The course covers a wide variety of skills to ensure you can react to the many situations that may come up when diving. Some of the problems you’ll learn to manage are more straightforward, like helping a tired diver back to the boat. Other problems are more complex and may require you to make a multi-step plan including hypothetically seeking medical attention, such as attending to marine animal stings or bites.

Some skills you are more likely to use. For example, if you dive enough times, you may need to manage some form of equipment failure. On the other hand, you may never have to use other skills taught throughout the course, like searching for a missing diver or surfacing an unresponsive diver. However, even if you hope that you’ll never need to use these rescue skills, you’ll still want to be trained for it in case it should ever happen.