Passive Panic

As discussed earlier, panic may not manifest itself with wild struggling. In some instances, the victim freezes into a trance-like state unaware of the surroundings or anything happening.

Approach the diver from the front and signal, "Okay?" If you get no response, go behind the diver and, holding the regulator in place, take the diver to the surface. It's important to help the diver from behind because passive panic may change to active panic without warning; by remaining behind the victim, you'll be out of his immediate grasp.

Once you reach the surface, establish buoyancy for the victim and yourself, and help the victim out of the water.

DIVER STRESS

In most dive emergencies, you'll find stress an underlying direct cause or a significant contributor. Stress is anything that creates physical and/or mental tension in the diver, resulting in physical, emotional and chemical changes in the body. To some degree, stress exists on every dive, but unrestricted, elevated stress is undesirable be­cause it causes or complicates accidents.

Divers face two types of stress: physical stress and psychological stress. Furthermore, physical stress can lead to psychological stress, and vice versa. This can create a vicious cycle, which left un­-checked, may lead to panic (more about this later). How stress affects a diver depends on the initial cause of the stress, the diver's ability to cope with that cause, and the diver's manner of dealing with stress. Furthermore, stress can build over a period before the diver reacts, or it can immediately trigger a sudden, extreme re­sponse. It's usually difficult to predict how a diver will handle stress, so it's important to recog­nize both stress causes and symptoms.

SELF RESCUE

In a way, your diver training to this point has already taken you into the rudimentary levels of Rescue Diver training. Your PADI Open Water Diver course and Advanced Open Water Diver or Advanced Plus course introduced and developed your self rescue skills by teaching you how to prevent and handle problems you might come across while diving. At this point, you're ready to further develop these skills.

Self rescue means that you're self reliant, which every diver should be, of course, but your confidence in your self reliance becomes crucial when dealing with an emergency. Before you can cope with another diver’s problem, you must believe that you won't endanger yourself. If you don't believe that, you probably won't initiate a rescue. Furthermore your ability to calm and assist a victim may be affected by whether the victim trusts your capabilities as a diver. For discus­sion, we can divide self rescue into preparation, prevention and perfor­mance.