This course will give you the confidence to use first aid in a real emergency, including improvising dressings and splints using materials and equipment commonly found at the dive site or on a dive boat.
If you already have first-aid training, this course is a quick and easy way to practice, practice, practice your skills, while learning the best ways to apply them in diving situations.
First Aid for Divers is very informative and very useful – even if you’re not a diver. You are also sent away with a manual, which is an invaluable reference guide. Now I would be confident in helping out in any emergency situation I may find myself in.
- Lesley Guinn, Dacorum SAC
The First Aid for Divers course is open to anyone, however experience on dive trips, knowledge of diving procedures and diving-related physiology to at least Ocean Diver level would be an advantage.
First aid skills deteriorate rapidly if not used or practiced regularly so it is recommended that you undertake a refresher course at least every three years.
The one-day First Aid for Divers course teaches the basic first aid likely to be needed to treat an injury in a diving environment, which is not covered anywhere else in the BSAC Diver Training Programme (DTP). In a mixture of theory and practical sessions, you will learn the principles and priorities of first aid, including how to summon help, and casualty examination, along with the treatments for shock, bleeding and burns. Injuries to muscles, bones and joints, and other diving-related conditions are also covered.
There is lots of practice to be had under the guidance of experienced instructors, and, alongside traditional first aid kits, the course includes making use of the resources likely to be available on a dive site.
You will be able to recognise the need for, and provide, basic first aid treatment either in your daily life or in a diving environment.
Get started
Book onto a scheduled First Aid for Divers course
Your next steps – developing your skills
After this course you could further your training by doing other Skill Development Courses (SDCs).
You could further your safety and rescue training by completing the following SDCs.
- Improve your lifesaving skills by taking the Lifesaver Award, then the Advanced Lifesaver Award.
- Learn to use oxygen first aid on an Oxygen Administration course.
- Learn how to take control of a rescue situation on a Practical Rescue Management course.
If you are already a Sport Diver you could sign up for BSAC’s Instructor Foundation Course (IFC) to become an Assistant Diving Instructor, or develop your existing skills as an Open Water Instructor, or above, to become an Oxygen Administration course instructor.
Or you could progress with your diver grade training.
Not yet a BSAC member?
You can do this course by joining BSAC directly or joining your local club.
To get started, find a club or centre and send an enquiry.
