Rescue Diver: preventing and managing problems

Who it is for

Certified divers with an advanced-level card who want to be the diver a buddy can rely on. It is a prerequisite for the professional levels, but most people take it for its own sake.

Requirements

• An advanced-level certification (PADI Advanced Open Water Diver, CMAS Two Star or equivalent).
• A current first-aid and CPR qualification — the agencies' own programmes or an equivalent course.
• Minimum age per the agency's standards — 12 for a junior certification with PADI, adult from 15.
• Medical fitness to dive.

What the course changes in you

Most divers arrive at Rescue thinking about their own dive — air, depth, buoyancy — and leave thinking about the diver next to them. The course teaches you to read stress before it becomes a problem: a buddy breathing fast at the surface, a diver fixated on a gauge, a slow response to a signal. It teaches you what to do in the first thirty seconds of an incident, which is where most outcomes are decided, and it teaches you your own limits — when to assist, when to call for help, and when a rescuer becoming a second casualty helps nobody.

On our boat the same thinking is built into every day: the briefing before each dive covers the emergency procedures for that site, the instructor stays with the group, the crew stays with the divers. A Rescue-trained guest is simply a diver who understands why.

Duration

Typically three to four days including the first-aid component if it is taken together. Planned individually.

Training stages

Theory

The psychology and physiology of stress in divers, recognising problems before they become emergencies, emergency management and equipment, and the responsibilities of a rescuer.

Rescue exercises

Self-rescue, assisting a tired or panicked diver at the surface and underwater, searching for a missing diver, bringing an unresponsive diver to the surface and providing rescue breaths, exiting the water and handing over to emergency care.

Scenarios

Realistic open-water scenarios in which students manage a simulated incident from recognition to hand-over.

Certification and international recognition

PADI Rescue Diver, and the corresponding stage on the CMAS pathway, are recognised worldwide and required for Divemaster and instructor training.

Safety requirements

The course is physically demanding and run under close instructor supervision; the scenarios are controlled exercises with safety divers in attendance.

In Alanya

Courses we organise ourselves are CMAS courses, arranged on request. Ask us about your goal and we will tell you exactly what we can arrange.

Questions about the pathway? Back to courses or ask the team.