nyresq
Contributor
snow bear says:
My FD uses the above mentioned LifeGuardSystems for PSD qualifications. The members I have dove with on a recreational basis tend to sink like rocks, wallow on the bottom (as they are trained to do while searching by feel a muddy lake bottom while tethered to a surface tender who signals when to advance, search left, search right, etc...). These same divers seem to think a safety stop is optional no matter what the dive profile. Light - we don't need no steenkin' dive light - but I got 3 cutting tools and a pony bottle - does that count? How come I end up leading these dives even though most of these divers are more "experienced" and "qualified" than I am?
PSD training doesn't make you a wreck diver or even a better swimmer... your right, PSD teaches you to sink to the bottom and work through the muck. Thats the idea, dead bodies are either on the surface or on the bottom, not hovering 4 feet off the dirt. And your PSD training states a diver is down for no more than 15 minutes, then he's out for R&R. LGS also teaches a max rescue depth of 40- 60 feet depending on the terrain underwater, at that depth 15 minutes is well within time limits, and since you don't send another in to search untill the first is out, you don't want to be waiting for the first to do a 5 min safety stop. he goes down, he searches, hes up and out. Next divers in. We are talking about saving lives here, not checking out the local aquatic life.
As far as qualified, you don't seem to know a whole lot about Public safety diving and have not been trained as such, so while you mention "qualified" and "experience" you are talking about two very different fields. There are guys I dive on the team with, who should not be wreck diving out in the atlantic cause they don't have the qualifications or the experience to do so, yea they would be kicking up silt and knocking into things and don't know the first thing about deco gas or nitrox and would get bent if they dove past 90 feet. They aren't recreational divers that are diving wrecks in the atlantic every weekend or twice a year in cozumel for a week each time, but I'll put them up against any gary gentile or dan berg when it comes to finding a body in the bottom of a drainage sump or marina. One has nothing to do with the other. You're comparing your skill and experience as a recreational diver with someone elses skill as a PSD. Apples and Oranges.
If your divers when diving recreationally (is that a word?) are sinking to the dirt and floundering around trying to swim in the mud, thats not the fault of their training, that them not knowing how to dive outside a PDS type of scenario. It sounds like they think they can take the gear used for PSD and go out for the weekend with it. If its properly set up for PSD, then its the last configuration you would use for rec diving.
So if they can't tell the difference between a dive job callout, and a day at the quarry, then someone needs to sit them down, strap on their hockey helmets and teach them the difference. Otherwise from what you say, they are going to hurt them selves, and then you need a dive team...
you can sit someone down in a class and teach them all day long, but they won't learn a damm thing untill THEY want to.
And a phrase I like to use in the firehouse:
"Just cause they got gear on the rack, it don't make 'em a firefighter"
If you don't know what that means, then you haven't been in the FD for very long.
My FD uses the above mentioned LifeGuardSystems for PSD qualifications. The members I have dove with on a recreational basis tend to sink like rocks, wallow on the bottom (as they are trained to do while searching by feel a muddy lake bottom while tethered to a surface tender who signals when to advance, search left, search right, etc...). These same divers seem to think a safety stop is optional no matter what the dive profile. Light - we don't need no steenkin' dive light - but I got 3 cutting tools and a pony bottle - does that count? How come I end up leading these dives even though most of these divers are more "experienced" and "qualified" than I am?
PSD training doesn't make you a wreck diver or even a better swimmer... your right, PSD teaches you to sink to the bottom and work through the muck. Thats the idea, dead bodies are either on the surface or on the bottom, not hovering 4 feet off the dirt. And your PSD training states a diver is down for no more than 15 minutes, then he's out for R&R. LGS also teaches a max rescue depth of 40- 60 feet depending on the terrain underwater, at that depth 15 minutes is well within time limits, and since you don't send another in to search untill the first is out, you don't want to be waiting for the first to do a 5 min safety stop. he goes down, he searches, hes up and out. Next divers in. We are talking about saving lives here, not checking out the local aquatic life.
As far as qualified, you don't seem to know a whole lot about Public safety diving and have not been trained as such, so while you mention "qualified" and "experience" you are talking about two very different fields. There are guys I dive on the team with, who should not be wreck diving out in the atlantic cause they don't have the qualifications or the experience to do so, yea they would be kicking up silt and knocking into things and don't know the first thing about deco gas or nitrox and would get bent if they dove past 90 feet. They aren't recreational divers that are diving wrecks in the atlantic every weekend or twice a year in cozumel for a week each time, but I'll put them up against any gary gentile or dan berg when it comes to finding a body in the bottom of a drainage sump or marina. One has nothing to do with the other. You're comparing your skill and experience as a recreational diver with someone elses skill as a PSD. Apples and Oranges.
If your divers when diving recreationally (is that a word?) are sinking to the dirt and floundering around trying to swim in the mud, thats not the fault of their training, that them not knowing how to dive outside a PDS type of scenario. It sounds like they think they can take the gear used for PSD and go out for the weekend with it. If its properly set up for PSD, then its the last configuration you would use for rec diving.
So if they can't tell the difference between a dive job callout, and a day at the quarry, then someone needs to sit them down, strap on their hockey helmets and teach them the difference. Otherwise from what you say, they are going to hurt them selves, and then you need a dive team...
you can sit someone down in a class and teach them all day long, but they won't learn a damm thing untill THEY want to.
And a phrase I like to use in the firehouse:
"Just cause they got gear on the rack, it don't make 'em a firefighter"
If you don't know what that means, then you haven't been in the FD for very long.
