Question For PSD Team Leaders

[nwfladiver]

I volunteer for the local sar dive team which is just one part of the whole unit. We are not funded by the county in no way. We depend on donations from the community and private organizations.
Fund raising is our bread and butter in order to stay ready for any call out.

Our boat command has two new Kawasaki jet skis that is loaned to us from the Manufacturer and are replaced every two years with new ones. All of our divers supply there own basic gear and all the safety gear is supplied by the unit.

The sheriffs department has a dive team but pretty much uses them at a crime scene and I don't even think our police department has a dive team. Like most county goverments the PSDs are overlooked and not funded for one reason or another.

For teams that are not funded all I can say is make it happen from the community. It can happen
as it has for the sar team i am on. Donations are the key.

Wendell Bomar
Escambia Search and Rescue
Dive Team

 

[Gary D.]

IMHO if the Sheriff’s Department has a dive team the local PD’s shouldn’t. Or if a PD has a team the Sheriff shouldn’t. A municipality should have one strong team to cover the entire area rather than two or more weaker teams. There can be members from multiple jurisdictions on the team but it needs to be one team under command.

The exception I would agree to is if Fire/Med has a rescue team then the LEO’s could have a recovery team. But I don’t like that either. The bottom line is too many teams create chaos and the public suffers. There have been some major metropolitan areas that can’t work together and who suffers but the public who we are here to serve.

We can get to 90%+ of our dive sites faster then Fire/Med can due to our geographical area. We are much better suited to handle anything water related because we have the boats, personnel, equipment and members scattered around the county from one agency. The FD’s have different districts and funding so having one team for a 1400 sq mi area isn’t going to be as smooth as one agency covering it.

There should be one strong team under one command to cover an area. Then everyone needs to play well together and share resources. The equipment and amount of man power resources we have at a dive site could not be there from one department or agency so let’s play well together.

Gary D.

 

[ReefGuy]

I don't know, Gary. We train with our PD on a regular basis. Each of us has a smallish team. The theory is that we can jointly respond to any major incident (which we haven't had yet, thankfully).

 

[dittrimd]

I think funding is an issue for all teams regardless if you are volunteer or paid. The bottom line is that PSD is expensive if you do it right. Correct PPE and public safety grade equpiment is very specialized (expensive) and outfitting a team is a big financial undertaking.

My volunteer FD recently started purchasing all major gear for our divers. Our budget is about $5K per diver just for diving gear. Dry suits, Full face masks w/comms, regulators, tanks, BCD's. That does not include support gear like ropes, vehicle, surface support equipment, etc. I feel very fortunate that my department chose to invest heavily in our dive team.

Our team is a county regional team made up of the volunteer FD's in the county. Members of our team who are not fully funded by thier FD's are forced to use their personal recreational gear for PSD work. This is not an ideal situation but if we pushed the issue our team could be shut down becuase of the cost vs. benefit to the county.

Our commanders work very hard to balance diver safety with out teams operations. I have been on the team for almost 8 years and feel they do a great job with this balancing act.

It is a tough nut to crack unless you have unlimited funds.

Good luck,

Mark D.

 

[absolutecountry]

We are the dive team for our county, for now. The sheriff dept. is in the process of starting a team, but I don't know if they intend to respond to all types of calls, or just evidence/ crime scenes. We have trained with the Charleston county sheriff dept. dive team, and the Charleston county rescue squad dive team in the past, with very little, or no problems. The divers seem to work VERY well with other divers, as has pretty much always been my experience. Sometimes there are differences with tenders/ support personel, but as long as you keep your tenders with your divers, no problem.
Our agency supplies all of the support gear ie; surface markers, tanks, strobes, ropes, fullface masks, comm units, boats etc.. The individual supplies his own gear like bc, wetsuit/ drysuit, regs, fins, etc.. Some of our divers are fire Dept., like me, but most are from the private sector. I can see, having trained with agencies from other counties, how there could be alot of confusion at a scene if you mixed different agencies teams without having trained together first.