Dive Training Blogs
Deptherapy returns to its Roots – Part 3
Join Richard Cullen from Deptherapy as we publish part 3 in his Blog about the charity’s recent expedition to Roots Red Sea, El Quseir, Egypt.
Today was planned to be our first day of open water diving in the Red Sea on the Roots’ House Reef. The Dive Centre and the House Reef are literally a 5-minute walk from the camp. If some beneficiaries are unable to make the walk then transport is provided.
All your kit, weights, cylinders etc are laid out ready for you to assemble your kit.
For those who use wheelchairs there is a paving stone pathway from the dive centre to the entry point for the reef. This, as with the provision of four fully accessible rooms in the resort, was built by Steve Rattle and his team to meet Deptherapy’s needs and to make the resort and reef accessible to all divers with disabilities.
A point here: in many Adaptive Teaching/Disabled Diving Manuals it is suggested that dive centres might wish to purchase a beach wheelchair. To justify the cost, you would need a considerable number of disabled clients who were unable to walk to the ocean entry point as they cost circa £3000. Using an individual’s wheelchair across sandy beaches is difficult and not a good idea. Many wheelchairs, such as Corey’s, cost thousands of pounds and getting sand/grit in the bearings can result in costly repairs. So, at Roots the staff have adapted and overcome the challenge, with the beach wheelbarrow. A foam pad is placed in the bottom and a towel draped over it. It is effective and allows divers like Corey to be taken to the beach, the wheelbarrow is pushed into shallow water and the diver either gets out of the transport himself or is lifted out by the Roots team. Everyone finds it a lot of fun!
Working with those with life-changing mental and/or physical challenges does require careful risk management, not just in the general risk models for groups of divers but individual risk assessments.
On the Deptherapy Education Professionals’ Course and adopted in all our programmes is the ‘Three Tick Model’. Before taking an individual diving, each of the following must be ticked off:
- Doctor certifies student fit to dive
- Student signs assumption of Liability and Risks
- Instructor is happy given the medical information to instruct the student.
As an Instructor, or as a dive centre owner you may wish to check that your insurance covers you for working with those with severe disabilities.
The instructor will meet with the student and complete a personalised risk assessment and will review whether there have been any changes in the student’s physical or mental health since their consultation with their doctor (in our case an AMED or Dive Referee). They will also check that the medication or its daily dosage has not changed.
In terms of those with severe challenges, an AMED or a Dive Referee may require full disclosure of medical records before making a decision. For Deptherapy we also reserve the right to refer a final decision to our two medical advisors, Dr Mark Downs or Dr Oli Firth, both of whom have considerable experience in dive medicine.
At the end of Day 1 the team were happy for Keiron to move forward; he is a strong, fit man and a capable diver who gives 100%. Corey is an amazing guy and was very quickly embraced as a member of the Deptherapy ‘family’. But sometimes there has to be tough love and in Deptherapy we are always very open with our beneficiaries. Some reach a level of certification beyond which they cannot progress. For Corey there was a serious discussion with the teaching team. He had completed his skills in the pool and met the standard required BUT none of us, especially me, had any confidence that he was the standard to be an Open Water Diver. A hard message to give to a young man who already had a certification card that said he was an Open Water Diver. He had either not been taught properly and certified without having met the required standards or he had forgotten all he had learned. My view is he is a bright young man and that the former reason must be correct.
The RAID definition of mastery:
‘When a student/learner can comfortably demonstrate proficiency and competence, when completing an entire motor skill including all the components of the skill in a manner that demonstrates minimal stress or hesitation.’
Each mainstream diving training agency defines mastery in similar terms. It was not Corey’s ability to do the skills, it was his ability to ‘dive’ that concerned us.
If weather conditions are right, the Roots House Reef meets the requirements for a ‘confined environment’ and on Day 3 it did.
Entry to the reef is through a channel and it goes from extremely shallow to 3-5 metres. There is a rope that allows a diver to control their descent and for use at the end of a dive if the current is running.
Most instructors will have seen nervous divers who say they have ear issues, not at a depth when there is any noticeable change in pressure, and those who continually fidget with their masks and other kit in an attempt to avoid descent. Corey displayed these traits.
We made the decision to move to the open water as it would give Corey more of an opportunity to get himself in a horizontal position rather than the upright position we saw in the pool. We struggled to get him down the line and into the sea. Eventually after much hard work we got there. He maintained the upright position and was using tiny arm and hand movements to propel himself forward. His buoyancy was poor. We decided to end this session and return to the pool.
A note here on trim and posture in the water for both amputees and those with paraplegia. When working with a leg amputee, especially a bilateral amputee, their balance at the surface is often poor, they tip forward, backwards and from side to side. This is often to do with weighting but also the fact that they do not have legs to weigh them down or to balance them. They also are often unaware of where their stumps (the term for the part of the limb remaining) are, and their stumps come up at right angles to their body. We have exercises to make amputees aware of this.
Those with paraplegia adopt a different stance, often they are upright in the water and their legs trail down, even when in trim their legs hang below the rest of their body. The team needs to ensure that the diver is properly weighted and that the horizontal position in the water in reinforced. Spatial awareness also needs to be created in the diver so that their legs and feet do not drag along the bottom or come into contact with coral. They need to become aware of where their legs and feet are in the water.
This was very hard for Corey and I was quite honest that he needed to improve considerably and learn to dive properly before I would allow him to move forward. He was gutted but up for the challenge, and what we saw over the next few days was a man committed to succeed!
So back to the pool with Oatsie and Michael. We went through all the skills for RAID OW20 twice and focussed on buoyancy, performing the skills neutrally buoyant, getting Corey in trim and teaching him how to swim underwater without the use of his legs. It is a pity that Chris Middleton, one of our divemasters and a bilateral amputee had to miss the expedition because of wisdom tooth surgery. Chris is a role model of how to swim underwater without the use of your legs.
Although I, all our Instructors and our DMs/TDMs can demonstrate how to swim underwater, not using your legs and using a modified free diving stroke, it is far better for someone with no legs or no use of their legs to demonstrate the skill.
By the end of the day Corey had progressed substantially and the Red Sea awaited him on Day 4.
Keiron had progressed well with his instructor Moudi and Swars and was getting added value with extra work on advanced buoyancy and SMB and DSMB deployment.
Tomorrow I will talk a little more about our TDMs; we expect very high standards from them. Michael and the two Toms have over 100 dives each. Michael dived with us in Chuuk Lagoon and both Toms have been on Red Sea liveaboards. We look for them to go beyond DM level and to progress to Instructor level. Swars had delayed the start of his DM programme, initially because of work and then COVID. He impressed, and here again, veterans have some advantages as they are used to briefings and therefore when you give them a model for a briefing they can quickly pull a high quality briefing together.
Throughout the week I found the RAID skills briefing slate excellent for the TDMs and the plastic skills slates are a great aide memoire for the whole team.
Find out more about the work of Deptherapy and Deptherapy Education at www.deptherapy.co.uk
Blogs
SSI Welcomes its Newest Diver Specialty Program: Computer Diving
In this digital age, SSI makes keeping up with technology a priority. Over the years, we have seen more and more divers invest in a personal dive computer. Now that the MySSI App is capable of integrating with participating manufacturers’ dive computers, we wanted to create a program that will ensure every SSI diver knows how to fully utilize their dive computer’s unique features. Therefore, we are excited to introduce SSI’s newest specialty diver program, Computer Diving.
SSI designed the Computer Diving program to help certified divers become familiar with the numerous features and benefits of using a dive computer. By ensuring your customers understand how to use all the functions of a dive computer, you will not only increase their dive safety but also help make planning and executing dives easier. The SSI Computer Diving program explores the functions and capabilities of different dive computers and explains how to seamlessly integrate these features into the entire dive experience, from pre-dive preparations to post-dive reflecting and logging. Practical application topics within the course include setting and changing nitrox settings, using the pre-dive planning feature, and downloading dives to keep a digital logbook.
The appeal of the SSI Computer Diving Specialty extends beyond the realm of scuba divers. Your certified Freedive and Mermaid customers will also enjoy taking this course. All breath-hold divers can benefit from learning how the various tools within their dive computer can increase performance and safety while training and executing their actual dives.
If you are an SSI Training Center or Pro, your students can start their Computer Diving program online today by contacting your SSI Training Center to purchase and download the materials. Don’t have an SSI Pro certified to teach the Computer Diving specialty yet? Have them log into their MySSI profile to upgrade to this new SSI offering.
This specialty program is just one of the many tools SSI provides its Training Centers. Now is the time to reap the benefits of SSI’s continued growth in its training offerings. Call SSI at 1-800-892-2702 or visit us at https://my.divessi.com/become_trainingcenter to become an SSI Pro or Training Center today!
Blogs
BSAC launches Divesoft Liberty rebreather course
The British Sub-Aqua Club (BSAC) is bolstering access to technical dive training with the new BSAC Divesoft Liberty CCR course.
This course is a first step (MOD 1) into the silent bubble-free world of rebreather diving, and opens up a new world of diving experiences and possibilities for members.
Benefits of the Divesoft Liberty rebreather
Founded in 2013 in the Czech Republic, Divesoft developed its closed circuit rebreather (CCR) primarily with the guidance of cave divers. The Divesoft Liberty was the first fault-tolerant electronically controlled rebreather released into the recreational diving market. The Liberty is designed where all vital electronic elements have redundancy so that no single failure can disable the system.
Even if a critical systems error occured, the diver can safely return to the surface on the Liberty, maximising safety and efficiency. The design follows the same approach utilised in many safety-critical applications in the aerospace industry.
The Liberty’s modularity and ease of maintenance allow the diver to maintain the unit in all environments, including the harsh conditions of an expedition.
BSAC Divesoft Liberty CCR Diver course
The brand new BSAC Liberty CCR course will teach a suitably qualified open-circuit diver to safely dive their rebreather to a maximum depth of 45m. This highly versatile unit offers a wide range of adjustability and settings, making it great for beginners and expert CCR divers alike.
Students get a thorough grounding in rebreather technology, and in-depth Liberty-specific training. The course includes decompression diving, and trimix gas planning, and teaches all the skills and drills required to dive the Liberty and address all possible situations.
The course is open to BSAC Sports Divers or above, who have completed a 35m depth certification. Trainees must also hold the Accelerated Decompression Procedures qualification or be an Advanced Nitrox diver (or equivalent.)
The BSAC Liberty course covers decompression diving and trimix gas planning, with skills and drills required to dive the Liberty and address all possible situations. Trainees can choose to dive with air as a diluent, but will have been trained using 20/35 trimix as a diluent, so when they use 20/35 are allowed to dive to a maximum depth of 45m, at the MOD 1 level of training.
The dry practical sessions will cover assembly, preparing and maintaining the Liberty, including updating the control firmware and downloading dives from the unit, using the Divesoft PC and phone applications.
All the new skills will be introduced during the sheltered water training dives, including applying the student’s current rescue skills to CCR diving: the sheltered water training is followed by seven open-water dives.
Nick Jewson, BSAC Technical Liberty Instructor said:
“The introduction of the Liberty CCR MOD 1 course demonstrates that BSAC continues to evolve its technical dive offering for members. We plan to have a minimum of four BSAC Liberty instructors in place early in the 2024 season, and with potential students waiting to do the course we can’t wait to see BSAC-qualified Liberty divers using this impressive rebreather in exciting expeditions very soon.”
The BSAC Liberty CCR MOD 1 course will be officially launched at the Go Diving Show near Kenilworth, Warwickshire on the weekend of 2nd-3rd March 2024, where Divesoft will have units on display.
Nick continued: “Visitors should head to stand N4 to get a hands-on look at the Divesoft Liberty and talk to the BSAC Liberty course team. Come and have a look, book your place on a regional Liberty try dive event, or sign up for the BSAC MOD 1 Liberty CCR Diver training course. We’ll ready to show you how the Liberty CCR can transform your diving!”
To learn more about the BSAC diving community, visit www.bsac.com
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