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Yet another post to the techdiver mailing list has irritated me badly
enough to move me to a reply. Here's the heart of it:
> Keeping all things equal. That is, NO What if's, (We can all "What if" our
> selve to death), No little kid imagination. Just plain Fact.
> Try to use just plain logic and common sense.
>
> How can you say taking a good working regulator out of your mouth
> is safer then keeping the regulator in your mouth?
> Again no imagination please. Answer (simple) YES or NO!
To merely shout about being pro-safety
[Answer (simple) YES or NO!]
is to completely ignore *the* pivotal concern in the debate: lifesaving
protocols aren't intended to provide exclusively for the safety of the
rescuer, but, rather, to establish an acceptable, situation-dependent
tradeoff between the risk to the rescuer and the safety of the victim.
Remember, if safety were the only concern, no one would concern
themselves with ever rescuing anyone else in the first place.
Parenthetically, I recently sent a note to American Red Cross' national
aquatics office that raised similar questions about striking balances
between safety and effectiveness. In its latest revision of the
Lifeguard Training Course, the ARC changed its prescribed method for
recoving submerged victims: head-first (pike and tuck) surface dives,
which used to be taught along with the foot-first surface dive, were
dropped from the course. The ARC's argued for this change by citing
studies that showed that the foot-first surface dive was uniformly
*safer*. But National has not yet replied to my concern that the
head-first dive is
-. probably not appreciably less dangerous in clear water -- where most
guard-hours are spent guarding, anyway,
-. [to my mind] significantly more effective than the foot-first dive,
particularly for deeper recoveries and for "buoyancy-challenged"
lifeguards [typically, about 15-20% of a standard class consists of
reasonably well conditioned but buoyant females who have a difficult
time managing a foot-first dive without a weightbelt.]
Sure, removing a regulator from your mouth underwater has inherent dangers.
So does driving an automobile at any speed greater than 5 mph -- or, for
that matter, getting out of bed in the morning. However, the disadvantages
of taking the time to produce my octopus for an air-starved victim still
concern me more than the danger of regulator in my mouth. [And swimming the
opposite way isn't an acceptable alternative, either.]
-- Phil
=============
Phil Pfeiffer, Computer Sci. Dept. | Kindness in thought leads to wisdom.
East Stroudsburg University, | Kindness in speech leads to eloquence.
East Stroudsburg, Pa. 18301-2999 | Kindness in action leads to love.
phil@es*.ed* (717) 422-3820 | -- Lao-Tsu
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