Public Safety Ice Rescue & Diving

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Hello All,
Glad to see all the replys coming in. I guess I left out a few things, so here are the corrections. Each one of our divers - in water, 100% and 90% have their own dedicated tender. This is in addition to a divemaster taking stats like time in, time out, psi in, psi out, psi used, etc. There is always EMS on hand who check out the divers before and after they have been in the water. Each diver is limited to a max of 20 minutes in water, or less if he/she needs to abort early. The reason for only one diver in the water (unless the particular mission calls for more) is twofold. 1) Lack of ice trained divers - only about 5 in the county, and not all may be available for the call and 2) two divers can get tangled up either with each other or with the junk and fallen trees in the water. If diver 1 needs assistance for any reason, he/she signals and diver 2 comes in to assist. Diver 3 then becomes the new 100% diver, and another diver becomes the 90% diver. At this point however, you now have 4 divers & 4 tenders making things a bit crowded.
We all wear ice harnesses under our BCD's with the line coming off of the left side. Surface crews wear either drysuits & PFDs or Gumby suits.
Again, thanks to all for replying - alot of good info is being passed.
Bear - hmmm, for this time of year, perhapse I should change it from standingbear to polarbear. :<)
 
Bear,
our area is setup something like yours. Most of our fire departments are setup to do surface ice rescue. Between two of our fire departments and our Sheriff’s dive team we have three Rescue Alive sled. Our County has lots of lakes, rivers and a dam. The Rescue Alive sled is a nice tool if you don’t have to go too far out for your victim. You can do an rescue with just 4 to 5 people. With this sled you can run across thin to thick ice paddle through water and back on ice again. This sled folds up so you can put it in the back of an ambulance.

If rescue turns into a recovery, then the dive team has to take over and do there think. When we are doing a rescue the Fire Departments and Sheriff’s dive team work together. When it becomes a recovery, then Sheriff’s Dive team take over the operation and if they need any help like support, then the fire departments can assist the divers. In the great state of Idaho the Sheriff is in charge of all rescue operations. A lot of times the Fire guys are there first and already have an operation setup and going before we can get our dive team there. Our Fire departments all have some type of cold weather rescue equipment.

My department has four suits, 2 rope bags with 300’ of float rope with pre rigged for ice rescue with one locking carabineer and a stubine ? carabineer (large none locking pear shaped carabineer). Throw bags, and about 300’ more float rope. We have two boogie boards along with a rescue sling. We do have a Rescue Alive Sled I was able to get donated to our department last year. We train every year with all of our equipment, from the sled to the sling. This way my guys are trained to use all our equipment incase the sled is being used some other place. This way they can do the “impossible with nothing” I’m just joking about that part. Our dive team trains about the same way. But let’s not forget ice diving training as well.

All of our fire guys on the shore that are on hand lines are wearing PFD’s and leather gloves if they are handling the rope. I have all my rope bags per rigged with the carabineers and three pair of gloves. Again our Fire Departments only do surface rescues.
The Fire Guy
 
You may want to look at this for surface ice and/or a diving tender base at an unstable ice hole.

http://icerescue.marsars.com/it010001.html

We haven't had much practice with them as of yet but they do seem promising as simpicity is usually the best in tool selection. We've used the 'rescue-alive' for years and have found that it is not all that great. It works great on stable or barely stable ice, moderately well through open water but terrible through broken ice or slush - which is most of the time we've seen a need for a device. It's big, heavy (really needs 2 guys to deploy) and requires some assembly before it can be used - at least in comparison with these boards.
The board seems to be alot more gentler in victim handling and can also be used as a reach device.
Will let you know how it works out for us this season but I'm fairly certain that the rescue-alive will be available as surplus at the end of the season.

Of course I don't see how a resuce alive can be used as a tender base for divers at an unstable hole at all. Many will deploy a boat for this which may take ALOT of time
 
Greg D.:
speaking of Ice... got any worth diving yet Gary?
The only good Ice we have comes out of the freezer, goes into a glass and gets covered with Cruzan. Other than that it sucks right now.

The two man made lakes are frozen over and surrounded with yellow "CAUTION" tape. Like that will do a lot of good with nobody watching them.

Did you guys get to dive that big pipe? We want to come over and try it.

Do you want to bring some of your guys over in January for ice training? The Captain wants to make a media circus out of it this year.

Media, I like the media. :mooner: :shakehead

Gary D.
 
bridgediver:
Hey I like it! Work smart NOT hard!

Don't worry Gary, I'm sure you could do something similar with a radar trap (just replace the bottle of water with a box of doughnuts) :D

Krispy Creams :D

That new rescue tool looks kuel. We need to research that.

We have had real good luck with the RA's. I have been on 3 rescues with them outside of training. They do work very well for us.

One call we had a couple of years ago was 2/3 of the way across one of our smaller lakes. Pulling something like 600' of line was a workout and a half but it still went fast.

We ran out a rope bag and when they hooked into another we pulled the new line to the sled and took off again and kept repeating that. Coming back about killed the shore guys. :D

Gary D.
 
What I failed to say is the buggy board in the summer is just a buggy board, but in the winter we have a cover I bought and it has two big rings on the front and two loops on the side. This is a great fast tool to get out on the ice with. You just run your float rope through the big rings, hook the rope up and go. The other one I called a boggy board really is a fiberglass back board that has been cut in two, It already has a place to tie into for rescues. Out of the two, the fiberglass works a little better do to the buoyancy problem we run into trying to get it under a victim. After getting the cold weather rescue suite there buoyancy is real hi and they have a hard time pushing the boggy with the cover on it down in front on the victim in the water. I teach about four Ice rescue classes each year in north Idaho. As soon as we get just a little more ice, &#8230;. It&#8217;s time to get wet. I love teaching this class. A Fire Chief and myself flew down to Dive Rescue International an went through there TtT in Ice Rescue for the State of Idaho about four years ago. Now Lane B and I are teaching this class together also.
 
Gary D, that is a great shot! I even printed that one off and I am going to paint the helmet white for a Chief &#61514;
The Fire Guy.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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