Saturday, Sept 9
Emergency First Response – this is the required course before Rescue Diver.
Lots of great information and skills practice on emergency first and secondary aid, CPR, and resuscitation. After a day of chest compressions, mouth to mouth resuscitation (from people who made sure they ate plenty of garlic and onions), and his face being sprayed with Scope all day, Bob the dummy had a well-deserved break!
Sunday, Sept 10
1st day of Rescue Diver Course -
– I’m the only student! 1:1 instruction! (Thanks Mark!)Lecture, bookwork, discussion – psychology of rescue, recognizing diver stress, being prepared for an emergency (creating an emergency action plan), oxygen delivery systems, STOP, BREATHE, THINK, ACT!
Reviewed/practiced new skills – assisting from the surface, overexerted diver, OOA diver, panicked diver, unconscious/unresponsive diver, exits with responsive and unresponsive divers, bringing up an unresponsive diver, delivering rescue breaths while towing/exiting – and I’m sure I’m not remembering them all!
(Have I mentioned what a GREAT course this is!)
Monday, Sept 11
2nd day of Rescue Diver Course
Reviewing concepts and skills learned the previous day
Reviewing the Emergency Action Plan I completed for my homework
Reviewing and practicing new skills – search patterns and when to use different search patterns (aka – Looking for Larry 2 lb Sea Pearl), further practice of bringing up, delivering in-water rescue breaths, and towing/exiting with unresponsive diver
Final Check-Out Scenarios
Off we took on a ‘relaxing’ dive – Mark (the instructor), me, and Andy. Pretty soon I notice that Andy may be a little overexerted. We take care of that issue by finding a patch of sand for Andy to hold on, relax and catch his breath. Diving along again and all of a sudden Andy has spit out his reg and signaling OOA. I quickly swim over to him (while switching to my AIR2) and have my reg ready to offer him when I reach him. We slowly begin ascending – but I’m prepared for him to bolt to the surface – which he doesn’t because I’ve got a solid lock on his arm! Whew! Disaster avoided again! We dive along some more, do our 3 minute safety stop, then surface. And wouldn’t you believe it, now Andy’s panicking on the surface! GEEZ! I yell at him to inflate his BC…and he completely IGNORES me! I try to approach him from behind, but he keeps turning around with me. I descend and swim below him to approach him from behind. I lock my knees around his tank, inflate my BC, then inflate his BC. Once again – disaster is averted! (At this point, I’ve got Mighty Mouse’s song playing in my head “Here I come to save the day!”)
Mark says ‘good job – let’s head back to the hut to debrief’. So we start heading back in…and I notice that Andy’s not following us. Hmmmm….something’s fishy (pun intended!) Mark insists we’re heading back. So we get back to the hut, get out of our gear, and I mentally prepare myself for what’s coming next. All of a sudden, Mark comes around the corner – fully geared up (HOW DID HE DO THAT WITHOUT ME SEEING HIM!?) – yelling ‘PIZZA! PIZZA!’ Oh great – a missing diver! That’s okay – I know what to do – I’ve gone through this exercise before – just need to put all the pieces together. So what do I do? ACT, THINK, STOP BREATHING! (ACK – no, that’s not it – STOP, BREATHE, THINK, ACT!)
I need to manage the scene – have someone call EMS, get oxygen and first aid kits ready, send someone out looking to see if the diver surfaced or check for bubbles, think about search patterns, and calm Mark down (he’s in quite a tizzy!).
So I tell my mom (who’s along with me on the trip) to get the oxygen and first aid kits ready on the beach. I find out that my MOTHER doesn’t speak English anymore! (‘What do you mean, no habla englais?!’)
So I ask Emille to get the oxygen and first aid kits ready on the beach. And now apparently, Emille, who all along spoke English better than me, only speaks DUTCH! Luckily, Suzy couldn’t fake another language, so she agreed to help with the oxygen and first aid kits. I sent a couple of divers (hereafter known as the Whacky Belgians) out on the pier to look for the surfaced diver or scout out for bubbles.After I’ve geared up, I get Mark to calm down and explain that we’re going to use the circular search pattern since he said that the visibility was very low when he lost his dive buddy. (We really have to pretend here – completely ignoring the fact that Curacao is notorious for 80’ – 100’ visibility yearround!) As we head out, the Whacky Belgians are at the end of the pier – and the following conversation takes place:
Whacky Belgians: “We see bubbles – over that way!”
Mark (my instructor): “No, I don’t think you see any bubbles!”
Whacky Belgians: “Yes, we see bubbles - right over that way!”
Mark: “No you don’t!”
Whacky Belgians: “Really! There are bubbles – straight ahead at twelve o’clock!”
Mark: “YOU SEE NO BUBBLES!”
Gotta love those Whacky Belgians!
Mark and I descend at the spot where he last remembered seeing his buddy. Using a spool, I give him the end of the line to hold while I conduct a circular search pattern – letting the line out 1 meter after each rotation. I finally find the missing diver (Psst – by the way – I immediately located the missing diver as soon as we descended, but I played along just to make my instructor happy!), tapped on his shoulder forcefully (no response), and waved my hand in front of his mask (again - no response). Time to bring him up! I hook my arm around his, place my hand on his reg to keep it in his mouth, tilt his head back a bit to keep his airway as open as possible on the ascent, and bring him up to the surface. He’s now on the surface, both BC’s fully inflated, and I begin the second phase of the scenario.
I begin towing the diver in to shore, ditching our weights, unhooking both our gear, supporting his head and keeping it tilted for an open airway, avoiding getting water in his face, all while delivering rescue breaths every 5 seconds. I get him almost to shore, ask Mark to help me get his gear away to drag him on to the beach. We drag our diver onto the beach (Poor Andy!) and begin oxygen delivery and chest compressions.
Finally Andy starts responding, chokes, coughs, and starts breathing again! YEAH!!! I roll him over into the recovery position and await for EMS!
At this point, no Mighty Mouse songs playing in my head, I’m just EXHAUSTED! I know this was all simulated, but the adrenaline was certainly pumping for me and it made me realize how important these skills are in the event this was a true incident. It was a humbling experience – one that I learned a lot from and sincerely hope that I never have to use in the future! But now I know I’m ready to face it if the situation arises!
We finished off the course with a post-scenario briefing and a couple of beers!
Thanks Andy – for being the most annoying diver for my rescue skills – from overexerted diver, to OOA diver, to panicked diver, and finally the missing, unconscious, unresponsive diver – thank goodness you lived! (Really Andy – as an Instructor with over 700 dives, I’d think you’d be better at this sport!) I appreciate all your help and advice/guidance afterwards!
And special thanks to Mark – for being such a great instructor (but PLEASE don’t tell him I said that!) and great friend!
Next stop on my continuous learning adventure - Dive Master….
