Stress and panic management and learning to focus is part of the SSI Stress and Rescue class. Other agencies call it Rescue Diver.
Intro
Every dive is potentially dangerous. A large part of all training for scuba diving involves how to deal with things that go wrong. It starts in our open water class and continues. A major step every diver should make is taking their agency’s version of a rescue class.
The class consists of four sections. A prerequisite for the class was to have CPR and O2 provider certification. My DAN First Aid course at Diventures met all of those requirements. There was online work to complete before the class, classroom sessions, pool session, and an open water component. My instructor for this one was Molly – who also taught the classroom/pool sections of my open water class.
Online/Pre-Class
This was fairly extensive. There were sections on stress and prevention of it, accident management, and rescue skills. It took quite a while to complete because I was trying to make sure that every step clicked in my mind and made sense.
A note on panicked divers – if you read about diving incidents where someone is hurt or dies, you’ll find that panic is a major contributor to diving injuries and death. From burning through your air faster to knocking a buddy’s mask off when they try to help, panic is your enemy every step of the way. SSI’s class covers quite a few ways to prevent panic that start early during dive preparation. I think this is one of the key components of this class.
Other Learning Sources
I strongly encourage all divers to educate themselves on actual diving accidents, how they happened, and how they could have been avoided. There are a lot of different YouTube channels and blogs that provide this information. Here’s a list of a few I like to go to.
- Diver’s Alert Network Research Reports
- Dive Talk – Without a doubt my favorite way to learn various items of dive safety. Gus and Woody review video of incidents (or recreations of incidents) and comment on them. They’re funny, knowledgeable, and humble. I say humble because rather than act like they know it all, they sometimes share video of their own mistakes and how they messed up. It’s refreshing. I think the biggest impact I ever saw was a multi-part serious of videos from an incident where Woody got bent (decompression sickness). They had a dive safety expert review it and tell them all the things they did wrong.
- Alec Pierce Scuba – Alec doesn’t focus on safety specifically but on scuba gear and knowledge of it. Since proper gear maintenance and understanding are a key component of safety, I consider this a great resource. He’s entertaining and there’s a LOT of content here.
- Flow State Divers – This one has a ton of videos of skills in use. I’ve used them to help understand and improve things like my trim, buoyancy, and kicks.
- Lake Hickory Scuba, Dive Wise, The Scuba Diving Channel, Scuba Diver Magazine, – These channels all have a variety of videos, but I’ve learned good safety and gear tips from them.
Classroom
In the classroom, Molly reviewed everything we had covered online and added quite a bit to it. She’s a medical professional so she was able to expand on a lot of what we discussed. Our Assistant Instructor for the class, Dave, was able to add quite a bit as well. He’s a retired firefighter.
Pool
The pool work for this class was the bulk of the challenge for the class. We practiced multiple scenarios, repeatedly, over two days. Everything from emergency ascents to removing an incapacitated diver from the water was covered. It was physically exhausting.
This is where Dave, as an Assistant Instructor, was a great addition to the class. Dave’s work as a firefighter (including some swift water rescue) meant that he had practical experience with some of the skills related to handling an incapacitated person in the water. He was able to provide some tips that were really helpful. He also played a scarily good, panicked diver.
Open Water
My qualification dives for this class included a tired diver tow, finding a missing diver, bringing an unconscious diver to the surface, and then getting them to the shore and out of their gear (so further medical aid could be provided.
The thing about all of these skills is . . . practice. This is one of those areas where we do it in class, but not when we’re diving normally. My daughter (a new diver) had an idea that we should pick a skill to practice on each dive either at the beginning or at the end. So, we will.
Oddly enough, the weekend of this class was also my daughter’s open water certification. So, my tired diver tow was one of the divers getting their certification.
For the missing diver, Molly recruited a friend who was there diving for fun. He hid pretty well, but I had a solid search pattern, and the visibility wasn’t too bad (nor were there enough new divers kicking up silt), so I found him on the second pass of my search pattern.
Panicked Divers
Dealing with a panicked diver is probably one of the hardest parts of the class. A person in panic is unpredictable. They’re a danger to you, the rescuer, as much as they are to themselves. They’re burning through air. You’re at risk of getting hit. You may not be familiar with their gear. The entire goal is to calm them and get them safely to the surface (hopefully under their own power and after a bit of a calming presence).
My panicked diver volunteer was an instructor who also happened to be in sidemount gear at the time. I did well on approach. I got behind him (because you can safely control a diver from there). And then I realized that because he was in sidemount gear, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do next. The great thing about these skills is that regardless of how they turn out, at the end, you discuss what went right and wrong and how to deal with it the next time. So now I have an idea of how I’d deal with a panicked sidemount diver.
Learn to recognize panic early so you can prevent a person from getting to this spot. Even though much of the face is covered, you can see it in their eyes. If you see that start, it’s probably time to call the dive and get them safely to the surface.
Conclusion
I think that EVERY diver should take this class. Being prepared for what could go wrong but also knowing how to minimize the risk of things going wrong is critical to a good dive experience. I particularly like the idea of mental preparedness that this class focuses on. It’s changed a few of my pre-dive steps for myself and I think it’s helped me to be a better diver.
Remember to take a moment, breath, think, and then act.
