From Artist to Aquatic Avenger: Becoming a PADI Rescue Diver with the Mar MAIDS Part ½

I glance over at Abby, my dive buddy, near the bottom, floating quite still. Maybe she noticed the crocodile? I want to see! I descend in her direction to see what she is looking at. She isn’t moving except for the way the water gently pushes her to and fro. Some bubbles come from her regulator, but not the stream I would expect. 

I quickly wave my hand in front of her mask, surely, she is only looking at a freshwater flounder in the sand or something… right?

Wrong. 

She doesn’t move at all. The stream of bubbles seems smaller. My breath catches – but I remember: when you dive, you must always continuously breathe. Something is wrong; holding my breath will only put me in danger, too. I breathe deep.

I squeeze her shoulder with my hand, still no response, and I launch into action.

Unresponsive Diver

I might be a smaller diver, but this means I am agile underwater and quickly maneuver behind her, reaching my right arm around her face to secure her regulator in her mouth. Now would be a really terrible time for that crocodile to show up… I cringe inwardly as I wrap my legs tightly onto her tank. I need to control our ascent, I must remain calm… I deflate my buoyancy control device (BCD) fully with my left hand, then reach over her left shoulder to inflate her BCD.

I coach myself: pretend it’s a rodeo, stay on her tank, bring her slowly to the surface, control the ascent.  My hand is shaky with nerves, and I put too much air in at first. We jerk up with the influx of air. I quickly purge the air and we descend deeper. I bump into something I can’t see which feels like it moves. I silently pray to the cenote gods that it wasn’t the croc. 

I keep lightly pushing the button to add air into her BCD. We inch closer and closer to the surface. I am controlling the ascent okay, not great, but we are getting there. I mentally begin to anticipate what comes next…breathe Lindsay breathe…

5 Seconds and Breathe

When we break the surface of the water, I pull her toward me HARD, leveraging the momentum of reaching the surface makes it easier for me to flip her fully on her back. I inflate my BCD. I pull out her regulator from her mouth. I remove my regulator. I rip off her mask. I rip off mine. Tick. Tick. Time is ticking, I know this from my training. I need to check her breathing. Is she breathing? I hold her head above water to open her airway, lean above her, and count…

One one thousand…

Two one thousand…

Please breathe…

Three one thousand…

I am trying to maintain focus and not panic… the thought occurs to me that this is ironic that I am worried about time and crocodiles… how Peter Pan of me. FOCUS!

FOCUS LINDSAY. 

I turn to my dive buddy and, still holding her head out of the water, flick my hand to remove the water from it and pinch her nose: I inhale deeply and breath deeply, inhale again, and breathe…

One one thousand, I open the center buckle from her BCD.

You can do this.

Kick.

Two one thousand, I remove mine.

Kick.

Three one thousand, I unbuckle her left shoulder.

Kick… why is it so hard to breathe and kick!?

Four one thousand, I fumble with her next buckle and curse. Why is this so har

I breathe deep, pinch her nose, and exhale for five one thousand.

We can do this. 

Kick. Unbuckle. Breathe. Kick. Unbuckle. Breathe. 

Don’t look at how far you have to go. Focus on the counts. Every second counts.

I am close enough to the shore now to remove our BCDs entirely. I ease out of mine, still counting and breathing, give her two more rescue breaths, and push her BCD away too.

30 seconds. I have 30 seconds to begin CPR.

Resuscitate

I kick as hard as I can, keeping her head above the water, and finally… we are against the rocks. One one thousand. My lungs are burning, my muscles pushed to the max, and I need to get her further onto a solid surface for CPR. Five one thousand. Abby is an entire foot taller than me, but I know how I can do this. I can do this. I flip onto my back, anchoring my arms under her shoulders, and I get seated enough on the rocks to now pull her from the water…ten one thousand… pull… fifteen one thousand… I can do this… pull… twenty one thousand… one last pull and finally she is out of the water…

I place my hands in position for CPR and begin. Stay on count Lindsay. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, how do nurses do this it’s so hard…

…9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, my hands feel like they will break off and it’s just the first round… 

20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30…

Tilt her head. Open the airway. Inhale. BREATHE. Inhale. BREATHE.

“CUT!” “End of scenario!”

Our dive instructors sound off and give the signal that our scenario has concluded.

I am so tired, I just lean over the CPR dummy; Abby is a few feet away, grinning through her wet hair plastered over half her face. People standing around the cenote cheer. Our commitment to the scenario was so thorough that they initially thought it was a real rescue situation (our instructors on the shore reassured them it was training). 

I want to ask our instructors if we get extra gold stars for alarming people with our commitment to the scenario, but I pushed myself hard enough to contemplate throwing up instead. 

Simulation or not, this felt real to me, because… what if? 

No, there was no real boat captain (a cenote dive is essentially a shore dive). Yes, there really was a crocodile I hoped to see. No, my dive buddy was not in true danger. In fact, we would later switch roles, and she would save my life (simulated).

She and I travelled all the way to Tulum, Mexico, to earn our PADI Rescue Diver Certification with the Scuba MAR Maids at the Infinity2Diving dive school. This was no joke for us, and though we had fun as we learned our skills, we were ultimately there to learn how to save a life. Let me start from the beginning…