we're responsible for our own lives and our health.

[scubaranger]

I'm a new diver and a new to PSD tru my fire department I have over 8 years of exp. in fire service and EMS but even in that I know that I don't know it all. but with diving that's a whole different ball game I just got cert. last year. So I really appreciate this forum.I know I'm responsible for my life my training and my health. so I try my best to stay current and even above that.


I got a simple question I haven't had a dive call that I went in to the nasty miami canals we have here but I have heard that guys get nasty sick after a dive call. is there a way to prevent this. Note In my field we don't go in as much as the police divers do. thanks for any advise
alex t.

 

[pipedope]

The best is if you can do it as a full contaminated water dive with dry suit, dry gloves, dry helmet with dual exhaust valves and surface wash down after the dive before dressing out.

Next best is dry suit with dry hood and FFM.

Your biggest risk is from inhaling small droplets of the water so a positive pressure FFM will help if you must go in without the full kit.

A lot depends on what is in the water. Lots of times the water that is full of junk and looks bad is OK, and many times water that looks clear and clean is really full of nasty stuff.

 

[scubaranger]

all that stuff is great but what I have is my work uniform,a tank on a pack, horse shoe bc and lobster gloves for hand protection my work octupus is a regular one. my decon is blasted my a fire hose. then a scrub down back in the shower. for fins and mask I use my own.

 

[Gary D.]

all that stuff is great but what I have is my work uniform,a tank on a pack, horse shoe bc and lobster gloves for hand protection my work octupus is a regular one. my decon is blasted my a fire hose. then a scrub down back in the shower. for fins and mask I use my own.

With the equipment you have: If your dealing with dirty water and it's a RESCUE I'd go for it. If it's a RECOVERY they can kiss my posterior.

I'll hang a little bacon on the line for a chance to save someone's life. I don't hang anything on the line if they are already dead. Then it's my time and under my rules because it's my butt on the line.

It's always Risk vs Benefit and NO PEER PRESSURE.

Get all the proper training you can.
Gary D.

 

[pipedope]

With the equipment you have: If your dealing with dirty water and it's a RESCUE I'd go for it. If it's a RECOVERY they can kiss my posterior.

I'll hang a little bacon on the line for a chance to save someone's life. I don't hang anything on the line if they are already dead. Then it's my time and under my rules because it's my butt on the line.

It's always Risk vs Benefit and NO PEER PRESSURE.

Get all the proper training you can.
Gary D.

Gary D. nailed it with this one.

Rescue = do what you can to save a life.
Recovery = let a fully equipped team handle it.
Salvage (and other work UW) = call a commercial diving company.

We need our law enforcement officers for law enforcement. We have commercial divers to do commercial diving.

 

[Gary D.]

Gary D. nailed it with this one.

Rescue = do what you can to save a life.
Recovery = let a fully equipped team handle it.
Salvage (and other work UW) = call a commercial diving company.

We need our law enforcement officers for law enforcement. We have commercial divers to do commercial diving.

BINGO

We do this so often it's just second nature.

If, for example, we have a vehicle in the drink that has or may have value to us (evidence) we deal with it. If there is no value to us a tow company can call it's own divers.

Remember my post about the kid doing excactly what dad said loading the boat. We got there, laughed and let them pay for the divers. No need for us to get involved.

Now on the other hand one other team member and I do commercial work. We don't use "any" department equipment and the job can have no relationship to law enforcement.

But there are exceptions, as always.

Should we have a recovery that exceeds our boundries as a team. Once we secure as a team, two of us will SOMETIMES go do the recovery. My buddy in those cases is also a retired Navy diver. We aren't going off half cocked, we're trained for what we are doing.

Avoiding PEER PRESSURE is the biggest challenge with some PSD teams. If they pressure you to do a dive they don't have a clue as to what is going on.

Gary D.

 

[6Gill]

BINGO

We do this so often it's just second nature.

If, for example, we have a vehicle in the drink that has or may have value to us (evidence) we deal with it. If there is no value to us a tow company can call it's own divers.

Remember my post about the kid doing excactly what dad said loading the boat. We got there, laughed and let them pay for the divers. No need for us to get involved.

Now on the other hand one other team member and I do commercial work. We don't use "any" department equipment and the job can have no relationship to law enforcement.

But there are exceptions, as always.

Should we have a recovery that exceeds our boundries as a team. Once we secure as a team, two of us will SOMETIMES go do the recovery. My buddy in those cases is also a retired Navy diver. We aren't going off half cocked, we're trained for what we are doing.

Avoiding PEER PRESSURE is the biggest challenge with some PSD teams. If they pressure you to do a dive they don't have a clue as to what is going on.

Gary D.

I agree with you 100% on keeping to LE diving separate from commercial work!

That said, I have been exposed to political pressure in this area in the past. My Sheriff's department when I first started diving was controlled by an elected Sheriff. He had absolute control of hireing and fireing. (Later Washington State voted in Civil Service for Sheriff's Departments.)

During this time of non-civil service (1957) an Unlimited Hydro plane (Thriftway) hit a USCG 40 footer on Lk, Washington and sunk it during a Goldcup race. My dive team at the time consisted of Sheriff's Reserve Divers and me, as the only full time paid Deputy. The team recovered the USGG boat the next day. The Thriftway Hydro was impaled into the side of the USCG boat, however; on bringing the USCG boat to the surface it broke loose and sank back to the bottom in 90ft.

The Thriftway people tried to pressure the team to recover their boat too. The team made the decision that recovering the Hydro was in fact a commercial salvage job. The next day while on patrol and after having made a body recovery dive in the AM I got a radio call to hit a phone and call "The" Sheriff. As you can well imagine I was a little startled to receive such a call as a Deputy. The Sheriff said he had talked to the Thriftway people and he wanted me to recover the Hydro. I explained what the team had said, etc. He wasn't buying that and insisted that I carry out his order. Keep in mind that I served at his pleasure had no civil service, etc. I also had a wife and three kids to support.

So, I said yes sir and proceeded to try and get a dive partner from the team to help me. I was able to get one of the Reserve Divers to help me. We managed to locate the Hydo again and hook it up for recovery. There was no light at 90 Ft. in Lk. Washinton. The Hydo was sitting on it's aft on the bottom. (Caused by styrofoam in the bow.) I don't recall how long the boat was but to us at the stern it looked like the Empire State Bldg. It took us over 30 minutes at 90 ft. do find it and get it hooked up.

The dive that I had made earlier in the day was on my mind, plus the 30 minutes at 90 ft. I wasn't to concerned because the earlier dive was shallow (25 to 30 ft.) As it turned out I should have been. Remember this was before computers, etc. In any case I got the bends later and had to spend 35 hours in the 'chamber at the Naval facility at Key Port, WA. This of course was my fault and not what I'm trying to express here. Although the pressure caused by the Sheriff tasking me to do this no doubt had some bearing on my actions.

My real goal here is to bring out that even today, I'm sure that in some jurisdictions that full time deputies or police officers may not have civil service coverage and may serve at the pleasure of an elected Sheriff, City council, etc. In this type of situation they will be placed under real pressure to carry out recoveries that they may deem as not their job. They may well be faced with loosing their job, should they decide to not carry out the task at hand. It's a tough decision especially in this time of high unemployment, etc.

 

[Gary D.]

I agree with you 100% on keeping to LE diving separate from commercial work!

That said, I have been exposed to political pressure in this area in the past. My Sheriff's department when I first started diving was controlled by an elected Sheriff. He had absolute control of hireing and fireing. (Later Washington State voted in Civil Service for Sheriff's Departments.)

During this time of non-civil service (1957) an Unlimited Hydro plane (Thriftway) hit a USCG 40 footer on Lk, Washington and sunk it during a Goldcup race. My dive team at the time consisted of Sheriff's Reserve Divers and me, as the only full time paid Deputy. The team recovered the USGG boat the next day. The Thriftway Hydro was impaled into the side of the USCG boat, however; on bringing the USCG boat to the surface it broke loose and sank back to the bottom in 90ft.

The Thriftway people tried to pressure the team to recover their boat too. The team made the decision that recovering the Hydro was in fact a commercial salvage job. The next day while on patrol and after having made a body recovery dive in the AM I got a radio call to hit a phone and call "The" Sheriff. As you can well imagine I was a little startled to receive such a call as a Deputy. The Sheriff said he had talked to the Thriftway people and he wanted me to recover the Hydro. I explained what the team had said, etc. He wasn't buying that and insisted that I carry out his order. Keep in mind that I served at his pleasure had no civil service, etc. I also had a wife and three kids to support.

So, I said yes sir and proceeded to try and get a dive partner from the team to help me. I was able to get one of the Reserve Divers to help me. We managed to locate the Hydo again and hook it up for recovery. There was no light at 90 Ft. in Lk. Washinton. The Hydo was sitting on it's aft on the bottom. (Caused by styrofoam in the bow.) I don't recall how long the boat was but to us at the stern it looked like the Empire State Bldg. It took us over 30 minutes at 90 ft. do find it and get it hooked up.

The dive that I had made earlier in the day was on my mind, plus the 30 minutes at 90 ft. I wasn't to concerned because the earlier dive was shallow (25 to 30 ft.) As it turned out I should have been. Remember this was before computers, etc. In any case I got the bends later and had to spend 35 hours in the 'chamber at the Naval facility at Key Port, WA. This of course was my fault and not what I'm trying to express here. Although the pressure caused by the Sheriff tasking me to do this no doubt had some bearing on my actions.

My real goal here is to bring out that even today, I'm sure that in some jurisdictions that full time deputies or police officers may not have civil service coverage and may serve at the pleasure of an elected Sheriff, City council, etc. In this type of situation they will be placed under real pressure to carry out recoveries that they may deem as not their job. They may well be faced with loosing their job, should they decide to not carry out the task at hand. It's a tough decision especially in this time of high unemployment, etc.

Unfortunately way to many departments, we have some here locally, try and pressure their divers into dives that are way beyond their capability. Peer pressure can be one of the worst and most dangerous problems a team can face and your skin has to be thick enough to fight it off.

We are blessed with a Sheriff and an area that if I say NO to a dive it’s NO. I will give them a reason out of courtesy but they will not pressure us into a dive. Sometimes it’s a team discussion that leads to a NO but nobody HAS to make a dive.

There have been days that we had a simple 30’ dive in clear warm water. For whatever reason I didn’t feel right about the dive so I backed out and someone else did it. We all have good and bad days. Use caution on the bad ones and don’t dive, besides we always need topside people.

A lot of people wonder why we have a LEO team instead of letting the Fire Department’s do it.

Simple answer:
We keep our cars 24-7, Fire doesn’t.
We can get into areas sometimes an hour ahead of the fire units due to the rugged terrain.
We are all full time deputies.
Most our rural Fire Departments are still volunteer.
It’s easier to tie us up for hours or days at a time without affecting deployment or equipment.
We have the Marine units.
and
By Law the Sheriff is untimately responsible for all rescue and recovery work.

That’s just some basic stuff.

But we work very well together........They know exactly how to assist us and do a very fine job of it.

Gary D.

 

[scubaranger]

hey guys thanks for the storys and advise since I wrote this post I have had two dive calls both I ended being the safety diver. 1) one was a stolen car we just checked to make sure so I was just on standby and the second was a scooter accident next to a canal with a possible ejection of a second Patient in to the cannals original witness said their was a second rider then they said well maybe. the driver recovered conscience in the helocopter enroute to the trauma hospital got a call I''ll finish later

by

 

[scubaranger]

sorry I'm at work and got a call It's been avery busy day. well like i was saying the patient in the helicopter recovered conscienceness and sid he was alon the senior diver called a "No Dive" according to the info given. Our protocol states a diver ( senior or his partner) can call a No dive according to he thinks the dive is out of his level or other reason. The last say is on the diver not the OIC or any other personel.
thanks for all the advise
alex t.