More Mapping technology and a visor digital display to assist with the murk @ depth. Would love to hear some news other then still looking for some closure for the family.
Search for missing Tennessee diver in Pelham getting new technology to aid divers | AL.com
PELHAM, Alabama -- Emergency personnel looking at a former quarry in Pelham for a missing Tennessee scuba diver are getting new technology today to aid in their search.
Divers are undergoing training this morning on using a handheld device that projects a digital image onto a flip-down visor for enhancing their ability to see through murky silt in the depths of the Dive Alabama facility.
In addition to the vision-enhancing equipment from Coffee County, Tenn., a 24-foot pontoon boat equipped with sonar technology that can map the bottom of the quarry is arriving around noon from Georgia to assist divers.
An abundance of resources from throughout Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida have arrived to help in the search for Daren Gray, 49, of Spring Hill, Tenn. "It's unbelievable," Ray said about the support from other emergency agencies.
The ongoing effort has entered its sixth day as crews search for Gray, who failed to check in after a planned two-hour dive on Saturday afternoon, leading Dive Alabama staff to notify first-responders at about 5:30 p.m.
"We're still continuing to search some promising areas," Pelham Fire Chief Danny Ray said at a press conference this morning at the site.
Already one dive team had completed a search this morning and a second team was in the water, Ray said. Deep-water divers are continuing to search in an area that showed "significant indicators" from sonar earlier.
"We're concentrating in that area we talked about yesterday. We're systematically searching that area," Ray said.
The area is described as about 100 yards wide by about 300 yards long at a depth of between 105 to 130 feet. It falls in line with the "diver's exit route" in his filed plan, Ray said.
The silt in the deeper areas limits visibility to about 4 to 6 feet. "You can actually sink down into it," Ray said about the silt at the quarry's bottom.
Divers are using a technique to search in circular patterns 100 feet out from a buoy placed in the specified area. Today's search is utilizing five deep-water divers split into two teams with a sixth member on standby, Ray said.
"We're still using sonar when we don't have divers in the water," he said. "The interesting areas we identified, what we're attempting to do is reproduce those (images) with the sonar."
Crews searched until 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday in order to finish a dive that started later in the day. The plan is to continue searching again until around sundown today.
Ray said he is not predicting when the search will end if Gray is not found. "We haven't hit that point. I will not even estimate an end. We are going to continue as long as necessary," he said.
---------- Post added October 9th, 2014 at 04:20 PM ----------
---------- Post added October 9th, 2014 at 04:21 PM ----------
As a pro/con I had thought in the past about doing a solo cert at sometime in the future as have had a time or two when I had to redo plans or outright cancel a dive due to not having a partner or someone waking up with sinus issues. While the training is probably very informative(and I may still take it at some point in the future, just because I have it does not mean I have to stop diving with partners) I think I am personally leaning more toward staying with a buddy / group if for no other reason then to have someone know where I am in he event of a problem/emergency/tragedy.
