Rescue Net
Part of being a prepared rescuer is knowing how to get an injured diver or person out of the water and up onto a boat or dock. The first step is to strip all the gear off a diver, if this hasn’t already been done. The next step is to keep the patients horizontal when removing them from the water. This is especially important for patients who have had long immersion times and who are hypothermic. Here’s why in a simple nutshell. When...
Public Safety Diving Search Patterns
By Walt Hendrick, Andrea Zaferes, and Craig Nelson MD. If you took a recreational rescue diver course or recreational search and recovery course, you probably learned a number of different search techniques, such as the expanding square or circular search using a line. These techniques might work well for high-visibility, buddy diving, but they are not very effective for blackwater, technical, public safety diving...
I am OK
Do we, as water rescue response teams understand what it takes, mentally and physically, to make the total operation work? How do we get the most from our rescue personnel, while maintaining strict safety standards? Your beeper / Plectrum is going off, the code tells you to respond to a confirmed drowning. It is five fifteen in the afternoon, you are sitting in traffic, you have not had the easiest day at work, and now it is time to...
Evidence – we all should know how to handle it
There may be more to it than meets the eye! in SORTIE Vol. 1 no. 2 brings up the point that drowning can be homicidal, and that a body could be dumped in the water in an attempt to cover up foul play. A significant percentage of dive teams today are fire teams. These teams will often respond to both recovery and rescue operations. What happens to an investigation when proper information is not recorded and evidence is handled...
I Said NO! Or Is That An Order…?
By Ken Balfrey As law enforcement officers, do we have the right to say no in a surface or subsurface rescue situation? Are our departments and ranking officers (Chief, Sheriff, or Public Safety Directors) telling us we have to attempt a rescue? Do we have the equipment, skills, or training to make an educated, practical and safe decision? We are normally the first to arrive at any type of incident. We know how to handle motor vehicle...
Why wearing a harness is important for safety and search effectiveness
Why wearing a harness is important for safety and search effectiveness Sometimes we take for granted that the value of a harness is obvious. We stop taking it for granted when we meet teams that either never thought of the concept or who are resistant to it. In either case, education needs to take place. As low visibility searches almost always require tender-directed, tethered, solo diving for safety, accuracy, repeatable patterns,...