Rescue Scuba Diver

The NAUI Rescue Scuba Diver course, and its more demanding sibling, NAUI Advanced Rescue Scuba Diver, teach you to manage risk before it becomes an emergency, and to respond effectively when it does anyway. Most divers who take this course describe it as the point where they stopped thinking about their own skills in isolation and started thinking about their buddy team as a unit.

You will train to recognize the early warning signs of diver stress and panic, both in yourself and in others, well before they escalate. From there, the course builds through in-water problem management: assisting a struggling diver at the surface, towing and transport techniques, and both boat-based and shore-based rescues for skin and scuba divers.

CPR and First Aid certification are prerequisites, not something you pick up along the way, because rescue training assumes you can already manage the medical side competently and focuses your attention on the diving-specific parts of a real rescue: getting an unresponsive diver to the surface safely, managing your own air and buoyancy while doing it, and coordinating with other divers or surface support.

This course is also the practical starting point for anyone considering a NAUI leadership pathway. Rescue Diver training feeds directly into Assistant Instructor, Divemaster, and eventually Instructor certification.

Beyond the skills themselves, the Rescue card is a prerequisite waypoint: Master Scuba Diver electives draw on it, and every NAUI leadership rating, Assistant Instructor and Divemaster included, requires current rescue training. Most divers call it the most confidence-changing course they ever take.