Re-doing a Dive Team

[eelpout]

After many years of mismanagement and bad training, a dive team wants to start from scratch. There are dinosaurs on the team and a lot of new recruits. Would appreciatte suggestions in Recruiting, training, and education. The team has very little funding. They have a potential to raise their own funds. Need help badly,l don't know where to start.

 

[Gary D.]

After many years of mismanagement and bad training, a dive team wants to start from scratch. There are dinosaurs on the team and a lot of new recruits. Would appreciatte suggestions in Recruiting, training, and education. The team has very little funding. They have a potential to raise their own funds. Need help badly,l don't know where to start.

Couple of questions.

What kind of team are or do you want to be?
What kind of conditions will or do you have?
Do you have the blessings of your local Fire and LEO departments?
How active a team has it been in the past?
How big of a team do you want?

Ok that was more than a couple but it's a start.

Good luck

Gary D.

 

[bridgediver]

To fix it you need to figure out whats wrong. What is mismanaged exactly?

As for training, I'd get help from proffessional PSD instructors (ie LGS). Theres alot of info on their website; they will get you on the right track. Most teams don't know what they don't know.

Just for some advice since I've been going through what I think may be similar to your situation; keep the new guys busy and their enthusiasm up - they will be your best allies to promote change. Any changes you decide to make will probably take alot of time, frustration and patience

Good luck

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Locally the dive rescue squad is restricted to members of the city fire department and city or county law enforcement agencies. The team is basically a disgrace as while they are very competent fire fighters and police officers, most do not know beans about divng and are only OW or AOW certified. Most do very few dives and the existing training standards and requirement to do a minimum of 12 dives per year were eliminated last year.

So unless you are in a relativley large urban area and have a relatively large public safety pool from which to draw qualified divers as recruits, you will find it is far easier to take an experienced and capable diver who dives a lot in the local conditions and train them in the finer points of public safety diving than it is to take a non diving, tropical diving, or "only when they have to" diving police office or fireman and train them to be a public safety diver.

The arguments locally for using public safety personnel were response time and the fact that they were already insured and on the payroll. The problem in practice is that response time is still pretty slow givne the large geographic area covered and the number of team members is too few to ensure an andequate number are on duty at a given time. So all calls have ended up being recoveries rather than rescues anyway.

Once it becomes a recovery, you are far better off with experienced divers who are comfortable in the water and are able to devote their full mental abilities toward search pattern, evidence collection, recovery, etc.

The insurance issue can be handled like it is for any volunteer fire department or police reserve unit. And when you factor in the reduced training, in some cases reduced equipment costs, and the eliminationof the need to pay team members, often at OT rates, it ends up being a lot less expensive in the long run. Plus you get divers who ant to be on the team and who like to dive, rather than public safety divers who want cool training or another merit badge or resume stuffer.

A poorly trained and poorly motivated dive rescus squad can be more of a liability than an asset. We had a drowning locally in cold (40 degrees) deep water (100 ft plus ft) and in low visibility (10 ft.) Most of the divers on the DRS were at their limit just getting there and stirring silt to the point of zero visibility, running ineffective search patterns at best and at worst faking it led to an unsuccessful search, at least one diver injured and about $85,000 in expenses for subsequent sonar scans, etc. Eventually, recreational divers looking for the body located it very near the reported position where the victim drowned after deciding that it may not have been well covered in the initial DRS search. The DRS then came in and made a mess of the recovery. It was really poorly done.

So recruit divers with existing ability and spend the money on additional PSD training for them. A volunteer squad works well for recovery and you may be better served by using serving public safety officers for a separate swift water rescue squad or something similar where response time is really a key consideration.

 

[triton94949]

In some locations, deputy sheriffs will go to dive club meetings and recruit divers for reserve sheriff's duty. They still need to attend the academy camp, but they are then on an on-call status when the dept needs their headcount for their underwater searches. As was stated, urban areas have more resources available in terms of numbers of divers.

If you could locate and recruit an instructor level diver, that should help solve your problem. The next issue would be gear procurement. Zeagle has gear specifically designed for law enforcement search and recovery. Extended bottom times from nitrox mixes is also worthwhile.

If your local lakes and bays are deep, then there would also be technical diving implications to your team training. Again, I would say look around for an instructor.

 

[Gary D.]

In some locations, deputy sheriffs will go to dive club meetings and recruit divers for reserve sheriff's duty. They still need to attend the academy camp, but they are then on an on-call status when the dept needs their headcount for their underwater searches. As was stated, urban areas have more resources available in terms of numbers of divers.

If you could locate and recruit an instructor level diver, that should help solve your problem. The next issue would be gear procurement. Zeagle has gear specifically designed for law enforcement search and recovery. Extended bottom times from nitrox mixes is also worthwhile.

If your local lakes and bays are deep, then there would also be technical diving implications to your team training. Again, I would say look around for an instructor.

Nitrox (over 21%) should only be used in Recovery and not in Rescue operations. The inability to plan a dive in Rescue mode makes it dangerous for rapid response.

So to avoid any confusion our team does not use it. We just have way to many callouts from recoveries or training dives to safely keep track of the gas.

Gary D.

 

[triton94949]

Nitrox (over 21%) should only be used in Recovery and not in Rescue operations. The inability to plan a dive in Rescue mode makes it dangerous for rapid response.

So to avoid any confusion our team does not use it. We just have way to many callouts from recoveries or training dives to safely keep track of the gas.

Gary D.

I never saw a law enforcement related dive that was anything but "recovery."

 

[Gary D.]

I never saw a law enforcement related dive that was anything but "recovery."

Then you need to come play with us. More often than not we get our job done well within the Golden Hour.

We are on call, have issue cars with our gear set up and ready to go 24-7. The only time the pager is secured is for court or being way out of town. We are a small very serious, very active team.

Gary D.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

Then you need to come play with us. More often than not we get our job done well within the Golden Hour.

We are on call, have issue cars with our gear set up and ready to go 24-7. The only time the pager is secured is for court or being way out of town. We are a small very serious, very active team.

I have had this discussion with one of only three people on the dive team that actually dive on a regular basis and that I have any respect for at all. He is a deputy Sheriff and carries his gear in the car. Given the distances involved and the remote mountain location of most of the lakes where people are likely to get in trouble the possibility exists for him to be on site well within the hour, but at the same time it is unlikely that any one else will arrive in time for a rescue. He is pretty adamant that in that situation he would attmept the rescue solo rather than wait for assistance and support.

This obviously entails additional risks and violates protocol, but he figuires that he risks his life everyday and the potential benefits outweight the risks. What are your thoughts on that?

 

[Gary D.]

I have had this discussion with one of only three people on the dive team that actually dive on a regular basis and that I have any respect for at all. He is a deputy Sheriff and carries his gear in the car. Given the distances involved and the remote mountain location of most of the lakes where people are likely to get in trouble the possibility exists for him to be on site well within the hour, but at the same time it is unlikely that any one else will arrive in time for a rescue. He is pretty adamant that in that situation he would attmept the rescue solo rather than wait for assistance and support.

This obviously entails additional risks and violates protocol, but he figuires that he risks his life everyday and the potential benefits outweight the risks. What are your thoughts on that?

Our terrain is not that much different than S. Dakota with a lot of mountainous areas. We have 18 lakes that we have patrol boats on and 3 times that many that aren’t patrolled plus a lot of creeks, streams and rivers.

We are budgeted for ten on the team. All our patrol and detective units have issued cars so that isn’t an issue. The department supplies 90% of our gear, which we use freely except for commercial work.

With the amount of tight winding roads and the distances we have to travel the Fire Departments don’t want the job. We only have one lake where they consistently beat us because their station is less than a mile away from the main ramp.

It is very rare that one of us will be on scene more than 5 minutes ahead of a second or third diver. Some of our areas are far enough away that we burn up the Golden Hour with just driving time (code). In those areas Fire units would be way behind us. Those trucks just aren’t near as fast as the cars are.

We only have 3 Fireboats that are big and slow. The SD has 14 patrol boats that have a shallow draft and are fast. Most can carry half the team at once with all our gear. Plus the dive team has 3 of our own boats we use for remote areas or extended dives.

The one thing we do not tolerate is a “Cow Boy”. We had a past member that would always hit the water when he arrived and not wait for the second diver to give him a go. HE is no longer a team member or a deputy.

It will always be on a case by case basis but you will have at least one more on scene and one more close before the first one hits the water. Risk v Benefit is what we all need to go by. I can’t say I would never hit the water alone because I have. Shallow swim areas have a lower risk than a river or deep water but it is still no excuse for not waiting for some more of the team to arrive.

Our training goal is to be in the water within 3 minutes after arrival. Most of the time we do it.

Gary D.