Bad day in this end of the country

[Gary D.]

040904

I’m at home working on the yard when the pager goes off. 1747 hours. “Poss. drowning lower Fernan near Theis. Male is approx. 50 to 100 feet from shore”. I run into the house and get the keys, kiss my sweetie and back out the door.

I’m in service at 1748 hours right smack into the commute traffic. 1756 hours I’m the second unit on scene 11.2 miles later. I’m able to drive across a big lawn and get within 20” of the water. Suit up and in the water at 1800 hours behind the first unit who was on duty when the call came in.

1813 hours we have a find in 6” of Vis at 14’ 100' feet from shore. Temp is 42df.

I made the initial dive in swear pants and a “T” shirt under my dry suit. Wrong thing to do. I might get warmed up sometime tomorrow. But when it comes to a life or being cold, I can warm up later.

Just prior to 2000 hours they called him. His core temp in that short period of time went to 77df. They got him re-warmed but he just wouldn’t restart. What a waste of a 29 year old male.

We don’t know for sure yet but we think he just purchased the canoe he was in. No PFD, had their been one he just might have made it.

Only two on the team didn’t make the call and it went well.

While we were wrapping things up two stupid boaters launched without PFD’s. Both responded with “We’re good swimmers”. They reloaded and went somewhere to buy some. How stupid can people be? Out of all my recoveries only about a half a dozen couldn’t swim, The rest are dead expert swimmers.

Gary D.

 

[H2Andy]

tough day

 

[smay28]

No S _ _ t, GD... What's a measly little investment in a PFD and a slight sacrifice of comfort compared to never making it back to shore? Kudos to you for your efforts and you're absolutely correct.. 29 years wasted and who knows what life might have held in store.. That just sucks..
Cheers

 

[Gary D.]

http://www.cdapress.com/articles/2004/04/10/news/news01.txt

The guy in the Gumby suit is a fireman not a deputy.

They suit up and serve two purposes. First they just might get lucky and make a find. Second they can get into a possible last seen position for us to use for target.

Gary D.

 

[BigJetDriver]

Gary D

The guy in the Gumby suit is a fireman not a deputy.

They suit up and serve two purposes. First they just might get lucky and make a find. Second they can get into a possible last seen position for us to use for target.

Gary D.

Gary,

As a law enforcement officer and Public Safety Diver Instructor Trainer who has friends from Battalion Chief on down in various fire departments, I would have to hope that you are just joking, and that you really do not have this attitude.

Over all of the United States, almost all of the rescue work is done by fire department teams, and the majority of recovery work is done by them as well, not by standing law enforcement teams. The majority of teams, both law enforcement and fire department are volunteers as well!

It really isn't very nice to be arrogant toward your fellow recovery brethren. You may need their help some day!!!

 

[Snowbear]

It really isn't very nice to be arrogant toward your fellow recovery brethren.

Actually - as a firefighter, I don't get that impression at all from Gary's post. Of course - I could be way off base, but this is my impression:

The guy in the Gumby suit is a fireman not a deputy.

The caption ID's the guy in the water as a deputy. Gary's correcting that error.

They suit up and serve two purposes. First they just might get lucky and make a find. Second they can get into a possible last seen position for us to use for target.

I got from the article that the Gumby-suited guy was freediving, so the getting lucky and making a find is probably about right. As for a target - yeah, he's easy to spot! It really is helpful to have a physical marker on the water.

 

[BigJetDriver]

Actually - as a firefighter, I don't get that impression at all from Gary's post.

Reabwons,

Hey, if you, as a firefighter didn't get that impression, then well and good. Perhaps he did not mean it the way it seemed to read.

As for targets, you ain't just a whoofin' about how helpful they are.

Cheers!

 

[Gary D.]

I don't know how this got off on the wrong foot.

The caption under the photo ID's the guy in the water in the Gumby suit as a deputy. He not, he a fireman. Thats all I ment by that.

It's a toss up as to who gets to on site first so the firemen will get in the Gumby suits to assist us. One thing they do is start interviews and get out on the surface so witnesses can point out a last seen point.

We work so close with our firemen we could be one department. They concentrate on surface rescue while we concentrate on both with diving being our primary. They can't dive in the Gumby suits as they are designed strictly for surface work as a survival suit. If the water is clear enough he just mite make the find.

I'm sure if you were in a photo and someone titled it as being someone else you would correct the mistake. Thats all I was doing.

Todd Jackson works for the Kootenai County Fire Department as a full time paid fireman and is not an employee of the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department.

There, I said in three lines what I said earlier in one.

You must have missed my earlier posts on how well we work together. So well that they will take any one of 6 rescue trucks anywhere we need them including across the country. We have been in a plane or chopper headed for a dive site several hunderd miles away. Who drove, but the firemen in a rescue truck to support us. Not many departments will do that.

A few years ago one of our firemen was lost in a duck hunting accident in a major river. The local team in that area searched and gave up stating conditions were to bad and hazardious to dive. We started to go in but the Sheriff of that county tried to stop us. Ignoring his warnings about arresting us we searched for a week and found him close to a ledge with a 1500 foot drop off.

Conditions were bad as the accident happened where the major river feeding the 5th largest lake in the U.S., outside the Great Lakes, dumps into the lake. Heavy current, lots of fallen trees and debris, poor vis. with snow and ice hampered the search. But we didn't give up. We brought one of our own home.

Yes we do work together and very well.

Gary D.

 

[Gary D.]

This is out of the Spokane paper. I wish they had the photo online. It shows Firemen, Medics and still suited divers all working together.

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/idaho-news-story.asp?date=041004&ID=s1508408&cat=section.idaho

Gary D.

 

[dtdiver]

how did you get in the water so quickly?
do you keep it arranged in a particular fashion?
dry suit/ tanks/ etc/ etc just to get suited up takes me longer than it took you to drive to the scene and complete the recovery.

dt