Yotsie
Contributor
Monday night I get a call from the on duty Watch Sergeant. Wants to know if the team will deploy at night to search for a driver of a car that crashed just above Dry Creek east of the town of Waterford. The thought is, the guy got ejected from the crash and landed in the water.
Have made a recovery in the same area a month before, it being 2200 hours and several hours since the crash happened, I declined and set up the team for a morning deployement. The area where this occurred is very steep and the terrain is dangerous in the daytime, never mind trying to manuver at night with only a flashlight.
Yesterday, we get on scene and the FD is already there. There are approximately 20 people there including family. Emotions are running very high from friends and family.
Story is, group of people in a car, drinking and driving, failed to negotiate the curve. They ran through a fence and into a group of trees just above the waterline. 3 were walking wounded when the initial response arrived and 1 was missing. An extensive search by FD, CHP and their airship yielded no sign of the driver.
Three of us suit up. The water is 10' deep in the middle of the creek and shallow on each side. The thought is to surface swim to the area just underneath the trees and eliminate that area first. I get there first followed closely by our newest team member. Just as we reach the area, the new guys says, "boss, I think I have him". He did, we swam right on top of him. We did an evidence sweep and bagged the guy to extricate him from the creek. We swam him across to the side we were operating from and brought him up the approximately 30' bank.
Not a very hard deployment, but a technical one. A lot of rope work went into pulling this one off. The guys did a great job again and everyone left safe and sound. Debrief was a little different on this one since the family was outraged that we waited until day break to start the recovery.
Have made a recovery in the same area a month before, it being 2200 hours and several hours since the crash happened, I declined and set up the team for a morning deployement. The area where this occurred is very steep and the terrain is dangerous in the daytime, never mind trying to manuver at night with only a flashlight.
Yesterday, we get on scene and the FD is already there. There are approximately 20 people there including family. Emotions are running very high from friends and family.
Story is, group of people in a car, drinking and driving, failed to negotiate the curve. They ran through a fence and into a group of trees just above the waterline. 3 were walking wounded when the initial response arrived and 1 was missing. An extensive search by FD, CHP and their airship yielded no sign of the driver.
Three of us suit up. The water is 10' deep in the middle of the creek and shallow on each side. The thought is to surface swim to the area just underneath the trees and eliminate that area first. I get there first followed closely by our newest team member. Just as we reach the area, the new guys says, "boss, I think I have him". He did, we swam right on top of him. We did an evidence sweep and bagged the guy to extricate him from the creek. We swam him across to the side we were operating from and brought him up the approximately 30' bank.
Not a very hard deployment, but a technical one. A lot of rope work went into pulling this one off. The guys did a great job again and everyone left safe and sound. Debrief was a little different on this one since the family was outraged that we waited until day break to start the recovery.
