Dive team help

[Gary D.]

Snowdrift:
Any technical training would be helpful. You might also contact one of the professional PSD teams and ask them to share their SOP's etc.

I think NAUI is the only world wide org that has a PSD specialty certification. They only have a few instructors and I am one. If you had five students it might be worth a class. Otherwise for now get some good technical training. I think Cavern might be a good start.

However technical the training, none of the sport training can prepare you for the demands and hazards of PSD diving.

Kenoo, please don’t take this as a knock down by any means. But this is the first I have heard of NAUI’s program.

My first thoughts are sense PSD is so contradictory to Sport diving how can a Sport diving organization effectively teach PSD?

Can you get us some information?

Gary D.

 

[bridgediver]

Snowdrift:
Any technical training would be helpful. You might also contact one of the professional PSD teams and ask them to share their SOP's etc.

I think NAUI is the only world wide org that has a PSD specialty certification. They only have a few instructors and I am one. If you had five students it might be worth a class. Otherwise for now get some good technical training. I think Cavern might be a good start.

However technical the training, none of the sport training can prepare you for the demands and hazards of PSD diving.

kenoo

I'd be interested to hear about Naui and PSD as well. I'm a Naui member and I've seen nothing in the standards or anywhere else to suggest that they train PSD - if they did it would certainly be of benefit to me and my team (since I'm a member). Is this something new?
I'm also curious as to what benefits you see cavern/cave training for PSD. If a guy's got money to burn and wants to collect cards and duplicate equipment I'd say go ahead but I find the 2 disciplines totally different. Thoughts?

Mark

 

[snow drift]

I like your Idea kenoo! I'm doing GUE tech 1 class in July. But I have a lot of work to do first. will order my first dry suit on tuesday. I think that I may be in for a but kicking. But my GUE fundamentals Instructor is only about 50 miles away. He is going to fit me and do my classes so I should be in good shape. Any one have any thoughts on the DUI TLS350?
Hay Gary do you know any of the guys in my area that I can get a hold of to help me out any? I I,Med you my location did you get it?

 

[bridgediver]

Then I met the PSD opportunity and my heart hasn't been the same. The task has gone from "sight-seeing with skills" to "dive with a team, dive with a mission". PSD is different and there is so much to learn and I can't move forward nearly as fast as I'd like. I go to the YMCA even when sleepy because I don't want to poop out on my team. My wife just started geo-caching and I have a map of "my" county so we can learn the roads and major areas. I spend an hour or two a day thinking about my history and skills and seeing what I can bring to the team in non-diving areas.
leam

Leam

I admire your enthusiasm but are you cracked? I'll take a tech dive over a PSD dive any day! Although training for PSD can be fun, wallowing around in a mucky-weedy lake is a far cry from something like a deep wreck.
I guess its all about the "team" though. You got to have a good team for either type of diving to make it work. It could be you just don't have the right guys for the "fun team".
I wish I had more guys with your attitude on my "work team"...

 

[snow drift]

Lots of weeds and muddy cold water is all I have to dive in well almost PSD should be fun then Shure looking forward to tech 1 in July though:11doh:

 

[bridgediver]

I like your Idea kenoo! I'm doing GUE tech 1 class in July. But I have a lot of work to do first. will order my first dry suit on tuesday. I think that I may be in for a but kicking. But my GUE fundamentals Instructor is only about 50 miles away. He is going to fit me and do my classes so I should be in good shape. Any one have any thoughts on the DUI TLS350?
Hay Gary do you know any of the guys in my area that I can get a hold of to help me out any? I I,Med you my location did you get it?

Didn't know they had a GUE instructor anywhere near there - who is it?

I got a 350. Good suit but I wouldn't use it for PSD if I had to pay for my own suit - it seems too filmsy for that (and too expensive if I did wreck it!). Gary may disagree as I think I remember him saying that they use the DUI's...

 

[snow drift]

Garth McMurdie he is a instructor @ Dive Utah in Ogden Utah. Keep in mind that the #1 perpose for the dry suite is tech diving. If I do PSD traing I can always buy another one. The DIR pervert thing is to cool!!

 

[Gary D.]

I got a 350. Good suit but I wouldn't use it for PSD if I had to pay for my own suit - it seems too filmsy for that (and too expensive if I did wreck it!). Gary may disagree as I think I remember him saying that they use the DUI's...

I do disagree about the TLS 350.

There are several advantages to them.

They are not as size specific as most of the other brands are. Out of our entire inventory there is only one suit I can’t get into because it is a women’s small. The one I was wearing was an extra large extra tall, those of you that know me, I’m neither. I’m in a DUI 50/50 now which is an extra large. I can wear a medium comfortably.

The DUI is one of the few suits that allow us to get suited up as fast as we do. Time after time the DUI beats out the White’s which has been the second as far as speed goes.

With the larger suit we can get into it in uniform. We drop the boots, gun-belt, vest and Back-up weapon suit up and go. On a dive several years ago I was real heavy, more than usual. When I came up I found out why. I still have my vest on with both shock plates and my back-up weapon. That can make anyone heavy.

They’re a very tough suit. Our 10 & 12-year old suits were just rebuilt. We will get another 10-12 years out of them then another rebuild. $100-400 for a rebuild is a lot cheaper than a new suit. So they aren’t expensive or as flimsy as one might think.

The flexibility of them makes for a very comfortable suit. They don’t get much more comfortable. There was a time, back when we first went (Shell) dry that each of us was in a different brand of suit. All are gone now except the Vikings, which we use on special applications. Like diving in poop under houses or in septic tanks.

It’s unusual for a government agency to fork out more than the lowest bidder. DUI is far from the lowest but the department has seen the value of them and so we will gladly stay with them.

Wreck a DUI, sure it can be done as anything can be wrecked. Some of our suits have thousands of dives on them in not the best of conditions and come back the next day to do it all over again.

When we soak them in gasoline and oil we get the firemen to foam us and we are back to being squeaky clean.

My personal suit, which I rarely wear, is a White’s. But I whish it was a DUI.

Gary D.

 

[PaulChristenson]

Thank you for the advice. So OPW then strait to PSD training?
I spend all summer working with & teching kids and also trying to be a positive influance. All to many come from rough homes. I just hate to see bad coming to children do to an adult with lack of brain cells or poor judgment. I tend to lose my cool with the on who is suposed to know better.
As to the statement to the gear it was only to the fact that you asked what I spent 30,000 on. My wife could tell you to the penny and on what LOL!!
You all are being alot of help. I have not had any formal conversation with the grand poba yet. Need to have a lot better knowlage of PSD so I don't look like a total fool.
I know that it is most unlikely to save some one to much response time.
As to me being a PSD maybe but I've got some other traing that I want to do first. I.E EMT,tech,cave and my instuctors ya tall list but oh well.
The 4 weeler is do able BUT THE SNOW TOTALY SUCKS!!!!!!!! ya dumb I live in Idaho and have for 34 years. I see sand and palm trees in my future .
Did I say I'm very new to GUE,DIR so don't beat on me just an Idea but I think it's the coolest thing since sex LOL

For your EMT training, you normally have to be affiliated with an organization...Fire, EMS, police, etc.
For your PSD training...you want to check out Dive Rescue International
http://www.diverescueintl.com/
For light reading check out Butch's book
Public Safety Diving
350 Pages. By Hendrick and Zaferes. Written for instructors, dive team captains, surface teams, and underwater personnel alike, this book offers information on procedures for safe operations, proper methods of training, and how to make appropriate purchasing decisions. Various techniques and types of equipment are discussed and assessed. Safety is the constant theme throughout, with and emphasis on surface support, accident prevention, contingency procedures, risk/benefit analysis, and standard operating guidelines. Included also are chapter on methods of search in black water, swift water, and contaminated water, as well as techniques for evidence recovery. This book is a must- have for any department seeking routine outcomes to underwater operations: that victims are saved, that evidence is recovered intact, and that personnel return from the bottom safe and sound.

And since you live in Idaho, you might as well read his other two books...
Ice Diving Operations
Surface Ice Rescue

You can order all three from http://store.yahoo.com/pennwell/tecres.html

FYI...GUE and PSD are diametrically opposed in many aspects...

For one thing...your basic BCD setup is very different...see
http://catalog.argos.net/ECscripts/ECware.exe/dcp?id=003&sku=BC100&type=A1QS11&lc=EN

And Full face mask ops...
and pony bottles
etc....etc...

Paul in VT

 

[leam]

Leam

I admire your enthusiasm but are you cracked? I'll take a tech dive over a PSD dive any day! Although training for PSD can be fun, wallowing around in a mucky-weedy lake is a far cry from something like a deep wreck.
I guess its all about the "team" though. You got to have a good team for either type of diving to make it work. It could be you just don't have the right guys for the "fun team".
I wish I had more guys with your attitude on my "work team"...

Odds are, yes.

Let me put some caveats and add some information. I've just gotten re-certified after a short bit of diving followed by more than a decade of not. So my experience is limited in Rec diving and operationally nil in PSD.

I spent a decade in the military. One of the biggest transition troubles I've had and still have after more than 13 years out is that I work for...well...money. Not that money is bad but when you're used to thinking in terms of national significance and people's lives, dedicating yourself to someone else's dollars just kinda feels cheap.

In the Air Force I spent a few years doing Disaster Preparedness. All land based but I've done the equipment maintenance, operational planning, and training. This feels like where I should be. While most of America watched a game I did my NIMS training on-line.

So yeah, I'll go on a dive with you--it's more training for the real stuff.

ciao!

leam

p.s. For those who answered my "Recommended Reading" thread, thanks. Butch's book is on order, I'm talking to an ERDI instructor about a class, and if that falls through I'll chat with DRI about the correspondence course.