Vehichle extrications

[hollywood703]

In flowing water, you are going to be approaching more than likely upstream to downstream...carrying any possible contaminents downstream.....more likely to get more significant contamination (but still not even close to even thinking about worrying) in a stagnant lake froze over. If a body of water has enough current to move a vehicle significant distance downstream, you are going to know it when you make entry. I agree with Gary.....you cant necessarily plan to look for ejections further down stream.....If a local area search recovers a vehicle and a immediate search comes up with nothing, I would consider placing a small crew a ways down stream(farther than possible travel distance) to walk the shore back, and/or monitor that area in case we fear they are moving. Problem lies here...something as small as a baby, in say a river 10 foot deep, with a good current.....If the baby isnt floating and is in the current....it can pass right by a crew searching downstream pending visibility. we can what if all day long..conditions at the time will dictate what "outside the box" thinking might be required.


I have only heard folk-lore about finding survivors, short of a cold water drowning brought back.....not alive at time of find per-sey. I do know of an Officer (non-diver) who entered a slightly iced over lake,after reports of a vehicle that overturned and went thru the ice. His response time was less than 5 minutes, and he pulled the driver and 1 passenger from the vehicle within 15 or so....I cant remember which but one was revived....the other was not....the officer was hospitalized for hypothermia....Much more time in the water and the officer may have been a victim also......Granted due to response time I would have probably done the same...however statistically......tells me I should probably not go into the water in just a uniform. Sometimes we react and do things without thinking.

 

[BladesRobinson]

I do know of an Officer (non-diver) who entered a slightly iced over lake,after reports of a vehicle that overturned and went thru the ice. His response time was less than 5 minutes, and he pulled the driver and 1 passenger from the vehicle within 15 or so....I cant remember which but one was revived....the other was not....the officer was hospitalized for hypothermia....

I too have heard of many similar situations and that is why many Public Safety Divers are familiar with the term "cold water near drowning." The key here is these victims are unconscious and revived on the surface. They are not the "kicking screaming victims" trapped in an air pocket, as described earlier. Certainly they are not in the "30%-70%" range of victims who will pull the regulator out of the mount of the rescuer.

I think what many have questioned is the idea that there would be such a large numer of instances where the regulator is pulled out of the mouth of a rescuer by persons trapped in air pockets. DRI refers to the "air pocket theory" as being a myth and the subject of Hollywood fiction. The instances are so rare, if any at all, that they do not constitute a (huge) risk to public safety divers.

 

[BladesRobinson]

I am aware of conscious, struggling, living victims being pulled from overturned boats but then again we are ALL aware of the watertight/airtight integrity of boat hulls. I am even aware of a diver who survived an out of air emergency on a wreck dive because of the benefit of an air pocket.

I was contacted "off list" and asked about rescues involving survivors inside submerged vessels.

One incident involved one of our corporate trainers back in 1981. I pass along an excerpt from Wikipedia ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gordon_Teather

On 26 September 1981, Corporal Robert G. Teather, a member of the Surrey Detachment Diving Team of the R.C.M.P., rescued two fishermen trapped in the overturned hull of a boat. Early that morning, the boat Respond collided with a freighter near the mouth of the Fraser River, in British Columbia. The boat capsized with the two crewmen stranded on board. Cpl. Teather and a colleague arrived on the scene and an exploratory dive proved that only one could enter the hull at a time. Teather was inexperienced in this type of rescue, but was aware that the boat was sinking and that qualified help was miles away. Despite the lack of personnel support and unaware if the two crew members were alive he entered the companionway. Visibility was limited to a few centimetres inside as he made his way into the engine room. In an air pocket fouled by diesel fumes he found the two men, one of them a non-swimmer. He instructed both on the use of underwater breathing equipment, CPL Teather then took the non-swimmer on his back to safety. Halfway to the surface, the seaman panicked and knocked his rescuer's mask off, but Teather managed to get the man to the surface where the anther diver took over. Teather then retrieved the other survivor.

Had Teather not undertaken the rescue, the two fishermen would likely have drowned or succumbed to asphyxiation. For his efforts he was awarded the Cross of Valour, the highest ranking of the Canadian Bravery Decorations. Currently, there have been only 20 recipients of this award; he was Canada's 13th recipient.

​

Bob Teather is also the author of the Encyclopedia of Underwater Investigations (distributed by Dive Rescue International and Best Publishing). Another incident happened a little over a year ago...

Crewman Trapped 40 Hours Underwater;
Rescue Called Miraculous
The Epoch Times Jan 18, 2006


Mingpao News reports that a boat sank to the bottom of China's
Yangtze River on Jan. 10, yet 40 hours after sinking, one crewmember
was safely rescued by the Maritime Safety Administration in
Zhengjiang, Jiangsu Province. Zhengjiang City's Maritime Safety
Administration Transportation Center received an emergency call at
7:22 p.m. on Jan. 10.

Two ships, one from the China Changjiang Shipping Group and One
Dragon Shipping Corp.'s Xinhang No. 68, collided on the Yangtze River
near Jianbi. Three smaller boats in tow also sank and two people were
missing. The Center's duty staff responded in six patrol ships and
searched for the missing.

By 10:40 the next morning, they were able to successfully refloat one
of the sunken ships. A faint cry for help was heard so the rescuers
made a rapid inspection. When they saw a hand waving in a cabin, they
immediately took out tools and cut the cabin open, rescuing one of
the missing crew.

Mr. Guo, the rescued crewman, had been thrown into the cabin by the
force of the collision and remained trapped there as the vessel sank
46 feet to the bottom. He was able to survive since some air had also
been trapped in the cabin. The salvage company manager, Mr.Xiong
Jinshan, stated after the rescue, "I've been working for the company
for over 40 years. This is the first time I've ever witnessed such a
rescue. It is really miraculous."

 

[Gary D.]

December 7, 1941 in Pearl Harbor Hawaii many trapped sailors were rescued from a watery grave when rescuers cut into the overturned ships hulls to reach them.

On a sadder note many tapped on the hull for days. Some that have not been recovered to this day.

Had they known what we know today many more may have been saved. Some of that was due to the diving gear available at the time. Some could not be pin pointed and others just could not be reached.

That operation made the recent Twin Cities bridge collapse look real minor in comparison. But one was a civilian issue and the other a military matter. Like comparing Apples and Oranges.

But one can only imagine how much more difficult the Twin Cities incident would have been with 60 year old technology. Be thankful we live in these days.

Gary D.

 

[bridgediver]

The 30-70% of the time the vics. will reach for your air supply came from lecture notes I still had from a course run by LGS on this topic.
T

Maybe double check your notes, Tom (or talk to LGS). I asked one of the top people at LGS and there is no such stat on victims trapped in a vehicle

 

[bridgediver]

I think it probable that we may not see Tom reply on here again (although you never know).

I wanted to clear up the misinformation of LGS teaching rescue methods for live victims in a submerged car. As Blades' already pointed out there are no live victims if the car is submerged - they won't reach for the air source. This is from an article in the Fire Engineering magazine by Butch Hendrick of LGS.

We once met a public safety diver (PSD) instructor who insisted that it is acceptable for a fire department dive team standard to allow the first diver on the scene to enter the water without a backup and a 90-percent-ready diver on the scene, without pony bottles, without three cutting tools, and without tender-directed tethered diving with certified tenders—all because the team was in "rescue mode."

"The victims are dead," we said.

He said, "No, I am talking about a rescue mode."

"Right," we explained, "but once the victims are submerged, there are no pockets of air, so those passengers are dead. In warm water canals, the chance of victims having their lives back is less than the chance of injuring a diver in a substandard dive operation."

The entire article can be viewed her for those that are interested

http://www.fireengineering.com/articles/article_display.html?id=197912

 

[Scubamedicjoe]

First off you should never dive that type situation alone, to many safety variables, second odds are if someone was in vehicle they most likely are a recovery in which if done at all should be done with at least two man team in water with rope tenders and communications with back up diver team, now for more shocking news this only if they have been trained in Ice diving operations ect just because you have completed some Public safety diver class no way or shape or form qualifies to dive under ice conditions, with a swift water condition, oh you say water running slow BS try that under a confined space of ICE.