Diving for life

Let’s be completely candid for a minute.  While diving is statistically one of the safest sports out there, it comes with some inherent risks.  I mean, we make it seem pretty nonchalant but, bluntly put, we are underwater breathing compressed air.  Yet, we are never more acutely aware of this as when we take that first puff off of the regulator, when that first frenzy of bubbled breath rushes by our cheeks.  The irony, of course, is that this is when we are the safest divers, while we still respect the magnitude of the sport, while we are constantly remembering that SCUBA stands for self-contained UNDERWATER BREATHING apparatus and isn't just a funny word for a cool sport.  But as we dive more and more, as we learn that there is no need to be afraid or nervous, we lose some of that respect.  We forget that what we are doing is incredible; it begins to feel commonplace, almost the norm.  That is when the dangers of the sport begin to creep back in.  We lose the vigilance of the novice that kept us glued to the rules and to our tables.  We feel fortified in our skills, impregnable in our technique.  But the ugly truth is that we aren’t and it is in that state of mind that recklessness is born.  That’s when we get in over our heads (if you’ll excuse the bad pun) and into trouble.  Too often it takes a close call to remind us of the soft spots in our routines.

I think that is one of the best things about the Rescue Diver course.  It usually gets taken at a stage in our diving development where we need reminding why the rules exist, why those pesky tables matter.  Most of us, with any luck, will never have cause to use the skills we develop in the rescue diver course but what we will use is the self-awareness that comes with the course.  Ideally, Open Water should teach us to be aware of ourselves, Advanced Open Water should teach us to be aware of our surroundings, and Rescue Diver should teach us to be aware of the divers around us.  However, I find that most divers don’t really become self-aware until their rescue class.  Nothing highlights the effects of one’s own actions as effectively as showing how they can save a life.  The course forces you to see how your actions affect other divers, how drastic those effects can be, and by extension how lax standards put yourself and everyone around you at risk.

It is this self-awareness that truly keeps us safe.  Rescue should be a last resort.  Safety begins with self.  This is the biggest and most important lesson of the Rescue Diver course and consequently easily the one most students struggle with.  Learning how to tow a tired diver or deal with a panicked one is really the easy part; learning to master yourself in the water is far more daunting.  That is why so many rescue students get hung up on the gear removal while towing an unresponsive diver.  It forces you to become comfortable with your skills, to focus on a complicated task, and still keep yourself safe.  That is a lot to ask from any one diver so it comes as no surprise that the metamorphosis in a student who makes it through the course is palpable.  The shift in confidence is incredible but arguably the most impressive change is the renewed respect for the enormity of the sport.  They realize that rescue divers don’t make us safer because they can save the distressed.  They make us safer because they themselves are safer divers.  We should all be lucky.  We don’t just owe it to our buddy.  We owe it to ourselves.