Just how 'real' should a rescue scenario be?

I vote for as realistic as possible. I have seen people freeze when their CPR patient vomits. Annie never pukes

 

The best rescue class I ever taught had a real emergency
on the last bit of diving. There was a swimmer training for a marathon that had a mild heart attack about 25 yards from the picnic table we were debriefing at. The class jumped in brought him in put him on O2 and called EMS. Afterword they said they thought it was fake at first.

 

Wow what are the chances. The only CPR I've ever seen was on TV, and I'm 65. My wife did it once on a drowning victim at a pool where she was lifeguarding--about age 16. She is 65 as well. That's 130 years and one case.

 

This is pure gold, thanks for sharing!

I think that a rescue scenarios (commercial or not) should be unexpected and closest to reality as much as possible.
The one you just told us thicks all of that.

 

I like mine as realistic as possible, so I will recruit former students to participate without the current students knowledge. They are informed that they are just here to dive for fun. I also have a minimum student requirement.
There are a couple locations where residences or other groups are present so we have to give them heads up. More than a couple times we've had EMS arrive. We don't call for pizza in our course!
We once had a drama teacher simulate a heart attack after a dive. If I hadn't of known before hand I would have sworn it was real.
Like Jim L, I'm the unconscious diver on the bottom and could be just about anywhere in an number of different configurations. We just finished one today were I slipped into a sidemount rig. Since I team teach with my wife we can pretend one of us is doing a "fun" dive.

Thanks for sharing your experience. When a scenario is well played they are fun for the instructor(s) but not so much for the students at first. Glad you guys responded as you were trained.

 

Even a little more realism can help. I used to teach first aid and always used a little makeup to simulate injuries.

A surprisingly large number of students would faint when walking into a room and finding a unconscious person lying awkwardly at the bottom of a ladder with a single drop of fake blood running down their forehead.

That said, PADI Rescue can be many students introduction to first aid / rescue. Start Easy

 

Do militaries train soldiers by conducting a training attack on a base that seems to be the real thing? Do police academies train officers by making them think they are in an actual shootout with armed robbers? Are pilots trained in an actual plane by simulating a hijacking or loss of engines? I can't think of anything other than scuba where training for emergencies is done by tricking the student into thinking it's an actual emergency.

 

I just finished my rec. rescue cert. My instructor put me through way more scenarios than what I'd seen on YouTube and studied on the PADI training.

You'll never know what you're prepared for until you are faced with it. This goes for diving and pretty much everything else in life.

While I was taught many things over the course of that week; calm, control, and confidence were the greatest lessons.

Go real or go home.

Oh, and you commercial guys kick ass.

 

Thank you for your views and suggestions. I think the general consensus is that in the recreational arena a degree of realism and induced stress is beneficial, but maybe not quite to this extent.

Just a reminder that this was a commercial course, so we students were rightly being held to a higher standard. I would also like to say that the instructors and support staff were exceptional and the principals of safety were continually rammed home. Without doubt the best course I've ever done.

This happening at the end of the last dive was exactly to make us acutely aware that it isn't over till it's over. Starting to relax and dream of the first pint can wait until the van is loaded.

Our main take away was something that's discussed often on SB; when things go loud, they go go loud very quickly.

 

Graham, reads like you got a good course! I agree that until you get into a rescue situation, even well trained, you don't know how you'll cope. There's divers in my BSAC club who have done CPR on an non-club diver - his friends were reduced to total indecision.

There was apparently a rescue situation where a trained rescuer gave rescue breaths to the victim's forehead, because that's how she was trained (in the interests of hygiene).

I played the 'body' for my buddy doing her dive leader rescue training a couple of weeks ago and I was quite pleased that she made a proper mouth-to-nose seal otherwise I'd have swallowed quite a lot if water! It certainly gave me some insight being on the receiving end.