Once you get the victim out of the water are you just going to sit around waiting for the paramedics to get there? Yes, you do need to know CPR as well.
I agree that CPR/1st Aid is a good complimentary skill, but let's rephrase the question: if you've just exerted yourself to get a body up to the surface and to the transom, you're more than likely going to hand off the victim to others to continue the rescue.
Similarly, if a victim is now on the deck with a half dozen rescue divers surrounding them, the best assistance (all other factors being equal) will come from the guy whose CPR card is the most current (ie, "least expired"), as his skills have atrophied the least...even if this is a non-diving boat captain.
I once saved my neighbor's grandchild after a near drowning in their pool. They didn't know CPR and we were a long way from the hospital.
Glad to hear; I've conducted rescues which didn't get as far as CPR. However, the problem with many 'What Ifs?' is that real life is rarely textbook simple and often, there's something 'important' that was never covered in training which needs to be overcome on the fly.
For example I can recall a successful rescue of a Dive Instructor who had been violating shop policy by freediving off the diveboat that he was supposed to be topside on (root cause): he had a shallow water blackout and was falling off the wall when his body was snagged by a fellow Instructor (busy teaching), who was able to successfully stop his descent at 130fsw, and then brought up the victim.
The rescuer's rapid ascent resulted in her being at high risk of being bent in the process, so she handed off the victim to a second rescuer - and then went back down solo, to start an improvised recompression/deco schedule for an IWR self-rescue.
The second rescuer was another Dive Instructor who, like the first, was also just coincidentally onboard: he had been hired to conduct a Reef survey for the local Government. He supervised the effort at the diveboat's transom to get the victim hauled onboard with a couple of 'normal' (customer) divers who joined in the rescue effort (think about how to do this, and if it is practiced at all during training).
The third rescuer steps in to play their part: a retired medical doctor with a specialization in hyperbaric medicine who aborted his dive based on the verbal UW recall from the first rescuer. He took over the medical aid, and promptly rolled the victim onto their side, directing (ordering!) that the CPR be modified thusly, rather than performed traditionally with the victim flat on their back. Rescuer #2 complied while the MD grabbed the boat's O2 kit...and promptly overrode its default configuration as well (I didn't catch these details).
As this diveboat cast off and headed in, a second diveboat which had been scrambled (my nondiver wife watched the seamanship mastery of its departure from the anchorage, doing 20+knots in a 2mph zone, which included making the tight turn to go out the narrow inlet) picked up the rest of the divers and supported Rescuer #1 on their IWR deco schedule.
The victim was transported over land to the local hospital, with the MD (rescuer #3) in charge, which continued at the hospital too, as the local medical staff was less qualified. After a treatment with Curare for stabilization, the victim came to ... and wanted to know how badly mangled his motorcycle was from 'the accident'.
Late that evening, we finally had the birthday cake for Doctor Lloyd ... this was one hell of a way for him to have celebrated his birthday.
One of the things that came up as we discussed the accident was why he ordered the victim to be rolled onto their side. The answer was that he detected red foam in the mouth which indicated that it wasn't a simple SWBO or drowning, but the victim had also suffered a major lung squeeze (the unconscious fall to 130fsw), which needed draining from the airway at the same time that restorative O2 needed to be provided, or else the CPR wouldn't have been effective. All in all, this victim - who should have known better in the first place - was phenomenally lucky to have had the perfect combination of rescuers onboard to save his life.
I really believe everybody should have a basic CPR class, especially if they are going to participate in water sports or adventure sports.
I agree...and yet I can also see that the problem with this is that we would be folding Rescue Diver and CPR into the requirements for OW-I, which from a business development perspective would be
vehemently opposed by the Agencies - they would scream at how 'inaccessible' this makes diving. Plus it is also a sobering contrarian reality to the classical "Scuba is SAFE and FUN!" marketing message.
-hh
