Sunday was the Point Pleasant First Aid Dive Teams monthly
drill and with all the stories around about kids and trucks going through the
ice it was a good time to get the divers ready to in the ice. We don’t always
get ice in this area so every time we get ice we get the teams out on it and
under it.
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Sunday turned out
to be good day for it. We had 5 inches of ice and SNOW! That’s right we started
our drill just as it started snowing. Well it’s never a nice day when we get
called anyway. So the drill went on.
We did surface
rescues with victims falling in the ice and the rescuers going out to them and
getting them out of the water. Going over ice safety and ways to get to the
victims and ways to get the victims out of the water was just half the drill,
the other half was going under the ice in full dive gear and searching for a
lost victim.
Being under the ice
is not for everyone, it is easy to get lost and you just can’t just pop to the
surface. You have to be able to find the hole you went in. This is why no
divers go in without a line and a tender on that line. The tender can guide the
diver using line pulls and search an area looking for a missing victim.
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Our two newest
members are half way to be ice diver certified just like the rest of the team.
We never know what is going to happen so we have to be ready and that is why we
are always out there training! It is better to train and not need it, then to
not train and come up short when called!
