New to the team!!!

[murphdivers286]

I just made the Dive Team at the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office. The tryouts were interesting. It was weird wearing the blackout mask. You really have to trust your buddy to be able to do that task. It was nice being friends with all of the members. I actually felt like I belonged with them before I was even placed on the team.

On our first training day, it ended up in a call out. There was a case involved a gun, and it was thrown in retention pond. My Sgt. told me I was up for this dive. I geared up and slide into the water. The water immediately turned black. The bottom was a thick muck. I placed my hand into the muck just to see how deep it would go. I was able to placed my arm all the way down up to my shoulder. It felt like I could have went deeper.

The search pattern we chose was an arc search. I was informed the small semi-auto pistol was still loaded with one in the chamber. I found everthing from golf balls to aluminum siding. I scared myself half to death went I fact to face with the opening of a drainage pipe. I know that alligators hang out in the pipes. I had a thought go through my head about a gator lunging out at me.....:sharkattack:....<---imagine a gator instead.......I had been down for about 45 mins. when I felt my middle finger go into a large medal ring. I knew instantly it was the trigger guard. I backed out my finger and deployed my marker float.

It was a great feeling to find the gun on my first call out. It just dumb luck I found it. I know I have found my place.......

[Jorbar1551]

great job. i hope to start in the next few months for my local dive team.

[tnfireman]

Congratulations on making the team and finding the pistol
Ray

[Boater Dan]

It was a great feeling to find the gun on my first call out. It just dumb luck I found it. I know I have found my place.......

Congrats on your joining the team and on your recovery. Don't undersell your finding of the weapon! Luck certainly plays a role in ALL the searches we do, but so do efficient and effective search patterns and good bottom coverage by the search diver. The smaller the object, the more difficult the potential location of the object. Guns are difficult to locate especially in muck filled ponds.

Keep training and learning. It never ends.

Stay safe.

Dan

[Gary D.]

Welcome aboard.

I have to echo what Boater Dan said.

I will add that you need to treat ALL firearms as if they are loaded. It doesn’t matter if they have been down a day or 100 years. It’s just better to be safe than sorry because ALL of them can fire underwater.

Also I’ll do my peer pressure speech. DO NOT LET PEER PRESSURE PUSH YOU INTO ANYTHING YOU DON’T FEEL COMFORTABLE DOING! Saying no from time to time will help you live to a ripe old age.

Saying NO is nothing to be ashamed of and there shouldn’t be anyone question you about it.

On an operation earlier this year, everyone of my guys stood there and said no. I’m so proud of them because they will say it when they feel a need to. There doesn’t have to be a reason.

The job still got done but we just went a little different route. Coming in from a different angle is always an option and time for a recovery is on our side.

Sounds like you guys did well and had a good learning experience.

I’m proud of you!

Now, lets talk about the gator issue. Did you do something in your suit you don’t want to talk about? :D

Gary D.

[murphdivers286]

Now, lets talk about the gator issue. Did you do something in your suit you don’t want to talk about?

Almost.....:rofl3:


I will add that you need to treat ALL firearms as if they are loaded. It doesn’t matter if they have been down a day or 100 years. It’s just better to be safe than sorry because ALL of them can fire underwater.

Trust me, I always treat a gun if it is loaded. I get aggravated if a child points a toy gun at anyone. I son knows that best.

Thank you all for the welcome. I know I will learn a lot here that I can take back to the team.

[Yotsie]

Congratulations and welcome aboard!!! Excellent work on your recovery, right out of the chute. Guns, even underwater, make me very nervous. Like Gary said, doesn't matter 1 hour or 100 years, figure on it going off.

Now the real work begins.... Listen to the guys on the team that have been around for awhile and pay attention to training.

Great work on your recovery!!!

[murphdivers286]

My grammar needs a little work... don't you think.

[Gary D.]

My grammar needs a little work... don't you think.
I'd keep working on the PSD training and leave the grammer to MS Word. :D:eyebrow:

Gary D.

[sparkyjames]

I'd keep working on the PSD training and leave the grammer to MS Word. :D:eyebrow:

Gary D.

now you know why we all love Gary D so much :mooner:
thousands of comics un unemployment and he thinks he can make jokes :rofl3:

hey welcome to the world of PSD there is so many grate guys and gals here to help you find the answeres you are looking for and you cant ask for a beter bunch if you just want to talk about .

kind of new my self to PSD only been on the team for three months now
Grate job on your recovery.

Keep us p dated on your progress

Sparky

[james croft]

Congratulations. I know how good that feels. Just goes to show you that even a blind pig can find an acorn now and then.
I remember the first gun I ever found. We were asked to search a river that had eight bridges on it that ran through a city. Nobody knew what bridge it had been thrown off of. Interstingly enough we knew the make, caliber and serial number we were looking for as the suspect purchased a Bryco 9mm pistol a couple of years before and had to have a record check done. An informant had dimed out the shooter and told us the gun had been chucked off a bridge. We chose the most likely bridge and on our second day I found the gun lying on top of a boulder in about 6 inches of water. The boulder was in 8 feet of rapids. The area had been "cleared" the day before although nobody bothered to look on top of the rocks we had swum around and searched the previous day. I had been snorkling over the area on my way back to the Zodiac to get more air when it caught my eye. It was lying where I could see the serial no. and knew it was the murder weapon. I was really glad to have found the "golden egg". I tried to get the other divers attention but they were underwater and did not respond to my banging. About 5 minutes later they popped up a bouy and surfaced. They advised me they had found the gun. I asked "what kind of gun?" They told me it was a S&W 9mm. I told them the gun we were looking for was a Bryco according to the snitch. They told me the snitch was wrong. I then broke the news that the gun we were looking for was lying between my feet and it had the correct serial number. They came over and looked at my gun and I swam over and looked at theirs. Seems we had found the murder weapon plus a bonus gun. It was just about then that a FNG (Favorite New Guy) advised me he had something he wanted me to check out. I had loaned this guy mask, fins and snorkel and told him to amuse himself and stay out of our way. He found a hole with something shiny way down deep that he could not get to but thought it may be a gun. I dropped down and found a Ruger Security Six .357 mag revolver. Seems that gun was the real prize as it had killed 3 guys and there was a lot of investigators who were looking for that one as the three killings that occured 6 months prior were related by NIBIN computer. No one knew it had been disposed of or that it was in the river until we found it. Never learned the rest of the story on the S&W but the Bryco and the Ruger cases were solved as a result. All the guns were not associated with one another but had each been thrown into the same location just because it looked like a good place to dump a gun. Man, I had gun fever bad and hit those dump site locations bridges hard. I found a lot of guns over the years. I never cease to get a rush when I find a gun as it may be the piece of evidence that slips a needle into a bad guys arm on death row. My FNG was no longer a FNG after that day. I hope you have got the fever now and continue with your lucky streak.

[murphdivers286]

They came over and looked at my gun and I swam over and looked at theirs.

Is this one of those, you show my yours and I'll show you mine type of things.

As for finding the gun, it was a rush. I was told, I was the only one to find a gun in almost 10 years. They told me it is very difficult to find small objects....

I can tell you my heart started pounding when I realized my middle finger was inside of the trigger guard of a loaded gun. (all guns are loaded!!). All I could think of was accidentally shooting myself with that gun. It was funny afterwards. It was great getting the high fives from the other team members. At that moment, I felt like a true team member. I had found my place......:smile:

[sparkyjames]

Murphdivers:

I know just what you mean

I am a member of the Clastop County Sheriffs offise Search and Rescue URT
based out of Astoria Oregon, I was lucky eough to have known most of the other team members for a few years befor I joined the team

But they seem more like brothers then team members if they are not giving me a hard time about something or the other we are ganging up on one of the others about something.

my wife tells me she is proud of me for joining the team but she is worried about the bad influnance the team members have on me

something they seem to take grate pride in .
Sparky

[murphdivers286]

my wife tells me she is proud of me for joining the team but she is worried about the bad influnance the team members have on me

Unfortunately, that is something I no longer have to worry about...

The members of our team are a great bunch of guys.

[ReefGuy]

Congrats on making the team and finding the gun.

I love finding weapons. It was even better when I was over in the jail, and could walk over and let the guy know that we had retrieved his property for him :).

[Jorbar1551]

Anyone know how far a weapon would shoot underwater?

[ReefGuy]

Far enough to ruin your day if you're the one grabbing it. Or if your buddy is the one grabbing it.


Anyone know how far a weapon would shoot underwater?

[Jorbar1551]

agree. Do you think it would have penetrating power? have you ever watched the mythbusters episode where they fire rifles into water and see how far the round will go before losing penetrating power or breaking up? the .50 cal round wil only go about 3 feet before the round explodes and fragments into pieces.

[Gary D.]

Myth Busters shot from air into the water. There is a bigger danger when fired under water. From what I’ve played with, 30 cal. (M1), 38, 45 and 12 ga. 2 ¾” & 3” magnums, over ten feet you “SHOULD” be safe. You might get hit with the projectile but they didn’t have much power left. The projectile’s also stayed intact.

I don’t know if fresh water would make much of a difference. All our playing around was in the brine.

So the danger is mainly to who ever picks the thing up and then to everyone once you hit the air again.

Gary D.

[james croft]

Many guns may have difficulty firing underwater as the tolerances in the firing pin channel may not vent water. Since water does not compress the firing pin may have difficulty striking the primer with enough force to set it off. Some guns will fire with no problems. Some may be modified to fire underwater. One that comes to mind is the Glock. It can be retrofitted with marine cups on the firing pin to allow water to escape and insure ignition. The guns aren't really designed to shoot underwater but rather to fire under wet conditions where a gun may have been immersed.

[murphdivers286]

I don't want to find out.....