Dive trainers foster cross-locality teamwork
Police officers and firefighters across the region put to test in retrieval missions
YORK — Divers from several local agencies combed the bed of the York River Friday for guns and a mannequin, just off the beach behind the Watermen’s Museum.
Nothing nefarious had happened, though.
Dive trainers planted the spraypainted BB guns and the mannequin for trainee divers to find. So if you’re planning an excursion to Yorktown Beach, don’t worry about coming across those items — they were able to recover them.
“Ta rg e t found,” came the voice of diver Crystal Andrews, a James City County firefighter. About 60 feet below the surface, Andrews informed about 10 public safety officials she’d found the mannequin that was standing in as a drowning victim.
About 20 local police officers, deputies and firefighters spent the week participating in the public safety dive training at locations across the Peninsula.
Capt. Fred Simpson, a York County firefighter and one of the trainers, said divers are deployed most frequently to search for people who have drowned and also are called out for boating accidents and evidence recovery.
Often, when divers are called in, divers from multiple agencies respond because no locality is equipped with enough divers to handle a multiday dive, Simpson said.
Since they will work together frequently, training divers from multiple localities fosters teamwork and familiarity that helps when it comes time to respond to an incident. At the training this week, participants and trainers came from Hampton, Newport News, York County, James City
“This is the best training. It’s the realistic environment that we would be working in.”
James Miller, a Hampton firefighter-medic County and the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.
The partnered training in Hampton Roads started about five years ago after Timothy Schock, a Chesapeake police diver, died in a training exercise, Simpson said.
Bill Burket of the Virginia Port Authority wanted to prevent another diving death, so he went to public safety divers who were also instructors in their spare time and helped them go through Emergency Response Diving International’s training so they could it back to their agencies.
In the training this week, divers learned rescue and body recovery techniques, how to properly handle and package evidence and how to rescue themselves if necessary. Simpson said Hampton police officers gave a lesson about how to safely handle guns recovered in the water, and VMRC taught about investigating boating incidents.
Simpson said getting venues is a challenge, but people at the Watermen’s Museum, Fort Monroe Aquatics Center and the Coventry Homeowners’ Associ- ation all donated time and space to allow the training to happen.
Chris Clauser, a James City County firefighter, said of all the things they learned, the swim test at Fort Monroe was the most challenging to complete. The test consists of swimming 500 meters and 800 meters with fins and a snorkel, then dragging another diver 100 meters, 15 minutes of treading water (the last two without using hands), and weight retrieval — all back to back.
In the pool, the divers also learn confidence in the water and test the limits of their bodies, Simpson said. One exercise shows the trainees that after they run out of breath, they still can function for about 30 seconds, Simpson said.
“When your body starts forcing you to breathe water, you still have 30 seconds to save yourself,” Simpson said.
But diving in the river is the real hands-on training since almost all the water in Hampton Roads in murky.
“This is the best training,” said James Miller, a Hampton firefighter-medic. “It’s the realistic environment that we would be working in.”
Miller said Friday was his first time diving in open water with the full-face equipment. He said he could only see about two feet as he participated in the mannequin recovery operation.
Simpson said lots of their responses are called braille dives because they can’t see, only feel for where they’re going or what they’re looking for. The divers have to be careful of fishing lines, wires, nets, crab pots and any other hazards that could be under the water.
The people undergoing training that week all had experience as recreational divers and were adding on the public safety training. Most, he said, are drawn to public safety diving because they enjoy recreational, but the nature of the work can be challenging.
The work is often morbid, searching for people who went under water and never came back up as loved ones wait at the shore. Simpson said it’s tough to go home after a day of unsuccessful searching, leaving a family waiting.
“We just want to help (the family) get closure,” he said. Reyes can be reached by phone at 757-247-4692.