What's up with poorly equiped Public Safety divers?

[MikeFerrara]

Rick Murchison once bubbled...
All you whining about the quality of public safety divers.. what are you doing about it? Have you volunteered yet? Offered a training program? Approached your politicians with a plan to better use available funds?
Anyone can whine.
To fix it you have to get up and go do something.
And more taxes, by the way, won't fix anything.
Rick
(Our situation is as bad as anyone's - but we're actively training, cajoling, urging and improving. You can too.)

I have offered training to public safety divers at no charge if the department doesn't have the budget for it. Guess how many takers I have had. The local teams are the worst I have ever seen. Most are new divers almost all are inexperienced. We have had local team divers die in training. They still don't get it. More will die.

They need divers for this kind of work not Firemen and police officers who get a c-card to get on the team. The whole thing is a political mess.

 

[Butch103]

......Has OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) dive teams. They are responsible (from my limited knowledge) for diving for criminal evidence and body recovery. Problem is, too few teams and long distances to go. I believe they are well trained and use up too date <?> equipment.....Don't know if any other canucks can elaborate or not......:boom:

 

[gjmmotors]

As a public safety diver, I have had my run in with red tape and smiles with promises attached.
All my gear is my own. I pay for all of my training, and I try to be in the water every weekend, at my own cost.
Being a volunteer, you do not get paid and you are under the public's eye everytime you go out, and the public doesent understand what is going on down by the water.
No class will prepare you for what you do in P.S. diving. They will help you and the way you do things, but the only way to be safe and be efficient is to practice.
There are no standards for P.S. Diving. A Padi or Naui ow cert will most likely get you in trouble or killed.
I am padi rescue certified and I was very disappointed in what the course covered.
Your first drowning vic is something you will never forget, and there is no class in the world that will prepare you for it.

The aforementioned teams skill and gear were lacking, But the most important thing to lack is desire and will. And by complaning about diving 3 times a year, im glad they dont get called out.
-gjm

 

[WillAbbott]

very interesting post to read being as sitting on my desk right now is an application for my local Sheriff's Office Dive team (volunteer team)

What I know of our local team is this: Volunteer, Mandatory training (don't know how offten, but it states on the application willing to train no matter what the conditions) theres currently 12 people on it, I would say an average sized county for Oregon, They don't have much equipment yet (6sets of gear all signed out to divers currently).

I do know that the Sgt. In charge told me they will work with me, if I have to rent gear or whatever, being as you pretty much need gear since they don't currently have enough. You only need to be OW certified... Which I'm waiting to finish certification till applying (1week till OW dives) and thats about it. Though OW cert is all thats required I'm allready planning to get to rescue diver (PADI) as soon as I can, possibly able to get Adv OW right after OW cert.

I plan to join the team for many reasons. 1 is I eventually want to be a full time Deputy at this agency (after school) and what better way to get known than joining the Dive team (esspecially since I'm going to be on the Reserves (Volunteer Deputies) as well) 2 its a good way to meet 12 other divers in the area 3 I get dive practice/training in (be it fun or not its still experince and training) 4 it looks good on a resume 5 I like helping my community etc. Sounds like a good way to do that to me

Also I talked to a former Rescue Diver/ Current Police Officer and one of the employees about it at my LDS They said often what does happen, and if it does start to happen I will quit the team. Is that many guys get involved in the Dive Team, and lose interest in Rec. Diving.. they being only doing Dive Team dives and never dive for fun any more. Not sure why that is... maybe they get tired of all the training dives and decide to only go diving when they must. If I get to that point, I will quit the dive in a heart beat and then go find the best dive site I can and hit it as soon as I can to get back into the Joys of diving.

Anyways, Great reading all the comments being as I do want to join my Local Dive Team,

 

[AquaTec]

gjmmotors once bubbled...

There are no standards for P.S. Diving. A Padi or Naui ow cert will most likely get you in trouble or killed.
I am padi rescue certified and I was very disappointed in what the course covered.
Your first drowning vic is something you will never forget, and there is no class in the world that will prepare you for it.

Hats off to you for doing what others don't. I have delt with many victims of terrible events and three of the four that i still see are the children underwater that i found or didn't find.

Good for you for taking it upon yourself to get traning and gear.

as for standards don't even look at recreational agencies or even technical. look at dive rescue international. see my previouse post. they provide very good standards. and equipment for your team.

 

[MikeFerrara]

WillAbbott,

I don't know how to say this so it really sinks in. I would prefer to be shaking you while I talk to help it sink in.

Any dive team that will send an OW diver out on a call is criminally dangerous. I have seen it first hand.

There are standards for public safety diving and if your department doesn't provide or at least require the training and the right equipment please please please have nothing to do with them.

You will go into the water looking for one of two things generally. The first is dead people. Dead people are in no hurry. If they want someone to go get them have them get someone who is qualified and equiped. The other is evidence. No hurry here either. If they want it let them invest the money and the time required to put together a qualified team.



DON'T DO IT!

 

[WillAbbott]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...
WillAbbott,

I don't know how to say this so it really sinks in. I would prefer to be shaking you while I talk to help it sink in.

Any dive team that will send an OW diver out on a call is criminally dangerous. I have seen it first hand.

There are standards for public safety diving and if your department doesn't provide or at least require the training and the right equipment please please please have nothing to do with them.

You will go into the water looking for one of two things generally. The first is dead people. Dead people are in no hurry. If they want someone to go get them have them get someone who is qualified and equiped. The other is evidence. No hurry here either. If they want it let them invest the money and the time required to put together a qualified team.



DON'T DO IT!

Hmm... Interesting point for sure. I'm sure the reasons they are like this is mainly money. Also they may be a fairly new team, not sure. I do know that they have 6 sets of equipment that they have just started getting equipment. And this is the same agency who just months ago alsmost ran out of money to operate because of a recount on the levy for money for them, it passed by 2 votes, without it they were out of operating money period. I don't think they get too many call outs. And there are other teams near by. and knowing how the training standards are for most other things at this agency I would figure that though they only require OW cert. That they train you themselves. Someone previously mentioned that even Rescue diver couldnt train/prepare you for PS Diver, maybe they've realized that and do all the training themselves and won't send you out on a call until they deem you qualified? I don't know either way I plan on going to Rescue Diver ASAP thru PADI and not stopping there.

Unfortunately there are soo many bonuses for me at this point in joining a team like this its hard to way it evenly against the "bad".

I assure you that if I join and find that no further training is done/needed and that the team is not very safe I will firstly point it out to the Sgt. in charge, and imediattely quit. If he want's me back he will have to change the team first. But I really would like to give them the benifit of the doubt and try it first. I assure you I won't do anything dangerous, even if they say I have to. But being as I want to be hired on this agency full time in the next year or so (after school is done) getting known there by participating in the Reserves and Dive Team and anything else I can get involved in will help tremendously when the time comes to apply for a full time position. So its hard to over look the Dive Team without first trying it or getting somewhat involved to see exactly how they run it.

Maybe I'm being nieve (spelling?) and feel free to tell me so. I respect any and all opinions/information from those more knowlageble. Its just hard to overlook this opportunity when it could have soo much to do with my career in the future and getting a job.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Also be warry of home grown training. There are agencies that specialize in this stuff and that is the training you want After you get a solid foundation in the basics.

 

[weight_for_me]

Butch103 once bubbled...
......Has OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) dive teams. They are responsible (from my limited knowledge) for diving for criminal evidence and body recovery. Problem is, too few teams and long distances to go. I believe they are well trained and use up too date <?> equipment.....Don't know if any other canucks can elaborate or not......:boom:

Yeah..thats pretty much sums it up...the key being "recovery". As a FD training officer, I ALWAYS ensure we have redundant systems in place before practice, especially with the Ice Water Rescue. You can never be too prepared.
Randy...

 

[Big-t-2538]

Where I am in Dayton, I am one of the volunteers that goes out and helps with evidence search and recovery. Yes, I am resue certified, and yes we do train. However, I consider us very lucky in the fact that my instructor is also a member of the local PD. Granted, we are still volunteers, and there is a very limited budget, but my instructor gets to call the shots. She says who, how, when, where, etc. She is very knowledgable and IMHO, one of the best out there. Almost all the work we do is in some crummy dump lake where you are happy to see how much air you have left if you cram the gauge against your mask.

Unfortunately, this used to be a joint effort between the PD and the FD, but recently the FD had their dive team cut because of budget constraints. It seemed silly, because the month before it was cut, they pulled two people out of the river by one dam here in Dayton. The city said it wasn't worth having the dive team around. These guys were trained by my instructor, and I had worked with them before. As for the other guys I volunteer with, it is very nice because I do most (I would say 95%) of my recreational diving with the same people. We know each other very well, and usually know what the other is thinking.

Well, I think we are lucky in this sense. And I hope that the PD continues their thinking in this manner. I would hate to see unquailfied indviduals taking risks that they aren't trained to take.