when crawling around in a fire. The act of getting around in a fire is not really substantially different than the act of getting around during our everyday lives, wereas the act of diving is foreign to the human experience. It takes a lot of practice to become truly competent getting around underwater than it does getting around in a fire. The only way to get that practice is to do a lot of diving and build the muscle memory to make things second-nature. Which is probably why a solo course will require a minimum number of dives before taking the course.

The environment itself is different, but again, here is an area where you can make your own luck when diving. A firefighter has no choice in the matter, but are you planning to dive in an overhead or otherwise hazardous area (and I count boat-infested waters as an overhead environment)? Of course, there's always the possibility of fishing line to deal with, but in unobstructed open water a diver almost always has the option of making an emergency ascent. And if the diver has chosen a suitable depth, (s)he can do so in relative safety. But if you choose to dive in a challenging location, you just made the whole proposition a whole lot riskier.

Personally, I think that if you have to ask if you are ready, you aren't ready yet. And -- to me -- asking if your firefighter training is sufficient is admitting your skills are not. On the other hand, I think it's a fair argument to say that any diver who is not ready to dive solo is not ready to dive with a partner, either. The skills required to look after someone else are even greater than the skills required to look after one's self.

 

[Stealth Mode]

Well put Derwood,I think what we are getting at is even though we are very safety and equipment oriented people in general as fire fighters,its like comparing apples to rocks....................

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Okay, I'll add my two cents worth too. I don't think you can compare firefighting and solo diving at all. They are two different activities, under different systems. I have been solo diving for over 50 years, and have trained emergency response teams (Haz-Mat) and coordinated with the local fire department drills and actual responses to chemical leaks.

Fire fighters and ERT both work under the Incident Command System. They usually, if not now always operate with emergency radio contact with the incident commander. Rarely are they "alone" in a fire or chemical spill situation--that is not how we trained to respond. Fire fighters and ERT are always operating with SCBAs which include positive pressure full face masks, so that even if unconscious they will still retain their ability to breath. So there are huge differences between fire fighting, ERT responses to chemical spills, and solo diving.

Solo diving is just that, solo. There is no radio communications with anyone and nobody to talk to if there is an emergency. We bite a mouthpiece, and if something happens to us underwater where we loose consciousness, we loose the grip on that mouthpiece and drown. There is no other team of divers ready to come to get us if we are overdue (except, perhaps when resort diving). There many times is no defined area that we are located in, so any search in open water can involve large expanses of water to search.

Saying that, I'm not one who solo dives after a course; I've never taken a solo diving course. I was a NAUI instructor (NAUI #2710, retired), have had U.S. Navy scuba training, U.S. Air Force scuba training, and originally was LA County trained as a diver (1963). But I started diving in 1959, and dove solo before receiving my initial scuba certification. So my example is not really a good one for promoting solo diving training. I will say that I was a competitive swimmer before diving, and had taken and passed lifeguarding classes. I also had several years of snorkeling before going to scuba. But that was in a different era too.

Today we have people with minimal water skills getting directly into scuba diving, then wanting to solo dive. Today we have people completely dependent upon equipment to maintain themselves in the water (BCDs for instance). In the 1970s, we called these divers "push-button divers," who could go up and down by pushing a button on their BCD, but had minimal skills to do anything else in the water.

So at this point, and reading over your posts, I would highly recommend the solo diving course. Whether or not you are prepared for solo diving is something you should figure out. By the way, the word is "whether," not "weather" which is a word for the diving environmental conditions we need to evaluate.

My rule of thumb is that if there is this little voice inside you saying "Should I do this?" then you should not. This is your brain saying something is not right, and you should not put yourself in this position until you can do it without that nagging feeling that you shouldn't.

Today's scuba courses are not like the U.S. Navy instructors and their pool harassment, and are more designed to graduate students with questionable skills than to weed out those who shouldn't be diving like we experienced with the U.S. Navy School for Underwater Swimmers, or the NAUI ITC in 1973. Take the course in solo diving, and see how you actually will perform under some more trying situations than maybe you've already undertaken. Do you know that for my LA County course in 1963, our final experience in the pool was to be buddy diving, and be covered by a gill net so that we had to untangle each other's gear to get out (it was a very large, fine mesh gill net)? That is how training used to be, so the training protocols cannot be compared either.

I will add that I currently solo dive in one location, High Rocks on the Clackamas River, and that has lifeguards station on the rocks between Memorial Day and Labor Day. I also now dive with a yellow "diver down" float, so if something happens they will know where I am by the line from the float to my body harness (Para-Sea BC, of my own design). My solo diving is over for the year, as the river has recently been blow out by flooding, so the next solo I will probably do is next year on Memorial Day. Below is a photo of me geared up for my last solo dive in September of 2013, and the area I dive at High Rocks.

SeaRat

 

[DevonDiver]

Why not if you can perform all of the skills required and you had researched it properly.Why would a C card alone guarantee you are properly trained...

Two words: External Validation.

Less succinctly, the c-card guarantees (or as near as you can get) you are properly trained because you are assessed against performance standards by someone who is already intimately familiar with the demands to which you wish to expose yourself.

Self-learning is one thing. Self-assessment is another.

Self-assessment is flawed, because if you possess weaknesses then it is also possible those weaknesses will leave you blind to performance deficits. The result - it is easy to over-assess your competency.