Ok, despite the blasphemous humor, I was not actually healing anyone, more saving their lives... and believe me Mr Matt Mendez needs a lot of Rescuing...lol. I mean, he got tired all of a sudden, so I towed him in a little way and reassured him, then he went back out and panicked, so I went out and got him and brought him back in, then he panicked again so I had to go under the surface and come up behind him to settle him down. Then he was tired again but when I got to him he went into a panic and tried to climb on me so again I had to submerge and come up around him to secure him and get his BCD inflated so he could calm down. No sooner was all this done, then he ran out of air at depth, so being the good buddy I was I shared mine and we made the gentle ascent to the surface.
The day didn't stop there, Matt first started over-exerting himself meaning I had to get him to calm down, then he tried to make a rapid, panic ascent to the surface so I had to deflate both our BCDs and arrest his ascent and then control our combined ascent to the surface! A short time later Matt ran out of air again, this time he was in a panic so I had to quickly grab my octo and just about ram it into his mouth, make sure he had it and then control our slow ascent to the surface.
I think all the activity on the day wore on Matt though, it wasn't long before I found him unresponsive on the bottom and after attempting to get his attention I had to grab his BCD and making sure his reg stayed in place and take him to the surface and inflate his BCD so I could assess further. Of course this whole time, Dennis was of no help, he just watched me save Matt over and over again and even (I suspect) led to some of Matts precarious situations...lol. Fortunately I think Matt was paying attention because when Dennis told us there was a "missing diver" (ankle weight), Matt was very useful in counting our kick cycles as I navigated across the bottom in our U shape search pattern. It wasn't long before we recovered our "missing diver," don't worry the ankle weights recovered just fine and will live to dive again! and Matt and I were even so careful with our recovery that after finding the "diver" we decided to have a safety stop even though we hadn't exceeded 20 feet, and played a couple rounds of Rock Paper Scissors before I felt the need to do a couple Mask R&R's (remove and replace) before taking the victim to the surface.
Honestly I don't think it was anybody's day, there were unresponsive divers everywhere, or at least in our group it seemed like everyone but Dennis and Matt (he finally learned) were having issues and were requiring their buddies to flip them over to get their faces out of the water, remove their masks and while administering rescue breathes move them to shore while pulling all theirs and their buddies gear off and passing it to someone else in the group to hold. Even I had a bout of unresponsiveness followed by an immediate recovery in time for me to find my buddy face down and in need of rescue! lol.
As all of you have probably assessed, all of these events were controlled and planned and very well supervised. This was class number one of two for my Rescue Certification with Dennis instructing and Matt surving as DM and buddy to me. No one was ever in any kind of danger, no one really ran out of air or became non-responsive or truly panicked...lol. This was probably one of my most exhausting days in the water but despite the sore muscles and hard work, this was probably one of my favorite courses as I definitely feel more confident in the water. I know I am still a baby as far as divers go but I certainly felt that getting through this first part of the course has raised me up a few bars and combined with my EFR course I am confident that I am becoming a better diver and a better buddy every time I am out.
Next week is Photography, which should be interesting considering I have a fairly solid grasp of photography on the surface, but underwater.... a whole new adventure!
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