Chester recovers van from ‘soupy’ Delaware River
CHESTER >> It’s like swimming in soup. That’s how Chester Police Officer Joseph Dougherty described going into the murky Delaware River Tuesday with fellow diver William Swanson to search a Chevrolet van that had crashed through a fence at the end of Norris Street, just north of Talen Energy Stadium.
The two are members of the two-year-old City of Chester Dive Team Police & Fire. Dougherty said the unit is called out
10-15 times a year for searches in Delaware County. Many of the requests are to recover evidence, such as a gun thrown in a creek. It’s not so easy when the creek is 14 feet deep, like a number in the area, Dougherty said.
Tuesday’s call required the two to climb down a ladder in their
64 pounds of gear, including wetsuits and air tanks, then put flippers on in the fast-moving current. Only the top of the van was visible in the 8 feet of water, some
30 feet from the shore. Carefully, they checked the submerged van to see if a victim could be seen or felt in the zero visibility water. None was found.
The divers don’t operate alone, a safety officer on shore monitors their movements and medics from Crozer-Chester Medical Center EMS assist at all operations as well as Chester Fire Department’s boat.
Once the divers examined the van, it was secured to a cable and pulled next to the pier. They then secured two harnesses under the van, which was then slowly lifted out of the water by a wrecker from Rob’s Automotive & Collision Center.
After 90 minutes in the
60-degree water the van was lifted out of the river with no subject inside.
“The tide is the problem, it’s a minimum of eight knots,” said Dougherty after the operation was complete. “Zero visibility, high current, even with
64 pounds of gear it still rolls you on the bottom. You’ve got to hold yourself out with one hand while trying to work with the other. While on the other side, he (Swanson) is trying to hang on with one hand while working with the other.”
“Good forbid something should go wrong. You could get sucked underneath or one of those harnesses comes loose the van could come down on top of you,” Dougherty said.
Chester Police Chief James Nolan IV said police were alerted to the van at 10:36 a.m. He described the location as a popular spot for drinking. Once the van was pulled from the river police found it had been stolen in Chester recently. He said the incident is under investigation.
“When we came in at 10 to 8 I saw the van” said John Coaxum, of Philadelphia, who was training with All-State Career truck training company in a nearby lot. “Right around 10 we saw some people around the van, a little bit after that the cops come swooping in. I easily walked over and saw the van sticking out.”
Dougherty said he started as a recreational diver when he joined the dive team, though many members of the 11-person team had no diving experience in the past. They train constantly and have gone to schools from Pittsburgh to the Carolinas.
“City of Chester Dive Team Police & Fire have partnered together to increase man power (strength in numbers) and also ensure rapid response and deployment to emergencies,” Nolan IV and Fire Commissioner William Rigby wrote in a joint statement recently. “We commend the team leader CPD Ofc. Jeff Linowski and all team members for their effort and long hours of training to make this valuable resource available to first responders.”
“It’s fun but its challenging. This (the river) isn’t like any environment you train in; this is seriously worse than the worst, zero visibility,” Dougherty said.