Private vs. Public Dive Teams

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As an Alaska resident, diver, and one involved in water safety, please accept my thanks as well. It was a good thing that you did.
 
Its called "AHJ" Authority Having Jurisdiction. Be you private or public the governing body of the municipality has the overall responsablitity for operations. I personaly doubt that they would be willing to take on the liability of a group of well meaning divers.

There is I think a disctintion bewtween dedicated professional PSD teams that work hard and dive often to develop and maintain skills. At the other extreme are the groups of FD and PD ofiicers whio have open water certs and soem PSD training who are doing well to dive 12 times per year to meet minimum cert/currency requirements, who do not dive at all or dive very little in their off duty hours (ie: they are not divers) and who often view participation on the PSD team as more or less a merit badge or resume filler.

No one does it better than a profession PSD team. A group of FD/PD divers who play at being a PSD team are in most cases a hazard to themselves and a hinderance in recovery efforts that could be done much faster and more efficiently by local commerical divers or by a local (non PD or FD related) PSD team composed of experienced and dedicated divers who have the skills to do recovery dives in deep, cold, low or zero viz conditions for which the average PD or FD OW diver with some added PSD training diver is ill prepared.

One of the challenges in rurual / less populated areas is maintaining a team with a high level of skill and ability when you may get one call out every 2-5 years - not something that appeals to an adventurous FD or PD member who does not like to dive just for the sake of diving. In that situation going with a non FD or PD team of local divers who are very skilled, very experienced and dive a lot in the local conditions makes sense. They are also good candidates to send to whatever PSD training is deemed important. They will show up for team meetings and training dives and they will dive a lot on their own well in excess of any minimum currency standard so when the call comes they will be ready and will be capable of making the rescue - as opposed to the alternative of a PD / or FD diver whos is doing well just getitng to 100 ft in zero viz and surviving let alone actually conducting a thorough search of the assigned area.

"Well meaning" does not even enter into the equation and it denigrates the level of skill that a "civilian" diver may possess and that is usually ignored by fraternal "public safety officer only" attitudes with regard to team funding and membership.
 
Its been said allot before by the actual PSDs on here -- sport diving is not PSD

So what makes a "diver" as far as a PSD is concerned?
I do about 50-100 sport dives a year but if I don't do any team training as a PSD I'm no better off then anyone who's done zero sport dives. If I'm buddy diving (aka sport diving) the whole skill set is of little use to the experienced PSD. The disciplines are entirely different. 1 good hard PSD training day per month is the norm for almost any team volly or paid. The difference then becomes the quality of their training and procedures.
12 sessions a year can be enough to give you a competent, effective PSD if its done properly. Saying that they need to do sport dives is not required. Its like saying snorkelling and scuba is the same - similar but certainly not the same.

Some PSDs may take offense to the fact that they may not be called "divers" but when you really think about it none of us are (at least in the traditional sense). We're PSDs. Some, like myself, may sport dive allot so that may make me a diver and a PSD but when I'm doing the job of a PSD I don't need to be a "diver"

I'm sure that guys that are actual PSDs can back me up on this


nudediver makes a very good point about the value of doing a recovery or not. I agree completely. Sometimes we don't like to admit it because we want to do the job but the decision NOT to do it is the most important


Dave

I think you have your answer in your own post
"I have the resources to collect a group of qualified divers to for a private team but don't have the funding for equipment or training nor the time to manage such a thing."

Just take the "but" out there find what you need and get it going. Use the old "if you build it they will come" - nobody's going to build it for you though

side note - I'm glad that you recovered this guy and nobody else was hurt.

hope this helps
 
There is I think a disctintion bewtween dedicated professional PSD teams that work hard and dive often to develop and maintain skills. At the other extreme are the groups of FD and PD ofiicers whio have open water certs and soem PSD training who are doing well to dive 12 times per year to meet minimum cert/currency requirements, who do not dive at all or dive very little in their off duty hours (ie: they are not divers) and who often view participation on the PSD team as more or less a merit badge or resume filler.
I still enjoy sport diving But honestly it is completly different than Public Saftey Diving. I feel that if you don't enjoy diving period you wont last very long as a PSD. I believe there are statistics to back that up but I can't find them right now. From reading other threads on this board about safety levels and safety comforts. The Average Recreational Diver has no business being in a zero viz entanglement hazard. Even a really good rec diver would scratch a crappy viz dive, thats part of what makes him a good diver. Im sure Im not the only one to encounter a snow fence in zero viz. or a fallen tree. In a perfect world with good viz and a smooth bottom anybody that can stomach the site can recover a body. Unfortanatly this is not a perfect world.
 
Why do people still find it necessary to try to compare public safety diving with any other type of diving? It baffles the mind really.

We are not some club trying exclude anyone. We do not sit around telling ourselves how much better we are than commercial or tech divers. Get over your own ego's and move on. There are no similarities between pubilc safety diving and any other type of diving except for the fact that it takes place under water.

I would really like if people posting in the forum especially senior moderators would take a moment to review their posts before the submit them. Think about what they are writing and how it may be recieved by others.

If there was anyting positive or constructive in your post DA Aqua it will surely be missed amongst all the insults and misinformed conclusions. This is especially interesting since your profile contains nothing about any PSD experience or exposure. You just came of as another inflated ego tech diver who thinks he knows it all, tells us he knows it all then offers up nothing constructive on how to improve the situations he seems to know so much about.

NudeDiver, What can I say but Yikes!!! Not sure how anyone could say the things you did. Whle I agree with bridgediver that body recover is not always something that must be done all efforts should be made to attept body recovery as long as it does not put PSD at unecessary risk. It is hard to explain but it is so very important to all those involved. Not just the victims family but for the divers as well.

Mark D.
 
Guys, Thank for the comments and info. I certainly wasn't interested in starting any arguments or setting up anyone to take shots at anyone else.

I respect the heck out of real PSD divers and the risks that they take everytime they get in the water. I've been part of a FD based volunteer dive team (12 dives a year) and know the basics so I understand what they face.

Myself, and my buddy that was with me yesterday are both commercial divers and (sport/technical) are willing to do this as a community service. We have the necessary skills to do the dives that we are willing to do and know when to say no.

I'm not sure where this will go locally, I think the State Troopers were shown that we do have the resources locally to do this type of work when necessary. Hopefully, they will review and debrief the case internally to improve the response next time.

I too believe that provided the risks are not unreasonable, an effort should be made to retrieve the body. In this case, we were on the waterfront where many of us frequently dive to collect bottles and junk so the dive itself was fairly safe.

Thanks again for all your input.

Dave
 
Dave,
I've worked with a number of guys up there, both FD and state troopers they might be able to give you a lay of the land so to speak. Certainly have the inside track as far as Alaska goes

send me a PM if you're serious

Mark
 
Bringing a body home should be attempted if it can be done in a safe manner. I have been on dives that were so difficult to make a recovery due to depth, flooded timber and other dangers that for the diver's safety we called off operations. Some weeks later the victim floated and that is how the body was recovered. You should risk a life only to save a life. Risk a little to save little and risk nothing to save nothing. I have had family members tell us that while they want their loved one found they did not want anyone else hurt or killed to do so. That is the way it should be.
 
NudeDiver, What can I say but Yikes!!! Not sure how anyone could say the things you did. Whle I agree with bridgediver that body recover is not always something that must be done all efforts should be made to attept body recovery as long as it does not put PSD at unecessary risk. It is hard to explain but it is so very important to all those involved. Not just the victims family but for the divers as well.
What can I say? I'm a practical guy. I don't see the point in spending thousands of dollars for a box to put a body in a cemetery either. Of course, if someone wants to spent their OWN money - that's up to them. But it shouldn't fall to the tax payers, that's for sure. Speaking for myself, I sure hope that when the time comes, my wife has the sense to do something more productive with her money than to spend a bunch of it on a funeral for me.
 
it doesn't take as much money to fund divers who have their own equipment!

Actually initial personal equipment is a very small part of the cost of running a PSD team.

I also noticed that you choose to "thank" mostly one side of the discussion yet not engage in anymore disscussion. Its kind of like taking sides, no?
I also notice from your profile that you don't have any PSD training either so how can you determine what is a "useful post"?

I find no harm in a good discussion. We're all looking for understanding here, right? Unfortunately as Mark says some of the non-PSDs that come into this forum have a preconceived idea about what PSD is and choose not to listen or ask questions but act like they know.

I'm not suggesting that Papa bear is like this but hopefully you can make your points or offer up a counter?
 

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