Physical fitness has become the focal point for most public safety departments, and we have recognized the numerous benefits for our profession of having good cardio health and being in good physical condition. But we have been
missing a vital part in conditioning our divers during training by
not training them in mental preparedness. Public safety diving
(PSD) is both physically and mentally challenging to even the
most fit and prepared diver. The mental aspect is where everything
starts and ends for our high-risk, low-frequency discipline when
considering diver survivability. We ask a lot of our divers to be able
to make split-second decisions, have safe actions and reactions,
work in all types of environments with an overabundance of technical equipment, and be quick to accurately dress while responding
to a call, yet we are not arming them with mental preparedness.
This should be at the forefront of every PSD agenda.
Mental preparedness is a way of getting your divers’ minds ready
to cope with stress during a survival situation and to be successful.
STRESS IN TRAINING
Incorporating stressors into dive training will prepare the diver
to be able to stay calm in a real stressful environment or emergency
situation as well as stay focused on lifesaving skills. When you
expose your divers to stressful situations, you are giving them a
mental picture that they can use to mitigate problems and reduce
panic and confusion while increasing motor function and focus on
fixing the situation. Divers face many risk factors that affect mental
preparedness, including severity of the event, unsuccessful opera-
tions, emotional connections to the incident, number of victims,
and the probability of not finding the victim during the rescue
mode (and in some cases, not at all). Mental preparedness is devel-
oped through continual training. It has become more frequent
that departments cut dive training time because of department
restraints of low staffing, fitting in other mandatory trainings, PR
details, inspections, weather issues that we never get to make up,
and daily operations, which neglect the dive team’s ability to train.
The bottom line for those of you in control of dive training: Our
divers need to be in the water training. Sadly, some teams find
themselves in the water only during an operation call out with very
little training, which is clearly not enough water exposure time to
focus on even the basic skillsets or building on stressor recognition
drills—and that is dangerous for your team. To be truly proficient,
divers need to regularly be exposed to mental preparedness and
The diver and mental preparedness
BY SCOTT HUFF
Staying Sharp Underwater
We ask a lot of our divers to be able to make
split-second decisions, have safe actions
and reactions, and work in all types of environments; yet, we are not arming them with
mental preparedness. (Photos by author.)
