Advanced Rescue SCUBA Diver

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The Advanced Rescue SCUBA Diver course (ARSDC) is a continuation of the Rescue SCUBA Diver Course, and trains divers in the knowledge and skills needed to effectively manage rescues, solve more complex problems, and handle advanced technical rescue situations.

This is a certification course for rescue certified scuba divers who desire to assume greater rescue capabilities during diving activities.

The training emphasizes accident supervision and management with practical applications in open water. This course is designed specifically to provide the knowledge and skills necessary to:

• Help prevent diving accidents.
• Recognize life-threatening diving situations.
• Correctly initiate and/or supervise rescue/assist procedures across a range of scenarios.
• Effectively perform in-water rescue/assist techniques and procedures ranging from basic tows to entrapment and disentanglement.
• Correctly manage rescue assistants during and after rescues.
• Provide immediate, effective post-rescue aid and assessments.
• Communicate with advanced levels of care.
• Correctly manage a diving emergency with adjustments for local variants.

Graduates are considered competent to perform assists and rescues in aquatic situations so long as the situation approximates one for which they have been trained.

The ARSDC prepares divers with the ability to effectively recognize and prevent foreseeable emergencies, to manage emergency events when they do occur, and to effectively provide search and rescue/recovery capabilities within advanced scenarios.

This course is an 80 hour block of instruction program.

The minimum age for this course is:

• 18 years or older.

The minimum prerequisites for this course are:

• AOWSD certified.
• RSD certified.
• CPR/First Aid certified by a recognized agency within the previous 12 calendar months.
• O2 Provider certified by a recognized agency within the previous 12 calendar months.
• Candidates must have good swimming skills, and pass a physical fitness test and a class 1 swim test prior to being allowed to enroll in the course.
• It is STRONGLY recommended that students have at least 100 logged dives, and have spent time practicing basic and advanced level skills on each dive, before considering enrolling in this course. Including: neutral buoyancy, breathing, finning, navigation, dive planning, gas management, understanding dive science, use of equipment, etc.
• Candidates must have the ability to remain calm in stressful situations underwater.

Students must supply their own equipment, and all equipment must meet safety requirements.

The ARSD Course requires surface rescue swimmer competency as a part of the course. Candidates must be able to work as an effective member of a team, and individually complete a timed run, crunches, push-ups, pull-ups, a non-stop swim at length, a survival swim, recovery of weight from a designated depth, an open water swim with mask, snorkel, and fins, a free-dive to a designated depth, placement and recovery of a surface marker at a designated depth, and demonstrate proper techniques for entries, exists, pushes, tows, managing panicking survivors, and recoveries of unconscious divers both on the surface and underwater, to include disentanglement situations.

Note: Adult CPR training (approximately four hours) meets the required prerequisite for enrollment in the Advanced Rescue SCUBA Diver Course. However additional CPR training that includes two-person CPR and the use of rescue breathing barrier devices, e.g., pocket mask, face shield, is required to meet the requirements for NAUI leadership certification. Additionally, O2 provider (to include assembly, administration, and tear-down) is required.

This course meets the prerequisite rescue training for NAUI Skin Diving Instructor, NAUI Assistant Instructor, NAUI Divemaster, and NAUI Instructor certifications.

Course graduates will receive a lifetime internationally recognized Advanced Rescue SCUBA Diver certification from the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI), and will be considered competent to perform advanced rescues and assists in open water, as well as manage rescue efforts, provided the diving site and diving situations approximate those of the course.