Stress & Rescue... More Than Just A Class

When it comes to dive specialties, few are as important and the Stress & Rescue course (sometimes referred to as “Rescue Diver”). At a glance, it seems like a bunch of helpful, useful emergency skills: how to tow a buddy, how to handle underwater emergencies, how to administer emergency first aid, the usual suspects. But, it does one thing very subtly: it teaches you how to expand the scope of your underwater awareness.

When you are certified as an Open Water Diver, few things are more important to you than your air, your buddy / dive group, and having fun. But, more often than not, beginner students tend to only look after themselves: this is why dive guiding can be very important in ecotourism. With the stress and rescue course, you begin to expand your horizon of looking after number one and start to look at your dive group as a single entity. You learn to pay attention to your fellow diver’s skills and who may be prone to stress more than others. In doing so, you are not only helping your self in being a safer diver, you’re starting to recognize symptoms of anxiety in others, and that can make or break a dive…