Diver drowns while training

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I read this with great sadness , and feel it should of or could of been avoided in the first place , first the fire dept needs to take responsibility for its training, why is a diver with so few dives even being a Public safety diver yet, he hasn't even had enough dives or time in the water to be really comfortable or now his equipment and skills enough to even be a Public safety diver, most of the dive teams I dive with have a minimum amount of dives and additional dive training before they even start the training to become Public safety diver . That is one of the major problems with most Dive team, most of there true members aren't ready yet period!!!!!!!!!!!!!But still my heart goes out to the family!!!!!!!
 
Nothing wrong with resurrecting an old thread if you have something to contribute!

I've noticed the same thing on the 2 PSD teams I'm sort of involved with (I'm not a member of either). The majority of the members got certified just to get on the team and outside of those cert dives and the twice a year training dives, they don't dive. At all. Callouts are infrequent and most of those are surface rescues. Every once in a great while I talk someone into going fun diving. One guy I was even diving with semi-regularly, but then his wife had a difficult pregnancy and now a new kid, so he doesn't dive at all any more.

I think the guys on the paid FD team will be OK. They stick with their SOGs and training. The ones on the volunteer team in the area I live do not. They have a new chief in charge now and it sounds like changes are happening (though slowly), so hopefully they will get their act together before they have a serious accident!
 
Like most of the other threads there is both good and bad but a lot to learn here.

Way too many dive teams around the country are ill equipped and poorly trained. Others are very well equipped and well trained. This goes for both full-time and volunteer teams. But the full-time teams NORMALLY have better control of the team and dictate how you’re trained and equipped.

Most volunteer teams are geared more towards recovery diving than rescue/recovery. Without having a take home vehicle, that you can legally run code with, rescue call-outs are not that effective.

Training is so very important. There has to be a lot of it. We train 20 hours a month 8-9 mounts a year, plus some off duty stuff. Some teams train once or twice a year and that is inviting disaster. Some of the training is nothing more than a Bar-B-Q and a play diving get together someone calls training. Training is just that and it needs to be serious training.

Equipment is another issue. For recovery there can be a mix of equipment. For rescue all the equipment needs to be the same. Recovery can and should be slow and well thought out. Rescue on the other-hand is what you night call controlled chaos. Most volunteer team members just can’t afford to purchase all the same equipment.

On duty calls aren’t as taxing on you as off duty calls. On duty your ready to respond at the drop of a hat. But off duty, in the middle of the night, out of a dead sleep, when that pager goes off you mind has to get focused quickly.

I get focused by grabbing the pager and brushing my teeth while I read the message. Sorry but I need to do a quickie brush. Normally out the door in less than two minutes. Into the car and on the radio. Now you’re flying down the road, code, out of a dead sleep trying to plan a dive.

Get to the dive site where you may be the first unit on scene or the 20th. Your arrival order is very important on what your job is going to be. Nobody has to tell you what your job is, you just know from the prior training. If you’re a primary or back-up diver you need to be fast and accurate from this point on. Our team strikes for being in the water in less than three minutes, from our time of arrival at the scene.

Some of you are going to think that no big deal. It isn’t hard if you’re in warm water but we are cold all year long so it in dry suits 99% of the time.

Conditions have to be right and safe for us so it all boils down to Risk vs Benefit. We do not hang our butts out to dry here. We weren’t the ones who caused the situation so we are not going to add to the body count.

We always debrief afterwards. It may be at the scene, at the office or over a beer but debriefing is a very important step in the team’s mental survival.

Pay is another issue. Volunteer’s normally have jobs that pay the bills. Some can leave anytime where others can’t leave work at all. My team, on the other hand, is highly paid for this activity. The department supplies and maintains our equipment and we get a Taxman's shattering 50 cents an hour.

Our fire departments are geared for surface rescue while we are geared for surface rescue and diving. We work very closely together and the problems we have are so trivial we don’t even worry about them. One example on how well we work together is when they built the first new rescue truck. They came to us and wanted to know what we needed and where it should be on the truck. What our air needs were and how to run surface supplied air off the truck. Today all the rescue trucks, all 6 are set up identically to aid us. They will also go anywhere we need them to go, even out of state which we do quite often.

One dive a few years ago took us to centeral Montana. We flew in choppers and the fire department was enroute with a rescue truck to support us. Thats cooperation.

It takes a good working relationship with other departments who might be involved as well as training, equipment and a good support from your own administration. We are so lucky. Our SRU and Dive teams are top priority with my department.

Gary D.
 
"Capt. Mario Garza, spokesman for the INdianapolis Fire Department, said the department made minor changes to its procedures after the accident, but some steps -- including checking divers' air supplies before submerging -- were adopted."

Hummm, checking the diver's air supply. And this was a minor change. I hope the person writing this story misquoted, otherwise Capt. Garza doesn't know zip about diving.
A sorry tale, and a sad death.
 
I'm glad to see that this post continues nearly two years after the actual incident. It is vital that all of us as divers, Public Safety Divers or not, discuss topics such as this and try to make things better and safer.

To anyone skimming through the posts, I am an Indianapolis POLICE Department diver and was present soon after the initial report and was quickly in the water searching for the IFD diver who lost his life nearly two years ago. In ref. to metaldector's comment about "minor changes" let me say this...that quote was taken out of context more than I can possibly express. I have nothing to hide here.

Since the accident, one of two accidents involving IFD divers in the last four years, sweeping changes were made in both the IFD and IPD dive teams. The National Academy of Police Diving (really the only agency of its kind at the time) was immediately called in as an outside agency to evaluate and make reccomendations regarding how the teams functioned and trained. All IFD diving was suspended immediately pending review. Obviously, the NAPD reccomended several changes in the way that IFD conduct their diving/training operations. At the same time, the incident was reported to OSHA, IOSHA, and NIOSH, all of which came to Indianapolis and conducted indepth investigations. After all reports were filed, IFD fired their outside dive trainer, the same trainer present at both accidents. IFD then began an extensive search for a new training method. Both IFD and IPD, as well as many of the departments in the surrounding area, adopted a training philosophy developed by Dive Rescue International. DRI is easily the premier public safety diving agency in the country. It has been a long, tough road. The change has been night and day.

I will not continue to bore you with the other details of how things have changed, but believe me when I say that they have changed. Indianapolis is a large city with large police and fire departments. We train extensively and are extremely busy dive teams. We take the business of public safety diving extremely seriously. Please do not get the impression that we are a small, backwater, fly by the seat of our pants operation. Nothing could be further from the truth. If anyone would like to discuss anything else related to this topic, I'd be glad to answer your questions the best that I can. Thanks.
 
Just read the initial post of this thread. I hope this was just skewed reporting...

Last paragraph:
"...the department made minor changes to its procedures after the accident, but some steps -- including checking divers' air supplies before submerging -- were adopted."

A NEW step, that was a MINOR change? If checking your air supply before getting submerging is something new in this training, and it is considered minor, someone had better have a look at the training.

JAG
 
jagfish:
Just read the initial post of this thread. I hope this was just skewed reporting...

Last paragraph:
"...the department made minor changes to its procedures after the accident, but some steps -- including checking divers' air supplies before submerging -- were adopted."

A NEW step, that was a MINOR change? If checking your air supply before getting submerging is something new in this training, and it is considered minor, someone had better have a look at the training.

JAG

Mario Garza, while a great guy and ex-IFD spokesman, is not a diver. I think it is obvious to anyone that checking your air before entering a dive is crucial. The diver who died did check his air, did perform a buddy check, did check his gear, did dive with a partner, did wear fins, did don a BC, etc. He followed basic diving techniques prior to entering the water. That was not the problem. The quote cited in the above post is a quote that is part of a much larger statement and was made by a non-diver who was not privy to or involved in the initial incident or any of the investigations that followed. Please view it as such and hopefully let it rest.
 
I'm glad to hear that such sweeping changes were made. Agencies like Dive Rescue International and National Academy of Police Diving (and their PSD counterpart who's name I don't remember) are state of the art and, IMO, that's the place to start.
 
I have been perusing PSD threads and this is a very good thread.

"Bump" for this thread to bring it to folks' attention again.
 
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