Stolen car

[james croft]

Stolen car was run off a boat ramp in the James River. I'm getting ready to head out the door in a few minutes to go do the hookup for the wrecker. Apparently the vehicle has been pushed 100 yds or so by the current, which has been described as swift. I told the officer that if swift was more than 2 knots we weren't going in.
He started with the"we need to determine if there is a body in it" speech. I wish I had a dollar for everytime I heard that. I guess they think you will say"Oh, a body may be in it ? Why didn't you say so. Lets go!" In a couple of days the level of the river will fall and it will be a lot less current. No sense getting killed over a total loss vehicle.
We will see how it goes.
High shrinkage factor today-Some ice along the edges of the river.

 

[Boater Dan]

Pretty simple scenario in my mind. Risk vs Reward analysis.

1) Evidence which won't be going anywhere until conditions improve.
2) If there is someone in the vehicle, they are not going anywhere
3) No evidence is worth risking a team member and then others in the rescue
4) Poor conditions = wait until the conditions improve to safe operating conditions.

We were recently involved in a vehicle recovery where the PD thought we would just send one or two divers to jump in the water and attach a tow truck. SORRY, but we have our protocols which we follow and we have a full team response to insure safe and adequate resources are available to complete the recovery.

Do not be pressured into risky dives.

Just my $.02.

Dan

 

[justleesa]

Brrr....cold! Good Luck and stay safe!

 

[Yotsie]

We usually get 10-12 vehicle recoveries a year. Most are in rather large canal such as the California Aquaduct and the Delta Mendota, which run right through our county. These have some rather rippin currents. Our thought is, if your not profecient in diving in current, don't do it. Like Boater Dan said, pretty easy Risk vs Benefit decision there, especially if you expect the water level to drop. Nothing says you can't come back in a couple of days or weeks to recover the vehicle. This is not a rescue scenerio as described, so if there is a body in the car, it will more than likely still be in there when conditions are more favorable.

 

[mike_s]

I told the officer that if swift was more than 2 knots we weren't going in.

He started with the"we need to determine if there is a body in it" speech.

Ask him (in front of everyone) if it's worth having several dead bodies over if conditions aren't safe?

 

[Tigerman]

Having worked with misc safety-related occupations for the past 10 years, theres one list of priorities that has always returned to me, even when I was in the army (and no, I was definetly not a paper-pusher).
1. Personal safety
2. Other peoples safety
3. Property safety.

Here its pretty straight forward.. Property is already down there and not going anywhere. "Other people" which we dont even know for certain there is in the vehilce, would be considered a lost cause by the time a diver even get in the water, altho cold water would speak for an eventual victim. So what were left with is putting yourself in hazard for a vehicle that is lost and a POSSIBLE victim that by all likelyhood is beyond rescue. Nope, I would not do that dive just because "we need to know if someone died"..

 

[james croft]

Not as bad as I feared. The roof of the van was out of the water and the bottom was hard so the undercarriage was not buried. Current would have been bad but van created a nice eddy that allowed an easy hookup. We used a boat and came up to the vehicle and stayed in the eddy where the current was nil. We hooked it up easy. The water was a little brisk but it turned out to be an easy dive.

 

[Gary D.]

:thumbs_up: Risk vs Benefit. Sounds like you took your available tools and used them to have a safe operation:thumbs_up:

Good job

Gary D.

 

[mike_s]

You guys ever use a lift bag inside the car to retrieve it from the middle of the river? (you know, to float it and then use a boat or long wrecker pull line to pull it to shore?)

 

[Boater Dan]

You guys ever use a lift bag inside the car to retrieve it from the middle of the river? (you know, to float it and then use a boat or long wrecker pull line to pull it to shore?)

We do not use them in the vehicle, but we have a set of vehicle bags with chains which go to the frame and have inflator bottles (Alum 80's) attached to the bags. They work quite well if you are able to attach them properly and evenly. Once the vehicle gets silted in, attachement of the bags can become a very labor intensive operation. Also, if a vehicle happens to have the windows open and is silted inside, the lift bags may not have sufficient power to lift the vehicle.

I was also advised in another post to use a pole attached to a bottle to blow under the vehicle and clear the silt and mud out from under the vehicle to help in breaking the suction of the muck.

Dan