When to Take the Rescue Diver Course: Prerequisites and Readiness

When is the right time to take a rescue course?

After your second-level course, and once managing yourself underwater takes little conscious effort. The course asks you to control another diver's buoyancy, airway and ascent while keeping your own under control. If your own buoyancy still drifts, most of your attention goes there and the rescue skills get less of it.

The agencies draw the line in different places. PADI lets any Open Water diver enrol and practise in confined water, but open water exercises and certification need Advanced Open Water, or Adventure Diver including the Underwater Navigation dive. SSI accepts an Open Water Diver card. CMAS wants 20 logged dives. A practical test is whether you could spend the whole dive watching your buddy without losing track of your depth and gas. If you could, you are ready. Other safety articles are collected under Diving Safety.

Rescue diver prerequisites by agency

All five either require CPR and first aid training or teach it in the course, and two require emergency oxygen training as well. Of the five, only CMAS states a minimum number of logged dives. BSAC teaches its rescue skills inside the Sports Diver grade.

What does the rescue course cover?

Prevention first, then rescues from simple to serious. PADI lists five topics: self-rescue, recognising and managing stress in other divers, emergency management and equipment, rescuing panicked divers and rescuing unresponsive divers. The CMAS standard spells the skills out in the most detail:

• Self-rescue: cramp release, establishing buoyancy at the surface, overcoming vertigo.
• Reading stress: physical and psychological stress, perceptual narrowing, and how a tired diver and a panicked diver look different.
• Responding to a tired or panicked diver at the surface and underwater, to overexertion and to a simulated out-of-air emergency.
• Surfacing an unresponsive diver by at least three different techniques, towing, and rescue breathing in the water.
• Getting a responsive and an unresponsive diver out of the water, including removing their equipment.
• Missing diver procedures and underwater search patterns.
• On land: CPR with a pocket mask, oxygen administration, a neurological examination, accident reporting and calling emergency services.
• Rescue management: scene safety, running a rescue team, helicopter procedures and the value of a hyperbaric chamber.

Do you need emergency oxygen training?

NAUI and CMAS require it, and PADI's rescue course includes using an emergency oxygen kit. CMAS runs oxygen administration as a separate programme and says it should always be paired with first aid training. DAN calls emergency oxygen the preferred first aid for scuba diving injuries and says early administration can improve the outcome a great deal. DAN's guidance on decompression illness is to give 100% oxygen and continue until the diver reaches a medical facility. Symptoms may ease on oxygen and come back later, so contact DAN or a dive medicine physician even when the diver seems better. Our decompression sickness first aid guide covers the symptoms and the emergency steps.

DAN's own course is Emergency Oxygen for Scuba Diving Injuries (EO2). It teaches you to recognise decompression illness and give oxygen first aid, and current CPR training such as DAN Basic Life Support is a prerequisite. DAN's Diving First Aid course combines Basic Life Support, the oxygen course, neurological assessment and first aid for marine life injuries. One course can therefore cover both the first aid and the oxygen training, but check that your agency accepts the provider. DAN members certified in EO2 or Diving First Aid can apply to DAN's Oxygen Grant Program for a low- or no-cost oxygen unit.

How long does the rescue course take?

Plan on four to seven days at PADI, or roughly 20 hours of training at CMAS, plus a separate first aid course if yours has lapsed. PADI lists 8-12 hours of eLearning and 4-7 days for the whole course. SSI suggests 10-15 hours, split into six academic sessions, three pool sessions and three open water sessions, with a maximum training depth of 18 m (60 ft). The CMAS standard sets at least 8 hours of theory and 12 hours of practical training, including at least two open water rescue exercises at 5-15 m and two missing diver searches.

Materials are sold separately from the in-water training. PADI's US store lists Rescue Diver eLearning at US$249. SSI's Stress & Rescue Digital Kit is listed at €120, and SSI notes that training centres may charge extra for in-water sessions and certification. Ask the centre whether the first aid course, the pocket mask and the rental gear are in the quote. PADI suggests using your own equipment if you have it, because you will spend a lot of the course taking it on and off.

Why does the rescue course change how you dive?

Because it moves your attention from yourself to the people around you. PADI's Ruth James describes it as the first course in which divers look beyond their own experience, and PADI says you learn to spot and fix small problems before they become emergencies.

Most of that happens before anyone is in trouble. DAN lists the pre-dive signs that a buddy is uneasy: unusually talkative or quiet, avoiding certain subjects, checking gear compulsively, repeating questions. In the water, the signs are struggling with equipment, giving wrong signals, losing buoyancy control or breathing fast. A small assist at that point, such as reconnecting a low-pressure inflator hose or securing a loose octopus, can stop discomfort from turning into panic. DAN notes that rescue divers and dive professionals are trained to recognise panic and step in.

The course also changes how you set up your own dives, because you rehearse what happens when things go wrong. The CMAS standard includes weighting problems and when to drop your weights, as well as panic and overexertion. Our is scuba diving dangerous article looks at what causes diving deaths in the first place.

Signs you are ready for the rescue course

Use this as a self-check before you book. None of it is an agency rule unless an agency is named.

• You meet the certification rule for your agency, and your CPR and first aid training is within the last two years (PADI's 24 months, SSI's 2 years).
• You can hold your depth while your hands are busy with another diver's equipment.
• You can share air with a buddy without thinking through each step.
• You could pass the CMAS water test: a continuous 200 m surface swim and a 10-minute float without mask, fins, snorkel or other aids.
• You have dived in more than one kind of condition. CMAS asks for 20 logged dives before the course.
• You know your own gear. NAUI expects students to bring their own equipment, and PADI recommends it.
• You are ready for tiring days. The exercises involve towing, lifting and repeated scenarios, and PADI says many people find the course challenging.

What comes after the rescue course?

For many divers, the professional track. At PADI a certified Rescue Diver aged 18 or older can enrol in Divemaster. NAUI's rescue course meets the rescue prerequisite for its Divemaster, Assistant Instructor and Instructor ratings. SSI's Master Diver recognition needs Diver Stress & Rescue, Deep Diving, three other specialties and 50 logged dives. How these ratings fit together is covered in certification levels explained.

The rescue card does not raise your depth or change your diving limits. CMAS states that a Rescue Diver dives within the limits of the other certifications they hold. It also lists the need to keep rescue and emergency care skills up to date. First aid cards lapse, which is why PADI and SSI check that yours is recent. The same point applies to the in-water skills, so practise a tow or an unresponsive diver ascent with your regular buddy now and then.