A few weeks ago I was at the GGSKS doing an incident management class. The coach, one Tom Bergh (excellent coach says I), had us doing rescues nearish some rocks. At least nearisher than I'd done rescues before.
Anyways it's my turn to go victim and I jump in, flip my boat upright, and wait for the rescuer to start calling the shots, as they do. Here comes the rescuer who tells me to flip my boat upside down. Go to the back of the boat! Of course I'm thinking she's going to ask me to push down on the back of my boat, so I'm fixin' to loose my fucking mind, as I do when this push down on on the stern thing happens in my presence. And I'm looking at Tom like, "are you going to let this happen?" Tom, who is nothing if not calm and collected it seems, asks if the rescuer want's to empty the boat first. I'm thinking he's thinking the same thing I'm thinking about this "rescue". The rescuer tells Tom she is emptying the boat and then instructs me to help her flip the boat upright so she can get it onto her deck. Everything is sort of a blur from then on because I stopped paying a lot of attention and tried to absorb this particular form of "rescue" that I've never (ever) seen or heard of before.
My mumble-mumbledy-ith birthday is fast approaching and I'm at the age where birthdays are not a reason to get particularly excited. Depressed, maybe. Excited, no. And this means that I'd be just as happy to not have a birthday (except for maybe a dinner out) at all and so ask family for no presents or stuff or anything. There's really nothing I need and, excepting time, nothing I really want.
That said, being American, I am inculcated with the seagull mentality and so feel comfortable, if not good, about asking total strangers for stuff. For my birthday. Which is fast approaching. What is it that I'm asking for? Simply this; could we all agree on a single first pass go to rescue process that everyone is taught and knows? Lemme 'splain.
The value of homogeneity in process is that things can occur more efficiently because there is less need to communicate about normalcies. A perhaps useful example might be traffic flow. Traffic flows in congested areas, like where I live, are well understood by those who participate. Be in this lane now so I don't have to cut across three lanes later on. If you go to an unfamiliar place then you become inefficient and the locals curse at you if you don't follow the normal flows. Indeed, during a commute, the only time I (and I know others) spend a lot of time thinking about the road (use the force Luke!) is when it's different than the ninety eleven times I'd driven the route before. Construction, accident, whatever.
Wrapping that back to seagulling, what I want is that if I'm in a rescue I'm not surprised by what the rescuer asks for and vice versa. I think the mediocrity principle can work very well here. Most rescues are going to be typical, right? The victim probably won't be injured, probably can hoist themselves into their boat, the boat being rescued probably will need to be emptied, probably won't have a hole in it, etc. I'd like for everyone to perform the same process for a rescue for that common circumstance. I'm not asking, for my birthday, for only one rescue to ever be used. Clearly someone injured or unable to swim onto their deck or whatever is going to need a different process. But that's not what I'm talking about.
So to the specifics of my birthday request. If one of you three reading this are a paddler, could you please ask your local instructor/coach/guru to consult with other instructor/coach/gurus and agree on a single process that everyone will be taught as the first pass go to rescue? If you're an instructor/coach/guru could you take it as given that you've been asked and consult?
Thanks, in advance, for my birthday present. It's what I've always wanted.
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