BSAC Practical Management Rescue Course by Angela Shaw

As I am moving forward with my experiences and extending my skills I booked on the BSAC website to attend a PRM course, cost £55.00 which included the whole days training Theory and Practical, entrance to Guildenburgh and BSAC book to take away covering the details of the course and more.  Well worth the money in my opinion.

I set off with my full dive gear in the car excited and apprehensive of the possibilities of the coming day, leaving at 7am. Sat Nav duly setup in readiness for the journey and food for the day.  Thankfully I knew Guildenburgh well and what facilities are available, changing room, café, shop and parking.

Pictured above: Angela Shaw on the BSAC PRM Course

I arrived on time and was informed where the parking for the course was and the training cabin I had to meet the course attendees and instructors.  Trust me went to the wrong cabin, nice man showed me the correct one.  I have to say in all the two years that I have been Scuba diving I have yet to meet someone who is not helpful or friendly which just endears me more to this hobby.

We all sat in the cabin awaiting eagerly for the instructors to impart their knowledge, they introduced themselves and informed us of the facilities on the site and briefed us of the way the course would pan out for the day.  The morning would be various instructors would do presentations to inform us what would happen in various rescue situations.  During these presentations we were split into groups three in total as there were 10 attendees on this course, we were given scenarios which related to the particular presentation and had to discuss in our groups what we would have to think about and do in these situations.  Very enlightening and funny some of the jocular responses, everyone was in good humour on the day despite the seriousness of the subject.

We broke for lunch and in the break (as you will find on any of these courses they taunt you with the thought you will get time for eating lunch however in reality it’s a case of eating your lunch while also participating in other activities.  In this case in our lunchtime break we was shown how to tie a boolean knot (none slip knot), how to throw a rope to a diver and practice, explain and practise on a dummy (no not me!) resuscitation paying attention to the amount of force needed to correctly do chest compressions. 

We also had a couple of people who volunteered to bring in their rebreathers so we can see their setup and ask any questions we had, unfortunately on the course there were 9 very tall burly blokes crowded round the lady with the rebreather (nothing new there) and I found I was at the back jumping up and down trying to see what was going on and failed miserably.  When the guys had finished and wandered away I was lucky enough to be able to have a chat and see for myself how the setup was for the rebreather.  Although I wont be diving necessarily with anyone who has a rebreather it is nice to know how they connect and the configuration is for one in case you never know someone one day may need my help and I’d like to think I would be aware of the setup.  For example if they are not using their rebreather using their normal gas for whatever reason there is a lever where their mouthpiece is to pull to close the mouthpiece so that the system does not become flooded if not in the persons mouth.  Small things like that may be important you never know.

Next we had the practical sessions, each taking turns in being the Rescue Manager, how much fun was this……. We were split up again in our groups and we went our separate ways.  Although I took all my kit I didn’t need it we didn’t go to depth mainly surface rescues it was concentrating on how we would rescue people from the surface or plan if a diver surfaced without buddy how we would plan to rescue the buddy and acknowledging the time it takes to kit up divers if they need to go back in the water to complete the rescue.  We threw ourselves into the role play with such enthusiasm after the rescues scenarios we did laugh.  We had divers having a row on the surface and exhausted [not to tired to row though typical], me with a cut leg from a propeller accident screaming in pain and the skipper fainting when they par buckled me onto the rib because of the blood loss [I was a right wimp ;-)].  Instructors throwing kit around messing up the boat, would they do that at home I ask myself…..

One of the instructors after we volunteered a group member as Rescue Manager proceeded to tell him what the scenario was by mistake we laughed and guess what we had to elect another to be Rescue Manager for that scenario.

With all this taken into account the amount I learnt was immense just thinking about how we would retrieve an unconscious diver from the sea on a hard boat….. we are going to Eastbourne on a hard boat at the weekend maybe we could practice this process on the boat in the surface time between dives I will ask our Dive Manager.

We learnt techniques of how to manage the dive and the importance of sometimes having to step back and wait to be told what to do as a helper or as Rescue Manager the importance of just managing the people and stepping back to enable you to see the whole situation rather than being engrossed with hands on as well unless there is no other option.

At the end of the day there was a debrief from all instructors on how the Practical sessions had gone and where to go from here.  Feedback forms were completed and books signed then all left for the day exhausted but fulfilled.

I would advise anyone to find the time to go on this course it was well worth the time, money and effort.  If anyone wants to chat with me about the course please contact me I will gladly discuss there are many more bits of fun things that went on during the day too many to write in this review.