@Diver0001 I have been involved in several very real emergency scenarios.
come audit a rescue course in the US if you think it's arrogance. The course has been so watered down it's ridiculous. I'm not saying "mine is better and you should take mine". When you have a full semester to teach AOW/Rescue, you can do a lot more. The problem is that what is taught in the course really isn't that useful for "most" divers because they don't have the equipment, or are diving in scenarios where the people that have the equipment are dealing with the problem. You're a dive professional, I assume you have the stuff, I am a dive professional, I do have the stuff. I'll get to the exceptions at the bottom.
There are three points of the rescue diver course.
Preventing an accident from occurring-most rescue courses will emphasize on this from what I've seen, but that should all be covered in any fundamentals type course
Getting a diver to shore-finding one, bringing him to the surface, then bringing to shore
Dealing with him once at the shore
Now, I don't have any PADI standards newer than 2002, so we'll look at IANTD and NAUI.
Diving First Aid, CPR, O2 admin is done concurrently or before the course-this takes care of the third one and is the one that I said you should take.
Now, let's address the middle bit for getting a diver to shore.
Missing diver-search patterns, etc. we do a lot of work with this, but the real world benefit is limited, again see exceptions at the bottom. We also emphasize that once you have to start this, especially from the surface, it's going to be a recovery not a rescue. There are exceptions, but highly unlikely.
Surface tows and recovery from depth-should be covered in OW *my opinion and NAUI agrees*, and certainly in AOW because that can happen to anyone *tired/cramps, etc*. You add rescue breaths, but most instructors don't actually know how to give efficient rescue breaths, and if you are boat diving you are likely going to actually slow the process of getting the diver to an AED/O2/CPR which makes the situation worse. I practice frequently enough to demonstrate at a high level, but if there is any risk that the breaths would slow me down in the water, I would kick like hell to the shore and get him on an MTV-100 or BVM with O2. We can't get college students with 3 MONTHS of practice, 2 sessions per week that are 2 hours long to efficiently tow while giving rescue breaths. Granted, only about 2 of those sessions are dedicated to towing, but it's still 4 hours of it with expected time for them to practice. How can anyone be so delusional to think that you can teach it in the days that most rescue courses give? More importantly, if you have to kick any distance, how many people are actually in good enough shape to do it? That's why we make them do it for half a mile to mimic swimming across a lake or coming up from the wrong side of a wreck or reef.
Panicked diver at surface etc. usually not actually covered in most courses because the instructors don't let any victims be truly active or they don't know how to be active so it's pretty much a waste of time. Hell most lifeguard courses don't actually teach with proper active victims.
IANTD covers a bunch of interesting skills for self-rescue that are useful that we also teach *DSO and Mount have been friends since the military, so shock of all shocks there*. Falling into water while fully clothed, drown proofing, breathing with a removed diaphragm to simulate a flooding reg *PADI would have a cow if you made a student do that*, 2 minute full freeflow breathing, 2 minute valve feathering.
Now, with most divers not diving in cold dark lakes and what not, and with most divers diving around with dive masters. The rescue course doesn't really bring a whole lot to the table that's truly "useful" to make you a better diver. If you regularly dive with instabuddies, especially in cold dark lakes/quarries etc. and don't dive with dive masters, then yeah, take rescue. If you are a warm water diver off of boats? You really aren't going to get a whole lot out of it. In a real world scenario the boat crew is going to take over anyway.
You may not like that answer, but it is what it is. It is not a course I teach if I can help it. If you have any desire to do any sort of leadership, you obviously need to take it. If you do any sort of diving without any sort of leadership or in remote areas, not only do you need to take it, but you HAVE to have all of the equipment. I.e. there is 0 point in taking O2 admin if you don't keep O2 kits with you. The diver is going to die if you take a diver up to the surface who doesn't have a pulse if you don't have an AED, end of discussion. The diver is probably going to die if you don't have O2 and they weren't breathing for any length of time. If you are going to take the course, and want an actual chance at saving someone, you need the stuff, and that is a fully stocked first aid kit, an AED, and a full O2 kit with BVM *and KNOW how to use it individually* or preferably an MTV-100.
If you are diving with an operation that has that stuff, they will be dealing with the surface portion anyway, so as long as you can get him to the surface and preferably to the boat/shore, that's all you're going to do anyway.
So I'll ask genuinely. Why do you think all divers should take it unless they fall into the future leadership category, or are willing to invest in the stuff to actually give someone a shot at making it out and are regularly diving away from any sort of operators?
Why should the OP take the course? If her dives are in the caribbean, it's all with dive ops meaning someone in the water, and qualified people on the surface. What benefit is there?
