42 WINTER • 2011
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Carolina Fire Rescue EMS Journal
RESCUE AND DIVING
Rescue and recovery diving By David Pease The Reds Team By the time you read this we will be in the heart of the winter.Thanksgiving and Christmas will have come and gone, and we will be starting a new year. This is always a good time to reflect on the achievements of last year and set our goals for the new year. I do hope that everyone had a great Christmas and enjoyed the company of family and friends. Although coming late, I wish all a very Merry Christmas from my family to yours. Last couple of articles we
talked about working through your basic dive certification and putting some dives under your belt. Once you have completed basic and advanced open water, you should start to feel somewhat at ease with your equipment and capabilities. By now you should know about how long your tank will last at a given depth.You should also know what weight is required to put you down but not be over weighted. Knowing your peak buoyancy is an excellent skill to master.
As recovery divers we tend to dive slightly heavy, but we don’t want to be too heavy. I used to dive freshwater with 18 pounds and now I do the same diving with 12 pounds or less. It does make a difference when you have to carry that extra weight around that you really do not need. We discussed the rescue diver certification last issue and how that is extremely important for you and your dive partner. Public safety divers lose their lives every year, where
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most of these deaths could have been prevented. Skills and knowledge are a must when it comes to recovery diving.The more we train and practice, the better chance we have of preventing these wasteful deaths. You should take the time to put the rescue diver certification under your belt. Once you have completed the rescue diver certification, you need to practice the skills that you learned. Spend some time working on your out of air drills, and practice a free ascent, simulating you lost your air supply.You should also work on your buddy tows and assist, as well as how to troubleshoot your equipment while submerged.The more you train on situations that could cause panic, the better you will be able to handle that situation should it arise. When I used to fly, I spent a lot of time practicing emergency landings, more than most pilots, because I wanted to be sure I could land the aircraft, should I lose power or have an in-flight emergency. It came in handy one night I landed on a grass strip with no runway lights. As you prepare to move into the public safety diving realm, you will be working with full facemask, wireless and hardwire communications, as well as dry suit diving.The full facemask and drysuit can be taken as a separate certification.This is the way I would recommend you follow. Start with the full facemask, as this is the preferred method
of diving for recovery work. The hardest challenge you will face is the flooding and clearing of the mask.You will have an alternate air supply along with the full facemask, and you will have to master changing over to that alternate in your training.You will then have to put your full facemask back on and clear it of all water. Is this easy, no indeed, but with practice it can be mastered. Oh, and it will take at least two good breaths to clear it. The full facemask comes with either a wireless communication configuration, a hardwire configuration, or no communication at all.This is what gives this type of mask such a great advantage over the standard dive mask. — you can talk to one another, and to those on the surface. Isn’t technology a wonderful thing! This was unknown in my early days of rescue and recovery diving.The ability to talk with folks you can’t see provides a great advantage when diving in zero visibility.This also helps to tremendously relieve the stress that recovery divers have while diving. We will continue to discuss the aspects of recovery diving through 2011. Going to Florida for my “Spring� dives in February, come on down and join us. Stay safe and I’ll see you at the bottom. If you have any questions or comments e-mail David Pease at Reds100@aol.com and visit the team website at www.RedsTeam. com.
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