It's Different Below the Thermocline

There are times when you are really proud of something you kid has done. I was proud when Jenn graduated from Mount Holyoke, and I was proud when she decided to attend law school. She works full time as a paralegal, goes to law school at night, and in her spare time, is a cheese monger at Whole Foods. The thing that makes me super proud is that even with all that, her GPA is floats somewhere between a 3.5 and a 3.75. Pretty impressive, eh?

Jordan, too, has set the bar pretty high. Graduating with Honors in Economics from Tulane, and getting a full ride to UMass for her Masters. She reluctantly left the land of gumbo and helecopter sized mosquitoes and headed to the frozen wasteland of Massachusetts in persuit of another level of education. Today, she has her Masters, and is doing well in Indianapolis. She works for the government, and she really is there to help.

So, now we get to the Fish. He's a freshman in high school, and we haven't seen any grades yet. He plays on the school soccer team and he plays hard, and has a lot of fun. On weekends, he tells me his friends from school video games. His weekend was different.

Last Feburary, he began training to be a PADI Certifed Rescue Scuba Diver. That's a diver who is trained in how to rescue a diver in trouble. That diver may be on the surface, or 100 ft down. That diver may be unconcious, or he may be paniced, or he may just be exhausted. The diver may be lost and in need of being found. What ever the situation, the Rescue diver locates the diver in trouble, and gets that diver out of the water, and under the appropriate level of medical care as quickly as possible.

This past weekend, Catfish completed his final dives for certification. In one of the dives, he was acting as divemaster, and had to direct 6 adult 'inexperienced' divers in a search for a lost diver. He deployed his divers along a line and the 'lost' diver was quickly found, lying motionless on a slope at 65ft. The diver was unresponsive, and Catfish being the only 'trained rescue diver', had to lift this diver from the bottom and do a controlled assent to the surface some 65 ft above.

The female victim was 20-30 lbs heavier than Catfish. He ensured that her regulator stayed in place as he struggled to lift her off the slope. They slid down the slope to the bottom at 75ft. Silt filled the water and reduced visability. He stayed with it. They began to rise, then after coming off the bottom, she slipped from his grasp. He went completely upside down, holding on to her with one hand and ensuring her regulator stayed in with the other while she dragged him back to the bottom. Silt billowed around them. Back on the bottom, in visability approaching zero, he fought his way around behind her, and clutching her tank between his knees, with his arm reaching under her arm, and holding her regulator in her mouth, he again began surfacing the victim. He emerged from the clouds of silt with his victim and made a perfect assent. On the surface, he established boyancy and began rescue breaths.

I knew he could learn the skills to be a Rescue Diver. He's a great swimmer, and a good scuba diver. There was no question in my mind that he could do that. I was concerned when he was asked to act as the divemaster on the exersize because that's a tall order to ask of a 14 year old kid. How many kids do you know who are comfortable giving orders to adults? Well, he wasn't comfortable either, but he got it done. I'm sure he wasn't comfortable directing the search, but he got it done. I'm really sure he wasn't comfortable when we found the victim on the slope, and she slid down to the bottom. Hell, it was 43 degrees there, and he has zero body fat. He wasn't just uncomfortable, he was freezing his ass off, but he hung in there. In zero visability, 43 degree water wrestling with a motionless woman he was not only uncomfortable, he was magnificent. He did the things he had been trained to do, and did them calmly and confidently. He safely overcame every obstical, and did every that was possible to "save" the victim.

He's not just my boy. He's a PADI Certified Rescue Diver.