Team Safety Article – always a good reminder
Every operation has its own set of unique demands and safety precautions, none-the-less there are common precautions pertaining to all operations. When called out the team should notify all related organizations that the Dive Team is activated. This would be organizations such as the EMS, Police, Fire Department, and Coast Guard (as needed). When operating in a port, notify the Coast Guard and let them make contact with the Port...
Winter Training, On the Go in the Cold
As the Temperatures drop, is your Dive Rescue / Recovery Team ready to respond to surface ice or Ice Dive Operations? At Team Lifeguard Systems we provide several extensive options for Winter training including but not limited to; SURFACE ICE RESCUE TECHNICIAN I & II CERTIFICATION COURSE as well as RAPID DEPLOYMENT ICE DIVING RESCUE / RECOVERY PROGRAM
Body Bags
Bagging the body is important. Anyone who has taken our homicidal drowning class has heard that mantra. No one in law enforcement or death investigation would dream of dragging a body 30 feet, let alone hundreds of feet, without bagging it. Yet think of how many departments put a rope around a floater and drag it hundreds of feet or even a couple of miles without bagging it. Yes, the body may have been floating for miles without a bag...
Staying Connected to the Diver
We teach teams to put a figure 8 in the com line and attach it to our locking carabiner on our harness just like we would any tether line. We have been doing this for over 30 years and it works well. The com lines we have are used for hundreds of dives annually and we have no problems with them. Make sure to tuck the com wire (between the com line and the full face mask) into your harness so it’s not dangling. Attached is a...
Dive Ops & Com bags
The attached photo shows a primary tender and diver (middle) with a primary diver on the end of a com line tether. A backup tender who also serves as the profiler (scribe) and who documents every move the primary diver makes, the primary diver’s breathing rate every five minutes, all in/down/out pressures and times, calculates and documents if the diver’s search speed is appropriate for the search object and environment,...