Soon-to-be certified diver looking for a dive team

[MikeFerrara]

Tippicanoo county has a team, Montecello has a team PD/FD, I hear Lafayette PD is puttiong together a team, A freind of mine in Elkheart who is an accademy instructor trains a couple of teams, Indy PD has a team, Indy PD has a team and I know there are a few local teams in Noth eastern In. There is about a bazillion dive teams in Indiana aside from the DNR.

How did you get the idea that there was only DNR? Now, I won't try to tell you that all these teams are well funded or well trained because they're not especially the smaller township or volunteer teams. Some of them are made up of inexperienced OW divers using donated junk equipment but there are teams out there.

An instructor probably isn't going to get funding unless he's already PD or FD.

 

[medic_diver45]

I knew Tippecanoe had a team, but you don't find any around Vigo, Parke, Clay, Knox, Sullivan (I've heard that Sullivan is forming one though) or other counties around here. Supposedly one of the elitist fire departments on the other side of Vigo County has a dive operation, but they haven't done anything that I am aware of (and their FF's are not the brightest bulbs so if they tried anything, it would probably fail and/or wind up as an LODD) and they won't respond outside of their township or a couple of other townships that they have mutual aid agreements with. Putnam County is supposed to have one, but I have never heard of them doing anything. We have always just called the DNR or State Police divers in....It's like you said, there may be other teams around but they are either not utilized by county departments or are so poorly organized that they can manage to deploy in a timely fashion. Things see a lot better organized in other parts of IN, but around here things are pretty bad when it comes to tech or other special rescue ops.

I hear Indy has an excellent team, but they are too far away to bother calling- the two state police posts and all the game wardens are much closer and we get more than enough divers that way (although it still takes a while to get them out ro a scene).

 

[medic_diver45]

But like I said before, I am looking at being here no longer than another ten months....so I basically am not really interested in getting involved with anything that may be here locally (although if the training was available I'd be all over that before I left).

 

[rustyscubatool]

Maybe I missed something here.
If you're already an EMT, FF, and are so gung-ho to become a PSD, it would seem that you are a caring, compassionate individual (and from scanning a lot of your other posts it seems to be true), yes? So why do you have this "I'm leaving soon, so who cares what happens to the place after I leave it" attitude? I think someone here suggested getting involved in helping where it needs helping, no?

 

[Brian Gilpin]

I was going to invite you to Norcal until I read your fourth stipulation. Are there still places you can rent for less than $600?

 

[medic_diver45]

It's not that I don't care what happens here locally after I leave (since my family will still be here), but just that many others and myself have pounded our heads against the wall trying to improve things and we have made very little headway in the area of dive rescue. We have done a great deal towards providing better EMS, fire, and surface water rescue for our district; these things are not likely to degrade after I leave since while I am directly responsible for my department in regards to EMS, others handle the other areas and I am already helping to groom a fine young EMT (he's awesome actually.....and I don't say that about many people) to fill my shoes come May or June when Jennifer and I say "so long" to Indiana.

 

[Greg D.]

I guess it all comes down to funding... getting money out of polititions is like getting blood from a stone, unless it's in the form of a pay raise for themselves That being said, rather than standing arround asking the state for money, why don't you and the others that want to be on a dive team get together and raise the money yourselves.

You would be suprised at how much money you can get from local buisneses once you have a non-profit status for your team, ie "tax deductable contributions". There are a lot of people out there that give money to charitys that would just as soon give it to you.

We are a volunteer team, we raise our own money for gear and training, our SO helps us out with our two vehicles as far as fuel, maintinece and such but other than that we are on our own. Did i mention that both of our vehicles were donated to us? and the SO paint jobs? See if you can get the county to help you out with the little stuff first.

We get a state search number for every call we get, once we have that we are good to go, if something gets lost or broken the state will pick up the tab for us. It might take a little time to get the check but oh well. Check with your state officials for grants and such.

It's alot of work but anything worth while is.