411 Dive Log Australasia April 2025

The assistant in the water, who must be a qualified Rescue Diver, gives the instructor a second pair of eyes and looks after the other divers if the instructor’s attention is diverted by the need to take care of one of the students. The in-water assistant is also there to step in if the instructor is the one who has a medical issue during the dive and this is why they need a Rescue Diver qualification. The assistant on the surface can help the instructor in a host of ways, but their primary job is to arrange and supervise the removal of an unconscious casualty to a point of safety. The surface assistant should have First Aid and CPR qualifications and be able to use the on-site oxygen administration equipment. This legislation was brought in after an official enquiry into a series of accidents. Investigators concluded that they could not trust the scuba diving world to impose and enforce the necessary procedures, so the State stepped in.

instructors when they teach? After all, it is easy to identify the sort of problems that can occur when a dive operation is understaffed and see how difficult situations can be prevented or dealt with more easily, simply by assigning more staff to the job. You would think that the desire to avoid dive accidents would be enough incentive, as they can be very costly, both economically and in terms of the damage that can be done to a dive centre’s reputation? In my previous In Deep column, I wrote about dive operations reducing prices by cutting corners. My best guess is that this is another instance of economic considerations outweighing safety concerns. If fewer staff are employed for the job, then costs are lower, cheaper prices can be offered, and cost-conscious shoppers will buy, ignorant of the safety compromises that have made the cheap prices possible. This is another area where customers must learn to look intelligently at how dive operations run dives and training, assess the risks and vote with their feet and wallets.

Why do dive centres often not assign people to help

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