Erdi - Underwater Explosive Recovery Specialist

[Father]

Does anyone know where this is taught?

It's on the ERDI site, so I assume someone out there is qualified to give the class.
ERDI Underwater Explosive Recovery Specialist | SDI | TDI | ERDI

Yes, I am an EOD school graduate, so I am qualified.
I would still need to take Rescue Diver though. I'm working on getting that and DM in the next year.

I'm trying to establish contact with Mr. Rockie Yardley to hopefully find out if the course discussed in this article is available somewhere.
S.O.R.T.I.E. - Underwater Explosive Recovery

Any input would be appreciated.

 

[sheeper]

you can search for an ERDI instructor from the course page: Find A Dive Center | SDI | TDI | ERDI

 

[Father]

It's not very intuitive since it forces you to pick a country and state. if I could just do a broad search and it would show every place in the country or world that does that training it'd be a lot better.

Either way... by the look of it, it's only available in Oklahoma and only given by one person. Strange since it's an ERDI "course". I would think they would be interested in somehow making this more accessible or creating more instructors.

 

[Jared0425]

Most of the people I know when dealing with underwater explosives comes from bomb squad or ATF/FBI lecturers that we attend to tri annually. Never heard of this course outside of the Armed Forces or Commercial outfits.

 

[Oldbear]

Perhaps we can create a PADI UW EOD Dive Specialty...

Well maybe not; I don't think we want these "divers" messing with live explosive.

 

[Father]

Most of the people I know when dealing with underwater explosives comes from bomb squad or ATF/FBI lecturers that we attend to tri annually. Never heard of this course outside of the Armed Forces or Commercial outfits.

Which "commercial outfits" are you referring to?
Are the lecturers people that do it for a living and are just talking about it or are they "teaching" it?

 

[diversteve]

It's not intuitive but once you set up all the parameters in their search box, if the result doesn't immediately appear - i.e. the search bar at the bottom keeps scrolling, it's not going to find anyone. Here's a few I found:

 

[Jared0425]

The commercial diving business has classes that focus on underwater demolition using explosives. Not much really in the way of criminal or terrorist explosive devices and what to look for, but rather safety procedures if one is found. Agency explosive lectures were and still are based for road patrol guys but they do their best to try and add the underwater element.

Once upon a time, the Navy and NSA were going to run civilian classes for us to deal with them, but it never materialized probably due to the fact that there has been almost no incidents in the last decade, we found pipe bombs by break walls, but when caught the teen who made it just said that he was playing around thinking it would go off like a depth charge. That's the only instance of underwater explosive we have had.

Guys on the east coast have shown worry about ordenance from WWII may go off at any second if messed with, something which I assume you are worried about due to being in the western Pacific.

 

[Father]

It's not intuitive but once you set up all the parameters in their search box, if the result doesn't immediately appear - i.e. the search bar at the bottom keeps scrolling, it's not going to find anyone. Here's a few I found:

Awesome... I guess my search-fu is pretty weak. I'll definitely be emailing them. Thanks!!

The commercial diving business has classes that focus on underwater demolition using explosives. Not much really in the way of criminal or terrorist explosive devices and what to look for, but rather safety procedures if one is found. Agency explosive lectures were and still are based for road patrol guys but they do their best to try and add the underwater element.

Once upon a time, the Navy and NSA were going to run civilian classes for us to deal with them, but it never materialized probably due to the fact that there has been almost no incidents in the last decade, we found pipe bombs by break walls, but when caught the teen who made it just said that he was playing around thinking it would go off like a depth charge. That's the only instance of underwater explosive we have had.

Guys on the east coast have shown worry about ordnance from WWII may go off at any second if messed with, something which I assume you are worried about due to being in the western Pacific.

I imagine the demand is definitely regional and localized to areas where there are military bases, proving grounds, or ordnance manufacturing and of those, how many are near large bodies of water? I couldn't say off the top of my head but it's pretty likely that there are Navy EOD located close to those areas. So I imagine the demand for this, in the states at least, is probably not huge.

I'm definitely in one of those unique places, and ever here, they tend to look the other way with a lot of the ordnance taking the position of "it's not interfering with the mission or putting people in immediate danger so leave it alone". If they changed their tune it would significantly change my work load.