I was in a bar and the Red Bull high diving competition on was on television. They were in Columbia and the divers were jumping (27 meters, if I recall) from a platform into some harbor or natural body of water outdoors. The thing that caught my attention was the safety divers waiting in the water. Three of them would dive down immediately after the diver hit the water, to check on him and rescue if needed. The competitor would surface, followed soon by the rescue divers who looked for the OK signal from the competitor. Then one of the rescue divers would hand the competitor what I think was a balled up drying towel – the small but super absorbent type used by swimmers – and then the competitor would go to the ladder and climb out onto the dock.
Why would they have a safety person hand him a wet towel in the water, instead of having a stack waiting by the ladder on the dock, or having someone waiting there to hand it to him? Seemed an odd detail in their procedure.
It wasn’t dry. He pulled it out of a pocket or pouch or something I couldn’t see underwater, and it was soaked when he handed it to the guy. That’s probably not a big problem since those towels are made to be wrung out and then used again. My curiosity is about why they’d hand it to him then, wet or dry.
(I’m presuming I have this right about what the rescue diver was handing him. I never saw a competitor actually use it to dry off once he climbed out of the water.)
Here’s a link to a full broadcast of one competition from 2018. Can you see the same handoff in this video? I watched the first 10 minutes or so but it looked like the divers just swam to the waiting jet ski and climbed on the sled themselves without receiving anything from the rescue divers.
Here’s a link to a full broadcast of one competition from 2018. Can you see the same handoff in this video? I watched the first 10 minutes or so but it looked like the divers just swam to the waiting jet ski and climbed on the sled themselves without receiving anything from the rescue divers.
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14:47. Looks like the same handoff. Didn’t watch past that.
She throws in on the sled, then you see her use it to towel off when headed on land. There are other divers that don’t take the towel offered, in this case she reaches out and takes the towel being held by the rescue diver. So it’s clearly not a safety thing.
As a former diver (springboard, not high diver) it’s handy to have a towel available to wipe off the excess water when exiting to dry land. But you’d think it would be easier to just have them on the sled rather than make the diver throw the towel on the sled.
If you look at 1:45 on the first linked video, the diver (woman in black suit) does exactly that - throws down her footwear & a towel from the platform, and then the safety diver hands it back to her at 2:45 or so.
