Public safety dive teams need far more training than is what is offered by a typical ice diving course. Dive teams need to be capable of many skills including:

• Setting up and running shore based, platform and ice based operations
• Cutting 6’ x 6’ x 6’ triangular holes and understanding why
• Performing under-ice deployment to victim’s hole procedures
• Blackwater, overhead environment searching
• Profiling and tending with DAD – designated area diving
• Explaining why 100 ft of line is the maximum a diver should be let out under the ice
• How to properly tether an ice diver with proper carabiners, knots, and duct tape protection
• Rapid diver-tender dressing in under 3 minutes
• Documentation and logging of all information
• Writing a safe and effective SOP that protects team members and the department
• How to trim divers with gear placement and tape to decrease the chance of entanglement
• Blackwater, overhead out-of-air emergency and disconnect-lost-diver emergency contingency plans
• Blackwater, overhead entanglement contingency plans
• Victim extrication from water and hole
• Procedures for decreasing equipment freeze-up problems
• How to properly use ice anchors, petons and equipment transport pulley systems
• Back-up and 90% ready diver procedures
• Preventing, recognizing and managing cold stress, hypothermia, immersion hypothermia, drowning, near drowning, long term drowning, etc.
• Finding small items such as carabiners, quarters, shell cartridges, etc.
• How to package and transport patients from the hole to the ambulance
• Incident command
• Operations greater than 200 feet from shore
• Explaining the complications of underwater vehicle extrication (hands-on skills covered in level II or 5 day RDS&R course)
• And much, much more!

As all our professional rescue programs, the RDIDR program involves fire, police, EMS, and emergency department personnel, to create the greatest possible chance for a successful, safe rescue from the first responder to the emergency room. If the course is for Law Enforcement Personnel, then evidence recovery, aquatic death and homicide by drowning will be stressed.

Each diver must make a minimum of three full dives (min. 15 minutes) in addition to two underwater contingency exercises. The five-day program includes the information and exercises covered above, as well as lifting objects from the bottom (as large as snowmobiles) and further exercises custom-designed to meet the needs of your team.

Course Costs and Set-up

This is the same as for Rapid Deployment Search & Rescue so please refer to that section.

Certification for the three and one half and five-day programs upon successful completion:

• ANDI Rapid Deployment Ice Rescue – divers only, included in course fee
• Wall certificates for every student, included in course fee
• Optional – ANDI, ACUC, NAUI, or PADI Ice Rescue and Blackwater I – divers only – $25 fee per card ($26 if ordered after last class day)
• ACUC Ice Tender Certification for tenders and diver – $25 fee

As stated in the RDS&R/R course set-up, teams can collect more than the program fee and use the surplus to start a fund for further training or equipment, in addition to getting their members trained free. The hosting team pays Lifeguard System’s fee and then charges those who attend the seminar (e.g. EMS, members or other teams, hospital personnel, etc.). It is always helpful to have different sectors of the community involved, to raise awareness and competence about cold water drowning, prevention, and rescue. We can provide you with lists of interested fire and police personnel who have shown interest in attending a program. We also provide a flyer to help promote your program. We recommend having the local newspaper attend, to increase community awareness of your efforts and the dangers of ice. We have an article the newspaper can print as a safety contribution to the community, teaching lay people and children what to do if they fall through the ice.

Advanced Ice Diving

3 1/2 Days of Rock and Roll Real World Ice Operations

A small child fell through the ice 150 feet off shore. Your team arrives on the scene. They are dressed in under 3 minutes with full facemasks, hardwire comms, quick-release pony bottles, harnesses, and all they need to be protected from the cold underwater environment. The ice is so thin that a crawling diver will break through. A primary diver/tender pair, backup diver/tender pair, and fully-dressed 90% ready diver is deployed. In 7-8 minutes, the child is recovered and reaches shore after being gently transported to shore with CPR in progress.

In the real world if someone falls through the ice, there is a good chance the ice is too thin to walk or stand on – yet many of us learn how to perform ice ops on good ice. We stand. We have our buckets of warm water to manage free-flows. We take our time getting from the shore to the hole. Then when the team is faced with a real call with 2 inches of ice the divers and tenders cannot believe the struggle they face just to get out on the ice as it keeps crashing in around their every move.

This course is like none other. Call and find out more. This course will not only make your team incredibly safe, effective, and fast in real-world ice ops, it will significantly improve your rescue and recovery operations all year round.

All programs can be customized to meet the exact needs of the hosting department.

Prerequisite: Ice Diving SAR I