ISSUE 19 ARCHIVE - QUIZ: HOW GOOD ARE YOUR RESCUE SKILLS?

Rob Hunt

Until now it was impossible to know, but then came this quiz.

Q1) You’re at the surface with a diver who begins to panic. How do you react?

A) Approach carefully and attempt to help them establish buoyancy without endangering yourself.

B) Hit them until they stop it.

C) Take some pictures and get them on Facebook ASAP.

Q2) Your dive buddy is having a bit of a snorkel in between dives and gets caught in a current at the surface. What do you do?

A) Throw your buddy a buoyancy device attached to a rope so as not to risk putting yourself in danger.

B) Use your superior swimming skills for good rather than evil. Dive in and tow your buddy back to the boat to the applause and adulation of your peers.

C) Assess the scene. Suspecting that the year is 1954 and you’re in Bikini Atoll, wrest control of the boat from the captain and speed away from the site at full speed before any nuclear weapons get tested.

Q3) For how long should you continue CPR?

A) Until emergency services arrive, or the victim revives, or you become exhausted.

B) For 6 weeks, or until the police come and arrest you, or until the victim punches you in the face.

C) Until you get a text message, lose interest, or Eastenders starts.

Q4) As you climb into your BCD, you notice that another member of the dive group is having trouble remembering how to attach their regs to the tank. What will you do to help?

A) Offer to run through a few dive basics with them as a refresher and to help build their confidence in their abilities a bit. Keep an eye on them during the dive.

B) Stride across the deck with some sort of heroic montage music ringing in your ears and set their gear up for them, whilst the diver swoons at your masterful demonstration of superiority. Get into a fight with their instructor who would’ve preferred that their student set their equipment up themselves.

C) Remember some half-baked rumour you once heard about the 9/11 hijackers having no interest in learning how to land aircraft during flight school, make a tenuous connection to the current situation and run away.

Q5) When should you suspect a spinal injury?

A) When the victim has been involved in some form of high impact accident or shows signs of neurological damage.

B) When you’ve just rammed a cyclist with your car.

C) When you’ve slept on your arm funny.

Q6) It’s liveaboard week in Sharm and there’s been a bit of argie bargie with the dive group on another boat, the Stalingrad, due to what your group perceives as “irresponsible dive practices”, and they perceive as “f*** off and mind your own business you uptight, English bumholes”. You bump into them again on the Thistlegorm and you find yourself in the middle of an underwater melee. What happens next?

A) Get to a safe distance and offer assistance to anyone that needs it without endangering yourself.

B) The red mist descends. It is only years later that any recollection of the incident at all returns to you and then only as vague dreams of an annoying bloke called Dave from Romford and a BSA motorbike you were swinging at his head.

C) Hide in a locomotive and pretend you missed it all.

Q7) Which of the following are signs of diver stress?

A) Talking excessively; going very quiet; checking and rechecking equipment.

B) Not being impressed by your tales of underwater daring and bravado.

C) Being buddied with you.

Q8) TV’s hapless penis impersonator, Bear Grylls, is attempting to survive at sea for seven days in total isolation with no help, and completely alone with a sixteen person support crew. The liveaboard you’re on happens to pull up next to his luxury yacht, and thus it happens that you encounter him underwater as he bravely Scuba dives in the shark-infested waters of the Maldives. For added drama, he’s run out of air and approaches you for assistance. What do you do?

A) Swim away.

B) Swim away.

C) Swim away.

Q9) You find a diver lying motionless on the bottom. What’s the first thing you should do?

A) Check to see if they’re responsive and / or breathing.

B) Relieve them of their dive computer.

C) Hide in a locomotive and pretend you missed it all.

Q10) You’re playing the role of a tired diver in a rescue course and have been given the brief to become a panicked diver as your buddy makes their approach. How will you make the role more “edgy”?

A) Wait until your buddy is within two metres and attempt to push them under the water if they have their regulator in their mouth. Otherwise, try to pull their mask off.

B) Wait until your buddy is within two metres then pull out a handgun and shoot them in the face.

C) Soil yourself.

Q11) What is the correct first aid for a diver who may be suffering from decompression illness?

A) Lie them down, have them breathe oxygen, and monitor their lifeline whilst evacuating them to the nearest recompression chamber.

B) Tell them to run it off and stop being such a pansy.

C) Use a heavy spanner to put them out of their misery.

Q12) Which of the following would you consider to be important when “managing the scene” of a dive incident?

A) Effective delegation.

B) Pretending to be a doctor.

C) Clearing the scene of any evidence that may implicate you as negligent and making it clear to everyone trained in first aid that due to the severity of the situation, any mistakes are likely to result in the death of the victim(s) and as such they will be tried for murder in a court of law.

Q13) Which of the following could be considered to be “self-rescue” techniques?

A) Cramp removal and buoyancy control at the surface.

B) Offence is the best form of defence, thus you find it handy to be insulting and predisposed to violence at all times.

C) Punching sharks in the nose.

Q14) Which of the following may be signs or symptoms of decompression sickness?

A) Numbness and tingling in the extremities; joint or limb pain; skin rash.

B) Refusing your lurid sexual advances.

C) Vegetarianism.

Q15) You begin shivering uncontrollably on a dive. What’s the appropriate course of action?

A) Get out, get dry and get warm.

B) Strip down to your pants to prove you’re not some sort of PADI-diving nonce.

C) Hide in a locomotive.

How did you do?

Mostly As: You’re a danger to yourself, those around you, those not around you, the environment, and the concept of chivalry in late-medieval British literature.

Mostly Bs: As above and you also look like an anvil.

Mostly Cs: You are a Simon Cowell.