Yotsie
Contributor
Last night (saturday) I was getting ready to head out the door to meet my parents and fiance at a pretty fancy restaurant when the pager goes off. I could tell right away it was a callout, and I was right. "Teenager thrown from boat after boating accident with no life vest".
Made it to the hanger, packed gear and was on scene at our local lake pretty fast. Department helo had finished it's search pattern and the boats were waiting for us. We have about an hour of light left so a quick pattern was ran around the point last seen.
The search is called after nightfall and we all met back this morning at 0700.
We get back onscene and set up a gps based grid and resume the search. Eight hours and six divers later, "code 3" (our term for a find) echos out of the surface comm. Our 18 year old, non-swimming, intoxicated male is located. The scene is investigated and the recovery made.
This subject was in a "Kmart Coffin" (small, cheap rubber raft) without a PFD on and reportedly intoxicated. Tries to row out to the 5MPH buoys, but decides to jump out of the raft to "walk" to the buoy. He is not seen again until 1600 hours when he comes up from 12 FFW in our bag.
Great operation with all members of the team getting things done without direction or much discussion, just everyone on the same page. Had to overcome some search pattern problems, but went off without a hitch.
Just as we located this one, we get an another page of another possible drowning on the other side of the lake. The second call ends up being a rescue completed by one of our boat crew and we wern't needed.
I'll be happy to be behind the wheel of my patrol car tomorrow. Hopefully my gear will get dry before the next one.
Made it to the hanger, packed gear and was on scene at our local lake pretty fast. Department helo had finished it's search pattern and the boats were waiting for us. We have about an hour of light left so a quick pattern was ran around the point last seen.
The search is called after nightfall and we all met back this morning at 0700.
We get back onscene and set up a gps based grid and resume the search. Eight hours and six divers later, "code 3" (our term for a find) echos out of the surface comm. Our 18 year old, non-swimming, intoxicated male is located. The scene is investigated and the recovery made.
This subject was in a "Kmart Coffin" (small, cheap rubber raft) without a PFD on and reportedly intoxicated. Tries to row out to the 5MPH buoys, but decides to jump out of the raft to "walk" to the buoy. He is not seen again until 1600 hours when he comes up from 12 FFW in our bag.
Great operation with all members of the team getting things done without direction or much discussion, just everyone on the same page. Had to overcome some search pattern problems, but went off without a hitch.
Just as we located this one, we get an another page of another possible drowning on the other side of the lake. The second call ends up being a rescue completed by one of our boat crew and we wern't needed.
I'll be happy to be behind the wheel of my patrol car tomorrow. Hopefully my gear will get dry before the next one.
