Training Agencies

[BrianDiver]

I am brand new to the board and to public safety diving.
I have been directed to develop an in-house dive team training program for my fire department in the Pacific Northwest. I am a PADI DM and will be attending an instructor course---whose is the question. The "plan" is to initially take recreationally qualified divers and train them in public safety dive SAR skills and eventually to take non-divers and train them through a public safety dive level.
What training agencies are being used and what recommendations do you have?
I've seen quite a few listed, but none list the organizations that they have taught.
Thanks,
Brian

 

[Boater Dan]

Brian:

First, welcome to the Board and to the Public Safety Diving Forum. Please participate freely as it only makes the forum that much more productive.

The most commonly referenced training agencies are Dive Rescue out of Colorado, LGS (Life Guard Systems) out of New Jersey (I think), and IANTD (International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers) is offering a Public Safety Diving module as well. I have personally not trained with any of the agencies, but from various references and posts I have seen on various Message Boards, any of them should provide good training. Also check the previous posts in this forum, I believe that someone in the Northwest had a post about openings in a Dive Rescue class.

Good luck and above all else, put safety to the forefront. Rescue is one thing, but recovery activities should never put divers in jeopardy.

Dan

 

[bridgediver]

Hi Brian

Welcome.
I would suggest looking at LGS. Their website has a good overview about what everything is all about and a few discussions with them should help you get on track.

As far as in house training goes I'd recommend getting professional PSD educators, (LGS, DRI etc) not joe blow who maybe teaches 1 or 2 courses in his spare time - especially if you're starting from scratch. The standard padi, naui etc training will fall well short of preparing a person to take a quality entry level PSD course. Until you have a nucleus of knowledge and experience on your team you won't know what you don't know (if that makes sense). Our team has been in place for over 15 years and we are only now looking at handling the initial training and it will probably take a few years to implement.

But if you choose to do it this way anyway, both LGS and DRI have instructor trainer programs available. They are in stark contrast of one another in terms of quality IMO - I'll leave it to you to decide which is better. I've dealt with both of these agencies BTW
Either of these programs would be far superior to a recreational agency

hope this helps

mark

 

[USIA]

Brian:
My company has done a lot of work with the PSDA in recent years. Here is a link to there website. http://www.publicsafetydiving.net/index.htm

They really seem to put safety to the forefront. We actually developed a High Visability Dry Suit especially for the PSDA. Their regional director is based out of Springfield, Oregon. E Mail me and I will give you his contact information.

Here is another link with really good information. http://www.psdivermonthly.com/

I've referred a lot of my PS diver customers to this website.

 

[Scubadawg]

Team LGS or Nothing!!

These Guys are the Best of the Best, I think they train about 75% of Fire/Rescue and police forces including CIA, FBI, and NASA safety divers

 

[bridgediver]

Brian:
My company has done a lot of work with the PSDA in recent years. Here is a link to there website. http://www.publicsafetydiving.net/index.htm

Not a whole lot of info on that website. No course outlines or training philosophy is presented and this makes me wonder if they have an across the board training standard. It looks like a network of psd instructors that may or may not teach the same program. Does anyone know for sure?

from their overview:
"The PSDA is the only PSD organization that is backed by a major scuba training agency, IDEA" - not true, I believe that DRI is affliated with SSI and LGS is affiliated with ACUC (and maybe NAUI) all of which are larger and more "popular" than IDEA

I'd be interested to learn more but apart from the niffty knife I'm not sure what the $60 a year "membership" will get you