Rescue Diver?

[NudeDiver]

EFR course here was one day. Started about 930, ended about 5pm - including lunch and a bit of fooling around.

 

[kadleck]

EFR course here was one day. Started about 930, ended about 5pm - including lunch and a bit of fooling around.

Thank you sir. That previous post had me doubting my calendar! We started at 0830, finishing at 1630.

 

[SDAnderson]

Unless we are talking about different certifications, a first responder course is at least 20 hours around here. It also has recertification requirements of 12 hours refresher training every 2 years.

Even a Red cross first aid course is longer than 1 day.

Steve

By the book, the American Red Cross Adult First Aid and CPR course is six hours long, including breaks. I've taught this class for ages, usually it runs a little less time, only very rarely does it run longer. Ditto the equivalent courses from Emergency First Response (the PADI captive agency), Medic First Aid (the former PADI contractor), National Safety Council, American Safety and Health Institute, yadda, yadda.

It sounds like you might be a professional rescuer, remember that the Rescue class is a lay responder course and layman's First Aid and CPR is all that is required. Even if you add module's for AED, children, infants, BBP, etc., a layman's class should take less than a day. One exception is Wilderness First Aid - that's a two day course but it teaches a number of EMT level skills and is designed for responders who will be in areas that can't be reached by EMT services - scouts, mostly.

If it's an ILCOR/BLS compliant FA/CPR course, retraining is required at least every two years. One notable exception is the ARC CPR training, which expires every year.

 

[rescue15]

By the book, the American Red Cross Adult First Aid and CPR course is six hours long, including breaks.

I guess the classes have been dumbed down alot. Granted it was over 20 years ago but my ARC Advanced First Aid was taught on 4 consecutive Saturdays - each 6 hours long. This was before my Professional training. EMT (before AED and BBP) was 84 hours and didn't include CPR - which has really been dumbed down so don't get me started. First Responder for Police and Firemen is at least 20 hours but more realistically 40 hours.

Now around here, Amer Heart Assn CPR for civilians is 4 hours, so what does that leave - 2 hours to learn bleeding and bandaging, moving of the injured and recognizing shock? Sounds like an injustice and a BIG liability.

I teach the First Aid Merit badge and the scouts put in about 10 hours to earn it and it's really simplified (maybe ARC Standard First Aid level).

Steve

 

[SDAnderson]

I guess the classes have been dumbed down alot. Granted it was over 20 years ago but my ARC Advanced First Aid was taught on 4 consecutive Saturdays - each 6 hours long. This was before my Professional training. EMT (before AED and BBP) was 84 hours and didn't include CPR - which has really been dumbed down so don't get me started. First Responder for Police and Firemen is at least 20 hours but more realistically 40 hours.

Now around here, Amer Heart Assn CPR for civilians is 4 hours, so what does that leave - 2 hours to learn bleeding and bandaging, moving of the injured and recognizing shock? Sounds like an injustice and a BIG liability.

I teach the First Aid Merit badge and the scouts put in about 10 hours to earn it and it's really simplified (maybe ARC Standard First Aid level).

Steve

Just because you walked five miles uphill in the snow to school every day when you were a kid doesn't mean you aren't a dinosaur.

Smart people learn from what they have done and figure out ways to do it better next time, that's exactly what ILCOR is all about. It's important to remember that the goal isn't the process but the results and when we can find ways to be more effective it's bone headed not to adopt them. It's not just incorrect to refer to the current training as an "injustice" and "big liability" and "dumbed down", it's also counter-productive. Besides, I don't know if it requires brass cojones or a concrete skull for a Boy Scout volunteer (and maybe EMT) to challenge several hundred of the best medical experts in the world - I certainly know whose opinion I'm going to give more weight to.

If you teach the Merit Badge First Aid program to Boy Scouts, you should already be familiar with the ILCOR/BLS - the same recommendations that form the curriculum for the Boy Scout class you are teaching are also used by the American Heart Association, the American Red Cross, Emergency First Response, Medic First Aid and most other agencies. You may think it's a bad class but ILCOR is serious stuff and their recommendations form the basis for the curriculum used by almost every agency.

The priorities for lay responders are very simple: stay safe, act, and be as effective as reasonably possible. Professional responders not only have a duty to respond but also have the time, the money and the inclination for a lot more intensive training program - including opportunities for practice and near-constant retraining. Instead of making lay responders feel bad because they aren't being taught advanced life support skills, we need to focus on giving them some very basic skills and the confidence to use them. Once everyone masters CPR we can worry about teaching them how to use a BVM. As an aside, if you aren't happy now, get ready to have a heart attack (bad pun, sorry) because they're probably going to stop teaching CPR to lay responders in a couple of years. CCR has been found to be more effective than CPR, easier to learn, easier to remember, easier to perform, yadda, yadda.

In the meantime, everybody should learn basic first aid and CPR skills and every diver should take a rescue course. It is easy, it isn't scary and most people have a lot of fun during the class. Rescue is a transformational course, you'll hear from so many people who have taken the class: it won't just make you a better diver but it can actually change the way you see the world.

Enough digression however, let's not further hijack this thread.

 

[kadleck]

Rescue is a transformational course, you'll hear from so many people who have taken the class: it won't just make you a better diver but it can actually change the way you see the world.

Absolutely agreed!

... they're probably going to stop teaching CPR to lay responders in a couple of years. CCR has been found to be more effective than CPR, easier to learn, easier to remember, easier to perform, yadda, yadda.

Though I think CCR is contra-indicated for drowning victims, so I guess rescue diving will stay with CPR.

 

[rescue15]

Smart people learn from what they have done and figure out ways to do it better next time, that's exactly what ILCOR is all about. It's important to remember that the goal isn't the process but the results and when we can find ways to be more effective it's bone headed not to adopt them. It's not just incorrect to refer to the current training as an "injustice" and "big liability" and "dumbed down", it's also counter-productive. Besides, I don't know if it requires brass cojones or a concrete skull for a Boy Scout volunteer (and maybe EMT) to challenge several hundred of the best medical experts in the world - I certainly know whose opinion I'm going to give more weight to....

....
...Professional responders not only have a duty to respond but also have the time, the money and the inclination for a lot more intensive training program - including opportunities for practice and near-constant retraining. Instead of making lay responders feel bad because they aren't being taught advanced life support skills, we need to focus on giving them some very basic skills and the confidence to use them.

...Once everyone masters CPR we can worry about teaching them how to use a BVM. As an aside, if you aren't happy now, get ready to have a heart attack (bad pun, sorry) because they're probably going to stop teaching CPR to lay responders in a couple of years. CCR has been found to be more effective than CPR, easier to learn, easier to remember, easier to perform, yadda, yadda.

In the meantime, everybody should learn basic first aid and CPR skills and every diver should take a rescue course. It is easy, it isn't scary and most people have a lot of fun during the class. Rescue is a transformational course, you'll hear from so many people who have taken the class: it won't just make you a better diver but it can actually change the way you see the world.

.

If ARC teaches their CPR adn First Aid in 6 hours that's fine. I was not trying to refute the necessity of training. Only that there is no way you can condense a 20 hour plus course into a 6 hour day including time for lunch.
True, CPR is soon going to be a thing of the past. If they (AHA) take any more skills out of the civillian classes all that will be taught is "are you unconscious...call 911" It's very close to that now. As an aside, I have seen too many lay CPR providers doing CPR on the stomach (or worse) so It won't hurt my feelings if civillians don't do CPR any more.

Is 6 hours enough time to teach basic first aid skills - yes. Is it enough for a
First responder class - NO.

As far as basic first aid, if EFR classes are being taught in 6 hours, I would rather have a 12 year old Boy Scout treat me. They would be better prepared.

Finally, Professional responders have NO legal duty to respond

As for my credentials, I am a 23 year veteran of one of the largest Fire Departments in the nation. Prior to that, I was an EMT-P in NY CITY for 3 years. I teach ACLS, BLS and used to teach EMT and parts of EMT-P I am very in touch with prehospital care. I have several degrees in Emergency Health Services, (both administration and care), and Fire Science. I am a Nationally certified Fire Service Instructor, and an EMT (was a NREMP-P but my current Fire Service responsibilities don't leave me enough time to maintain the certification.) In my off duty time, I teach First Aid, Emergency Preparedness, Wilderness Survival, and Fire Safety, among other merit badges to the Boy Scouts. I am a SDI Master Scuba Diver and in the spring I will be enrolled in a SDI DM program. So yes, I have brass cojones but not a cement skull. I also have the experience to know that many doctors (both MD and PhD) have no place in legislating prehospital care. I don't roll over blindly when an MD says something, If I don't agree with an order I will tell them. A doctor is still a person and can make mistakes and have wrong opinions. If they have no prehospital experience they should keep their opinions to themselves. There are many organizations like that and I am sure ILCOR is no different.

This is all that I am saying on this topic. Sorry for the hijack. It was not intended. I merely asked a question but was was attacked in response.

 

[BigGee]

FWIW, my instructor said tonight that you have to have 20 dives by the time you finish the course - but that the 4 RD scenarios count as logged dives. So, between the 9 you need by the time you finish AOW, and the 4 you get from RD, you only need to come up with 7 more dives.

If you're instructor withheld certification until you had achieved 20 dives then he would be in breach of standards. The 20 dives is only a prerequisite for divers coming from another training organisation, not to PADI divers. Technically you could achieve rescue diver certification is as little as 10 days (4 OW, 2 AOW, 1 EFR, 3 Rescue) with only 12 dives.

Of course this would not be recommended. From personal experience I can safely say that the more dives a person has the easier the Rescue course is. You should be as comfortable as possible in the water, so that you can concentrate 100% on the job at hand and not worrying about your own buoyancy etc. When I was a DM working on a rescue courses I had to rescue the "rescuer" on more than one occasion. In each of these occasions it was due to someone who had decided to rush through and had simply got out of their depth.

Take your time, enjoy the diving and build up your experience. Then do the rescue course, it will better in the long run IMHO.

 

[exitandleave]

Thanks for all of the replies, everyone, and sorry for the delayed response.

I registered for my AOW class today and start next week, and I havn't made any dives aside from the four in OW, due to the fact that I was, and am, still waiting on all of my gear to come in.

I am an EMT, as well as AHA CPR/First aid instructor, and taking my medic this fall so I should be all set for the medical aspects of being a rescue diver and taking the course.

My instructor hasn't mentioned any restrictions based on number of dives, although I only signed up for AOW at this point.

Thanks a lot, everyone,

Mike

 

[rstofer]

Thanks for all of the replies, everyone, and sorry for the delayed response.

I registered for my AOW class today and start next week, and I havn't made any dives aside from the four in OW, due to the fact that I was, and am, still waiting on all of my gear to come in.

I am an EMT, as well as AHA CPR/First aid instructor, and taking my medic this fall so I should be all set for the medical aspects of being a rescue diver and taking the course.

My instructor hasn't mentioned any restrictions based on number of dives, although I only signed up for AOW at this point.

Thanks a lot, everyone,

Mike

Don't worry about the number of dives you have. Once you finish AOW and Rescue, you will be the most sought after buddy on the boat.

For a fact, I would rather dive with another Rescue diver. They have more diver training, better emergency skills and, if they do that stuff for a living, are more used to stressful situations than the vast majority of divers.

Enjoy your classes!

Richard