Boat races 2017

On Sunday the dive team and the first aid was on scenes for the offshore power boat races. The first aid is the lead EMS squad for anything that happens. The power boat people have medics and EMT’s on their rescue boats along with divers and anything that happen gets turned over to us on shore.

   The dive team is stationed on the jetty to watch over the people who watch the racers as they come out the inlet and into the ocean and we are also backup divers if anything major happens and more divers are needed. Over the years we have had people fall into the rocks and fall going down off jetty so this is a good spot for us and that’s why we have a EMT with the team and every year someone always needs a band aid for that flip flop jetty toe.

  We come down the beach with all are gear loaded in the squads 5 ton army truck and this is a big hit with the kid and their parents alike, lots of pictures have been taken with the truck and divers as a backdrop. The truck if needed can go over the beach anywhere along the whole race course and can carry whatever is needed.

    This year started out great with good weather and smaller waves out on the ocean. As the races were lead out of the inlet by the Coast Guard and the State police and people on the jetty cheered, but not for long. In the first turn on the first lap an accident happened that put an end to racing for the day and put everyone in rescue mode.

   The First Aid was at the Coast Guard station ready and waiting for the injured racers to be brought in and did a great job getting them off to where they needed to go. But the accident did put an end to the race. Boats needed to be recovered and one needed to found as it had sunk and no one was in a mood to do any racing.

    It is not my place to go into details about what happened, not here anyway. I can tell you that everything that could have been done was done. What a great job by the rescue divers, EMTs, Medics U.S. Coast Guard and state police. Racing is racing be it car, boat, drag, downhill skiing there is danger in all of them. We can only do our best to make them safe and be ready if an accident happens

 

 

Always check the camera

              Always check the camera

  On a recent dive In Manasquan Inlet I did something really stupid. I always wear my Gopro camera on my mask so I can video everything that happens. One thing I have to do in fill the space between the lens and the color filter with water. I do this by leaving the filter up in the frame and push it down after I am in the water.
   The dive started out just like any other, I dropped in and pushed the filter down and started looking around. I found a few sinkers and some fishing lures hung up on a piling sitting on the bottom, I stayed on the piling and swam down along it.
   The visibility was only 3-4 feet so it was slow going, just moving slowly over the bottom seeing what I could find. Just pass the end of the piling I came across a very large hand gun. It was a smith & Wesson 357. Just like the one Dirty Harry used in the movies.

    I thought what a great training video this was going to make. I started doing everything we learned in our evidence recovery class. I marked the location, I was video taping everything, I handled the gun like it was loaded and ended the dive.
    I swam the gun to the exit point and climbed out of the water and as I put the gun on the seawall I pulled off on mask and found out I had turned the camera off when I pushed filter down. So I got nothing!
   I radioed the police and they came down and I turned the gun over to them and filled them in as to where I had found it. Luckily I had done all the measurements from fixed points and could give a exact location.
   Lessons learned do as you are trained and always check the camera