Topside equipment

[teknitroxdiver]

What kind of topside non-diving equipment does your team use? Things like callout systems, do you use a siren/light, do you have a team diving truck, etc.

Thanks!

 

[Gary D.]

What kind of topside non-diving equipment does your team use? Things like callout systems, do you use a siren/light, do you have a team diving truck, etc.

Thanks!

Everyone on a topside operation is in a PFD if they are close to the water, on a boat or dock. Well, most of the time anyway.

Pagers

We each have an issued vehicle. We can use anyone of several vehicles in the department but the fire units usually have everything we need.

Gary D.

 

[teknitroxdiver]

Hmm. Thanks for the info.

 

[TheAvatar]

There is one team vehicle: a large van. It has a lightbar and siren, but those are rarely turned on as the van doesn't go very fast up and down mountains.
Two inflatables (avon /w 55hp rescuepro impeller, zodiac /w optional 35hp)
Cataraft and ducky for river work
Another old power boat for patrol work
People either respond to the barn or the site in their personal vehicles.
Motorola Minitaur II radiopagers and Motorola HT/MT series radios for notification and radio comms.
PFDs if within 15ft of water (knife, whistle, 3 biners on every one)
Helmets and throwbags within 15ft of swift water
River rigging gear etc (biners pulleys static rope prerigged pigrigs rescue racks belay devices etc)
and more

 

[Boater Dan]

I am involved with a small volunteer fire department dive team in a neighboring community. While my department has a boat for river rescue, our dive team fell apart about 15 years ago. We have a water rescue truck with a dive quality air cascade system. The fire department vehicle can run lights and siren to calls. Being a volunteer fire fighter in Pennsylvania, we are entitled to utilize blue lights to notify other drivers of our urgency. The light is a courtesy light and drivers are not required to move aside.

We are notified by our fire department pagers and through cell phone notifications within the divers.

For surface operations, all personnel are required to also wear PFD's. We utilize a low end sonar unit on our boat that is capable of detecting a body when used by an experienced operator and a flat bottom condition w/o debris. We maintain throw bags during water operations in case of a rescuer entering the water. We have also had very good success utilizing underwater video systems. It allows boat crews to search and hopefully mark a target while the dive team is getting prepped. One other key piece of surface equipment is the pencil and paper questionaire that is used by the individual who is assigned the responsibility of gathering all of the information. The accuracy of this information is what will direct the diver's efforts. Errors made in data gathering and questioning can make or break the recovery effort.

Our biggest issue as a volunteer department is probably that the staffing and the level of experience that will be at any call is an unknown until all personnel arrive on scene. The Incident Commander must assess the situation and personnel and implement the plan accordingly.

Dive safe!

Dan

 

[TheAvatar]

We have a sonar unit (glorified fishfinder really). We have a helmet cam for a diver and a camera on a pole too. These can be very effective for river or lake ops.

 

[Greg D.]

Our SAR equipment topside, we have to vehicles both have an assortment of rescue gear, one is primarily a dive van and the other is more Technical rope rescue gear although both have a little of everything. They both have county paint along with lightbars and law radios, several of us have handheld radios. (the folks who show up most often) and we all have pagers. We are allowed to have flashing green lights in our personal rigs, but we still have to "obey all traffic laws".... um yeah ;^) We have buddy phones... dunno where we are gonna get arround to buy the masks to use them.. and we have an underwater camera, and metal detector.

 

[Kayla]

We use Nextel phones, and have pagers. The team has an old van that we use... otherwise, we use our personal vehicles. The van has a light bar and sirens, but I really don't know why... were not authorized to use them when moving. (All team members must follow the speed limits, not become a hazard on the road when responding to a call.. yadda yadda). We also have a boat and three wave runners, and a small underwater camera. (Not that it really does any good... it dosen't have its own light, and most places we search get murky pretty easily!) We have PFD's, and three coats guard survival suits. Also have a small generator, and large stationary "land" lights, as well as two spot lights. Throw bags, search lines, and a water pump.

I'm pretty sure that's it... sorry if its a little hard to read, I was trying to think and type at the same time. (And that was what happened... scary huh?)


Kayla