Rescue Diver query

[hillie]

I'm a lurker on this forum, having travelled over from YD, but need your advice so I have had to emerge from the seaweed, as it were ...

OH and I are fairly new divers (80+ dives, AOW) - UK and Red Sea, and I get a bit anxious about stuff. Following an incident, in which I accidentally tried to kill myself in the Red Sea last year, we thought it would probably be a good idea to do Rescue diver.

I would appreciate your advice on which would be the best option for us to take.

Do first aid course for either option, and:

Option 1: Start off in pool in next couple of weeks, spread over several Sundays - to learn skills - and then repeat skills in sea just after Easter.
Option 2: Do everything in the sea, over one weekend (or at most 2 consecutive Sundays) after Easter.

Comments/suggestions welcome

[Hot Totty]

I'd go with pool sessions first as you can get used to what your doing then gradually add kit until your in the same stuff that you'd be in the sea, so once you hit the sea everything feels familiar

[dwhitlow]

depending on where you are, another option would be join a local BSAC club and start sports diver. Long term you'd get the benrfits of RD and would have access to pool time without additional cost.

[Hot Totty]

I slipped up there, missed a marketing opertunity

[hillie]

[...] join a local BSAC club and start sports diver.

Sadly, no BSAC here, or we would have done that

[hillie]

I'd go with pool sessions first as you can get used to what your doing then gradually add kit until your in the same stuff that you'd be in the sea, so once you hit the sea everything feels familiar

I like this thinking - I can get a bit flustered when I'm first learning new skills, so this seems sensible to me - thank you!

[gobfish1]

knowing more about your incident, would help us give you the best way forward ,

[hillie]

knowing more about your incident, would help us give you the best way forward ,

Ahh ... well, following hammerheads, under considerable exertion and although I thought I was watching my depth, I lost reality and got very confused about which way was up. I thought I had a reverse squeeze in my ears and reasoned that I needed to go deeper to sort it out. I was sinking quite quickly and at a depth far greater than I should have been. A fellow, very experienced, diver got hold of me and sorted me out. My OH, my buddy, wasn't confident about what to do in the situation and flapped about a bit - as I would have done too. All in all, a fairly near miss, with a happy outcome (eventually, after I stopped crying ). It was all quite a shock and made us realise that rescue diver would help us both in situations where training kicks in and flapping is less likely.

[Hot Totty]

Well done for getting back on the horse and facing things

[hillie]

Well done for getting back on the horse and facing things

Thank you! My diving seems to have been a series of getting back on horses ...

[Balanus]

Rescue Diver query

Rescue is a great course. I'd agree with the pool work followed by open water. Through repetition you'll start to get the skills nailed before applying them in the sea. If you ever need to use your rescue skills the more they are embedded the better prepared you'll be when something starts to go Pete Tong. Oh...and don't forget to keep practicing your rescue skill afterwards.


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[whelk]

I really enjoyed my rescue course, though I'd also say that in no way did I feel like some kind of dive ninja after. But I definitely felt much more confident, so I totally recommend it. But I'd also definitely recommend that your course start in the pool--made things much easier for me!

[Paulo]

RD is in no way shape or form an essenial course.
In fact if you save me and cause me any harm after doing RD then I will set Neil on our ass as you should have known beter

[Gareth]

"rescue diver would help us both in situations where training kicks in and flapping is less likely"
Reading your incident, I would recommend you gain more experience and try to dive with experienced buddies to learn from them. Improve your awareness and buoyancy control first ie get experience.
Having a Rescue cert will not magically stop you or your buddy flapping as you say.

[whelk]

"rescue diver would help us both in situations where training kicks in and flapping is less likely"
Reading your incident, I would recommend you gain more experience and try to dive with experienced buddies to learn from them. Improve your awareness and buoyancy control first ie get experience.
Having a Rescue cert will not magically stop you or your buddy flapping as you say.

Not that doing that would be wrong--obviously not--but I think Rescue was really valuable for me when I was still very much a novice diver. Equally obviously this was only my experience, but for what it's worth: I was often nervous because I had very little idea what to do if something did go wrong, and that made me reluctant to try more adventurous dives (even ones I was qualified for). Once I'd done the Rescue course (and with only about a dozen dives under my belt), I was very much aware that while I was still a novice, I felt that I had much, much better situational awareness. I think it's very easy to forget (and I'm not saying you have, Gareth, just saying in general!) how overwhelming diving itself can be for a new diver, and it really helped me to have a set of simple tasks to accomplish for my early dives. Plus, while I knew I wouldn't be leaping out of helicopters to save people, at least I had the skills to ensure that I could try to help someone (and I could practice the skills myself afterwards). Anyway, obviously I'm a fan of the PADI Rescue course, but I've never done anything else--I'm sure other agencies will do the same (or better?). But to me, Rescue taught me some basic skills that I really appreciated knowing when I started for-real diving away from my instructor.