The Importance Of Uniformity

In my world there is nothing worst than looking like an incompetent newbie. Anyone who has been in the Public Safety Diving business for any amount of time, knows what I'm talking about. Showing up to a callout and suddenly everyone on the team looks like it's their first time suiting up. It looks bad and is embarrassing.  Not what you want, especially when the media or other agencies are around.

So why does this happen? Mainly because dive teams don't take uniformity to an all encompassing level. The only thing that should be uniform is our training and t-shirts, right? Wrong. Every detail of your team and it's equipment needs to be the same.

This is something my team takes seriously. We have everything the same right down to the compass and

where it's kept on the BC. Each item was picked because of it's functionality and ease of use. In the real world things go wrong. Regs free flow and BC's auto inflate, and It's really nice to be able to grab another guys setup and go! You should not have to think about where their light is or how his BC works. You have a job to do.

The only thing I allow my guys to have of their own is a wetsuit, mask, and fins. Even then, we train in the other guys fins just in case.

When doing search patterns it is also good to be uniform in how you do them. Hold the line the same way. If your tending, you should all stand the same way. In doing this there is no question in what is going on with the other team members. You can also step in for someone and not lose the momentum of your operation.

I'm going to drop a truth bomb on you. If you don't know your team, and I mean really know them. You will not function as a team. Profound I know. This sounds like a no-brainer  but is often overlooked within Police and Fire Departments. They have guys who are "on the dive team" but are regular patrol and only get called if they are really needed. Do they even know who they are diving with? Who is that guy up there tending me?

So take a moment and ask yourself what you and your team can improve on. What can you make more streamlined?

People say that all publicity is good publicity. Being the incompetent newbie on the five o'clock is not what they mean...trust me.

Jump in! The water is like pea soup!

The other day I was talking with a police diver and his team, who had come to Miami to train with another department. The team was from Louisiana and most of their missions are around lake Pontchartrain. The team leader was commenting on how happy he was to be able to get his guys down here to train where there was visibility.

I would like to make 2 observations on this matter.

#1 - After the team leader made this comment, he continued in saying that all they have to train in back home, is dirty water that you can't see anything in. I was thinking GREAT! That's exactly what you should be training in, because that's real world Public Safety Diving!
Now I do understand that you need to be able to see to learn certain skills. Skills like using lift bags. Learn in a controlled environment so you have that muscle memory when you really can't see. I get it.

But is it necessary to travel 20 hours to find those locations? Absolutely not. Many divers think that going

back to the swimming pool is for newbies. For those open water wanna-be's who are not yet worthy for real diving in that big dangerous ocean. Well their wrong. You might be able to find great, deep, pools at your local collage. Look for ones with a diving team. They usually have a diving well that's 16 feet deep; more than suitable for learning the basics of lift bags. And while your there, work on some other skills that will push your ability's as well as your teams. It's not about the pool, but what you do in it.
This also gives a team leader the ability to evaluate how their divers dive. Do they have neutral buoyancy? do they actually know how to kick? Do they actually know how to tie that knot, or do they just say they do? Sometimes it's good to go back to the basics to learn the hard stuff.

#2 -  What is visibility? The National Academy of Police Diving describes visibility like this:

• Zero Visibility: The inability to visually observe any object at any distance from the faceplate of the mask.
• Low Visibility: The inability to visually observe an object beyond the diver's outstretched hand.
• Black Water: The inability to visually observe an object because of the lack of light penetration.

Using the above terms, what kind of diving does your department have to deal with? If you have to learn in a pool first that's fine; but nothing can replace the confidence and skill that comes from performing in the real thing.

I would love to hear what you think on this and any stories you might have from training, so leave a comment!

Jordan and the guy that had no idea what was going on.

In the early stages of my company...also known as the learn the hard way stages...I received a call from a man who had lost a propeller off his boat. He had a thick Haitian accent, and was a bit hard to understand over the phone; so we agreed to meet at the waters edge on the day I was available. So I got all my gear ready and brought one of my divers out, and we met the gentleman and his brother on the edge of the Miami river in downtown Miami, Florida.

Now I had prepared my gear and my mind for a small propeller recovery. Evidently small is a relative term.
What this guy called small I called big. Like a propeller off of a freighter ship big. Well it's a good thing I just happened to have the 2000 pound lift bag in the truck!

We then started to get more info from the two guys and learned that the were not actually around when said propeller and ship decided to go their separate ways. We also learned that the captain nor any crew were available to question, being as they were in Haiti. And to add to the fun, they were not entirely sure this was the right place on the river! Perfect. I have a 300 yard by 60 yard search area that might not even be the correct search area. Anything else? Oh yeah; there will be continuous boat traffic that will make our searching something like Frogger.

Ready, set, go at a very methodical pace. We started out doing Arc searches working from the Last Seen Point, and working up river. The ship had been waiting on the draw bridge to go up when the propeller came loose. So we judged where a ship that size would wait, factored in the length of the ship and what side the prop was on, and worked back to it's starting destination. We spent about 2 and a half hours searching, when we finally located the object. Ok. Step one done. Now for step 2...get this bad boy up on land. We informed the brothers that we had found it and asked what they had planned as a recovery method. I was expecting a tow truck, or a crane, heck I would have been happy with a tractor. This big hunk of brass was not going to jump over that seawall on it's own!

It was at this moment I realized how underestimating people are of raw materials and there weight. These guys wanted to pull this propeller over the seawall with 4 men and a rope. Negative ghost rider. We needed something bigger."Well we have a forklift at the wharf!" I told them, "Great! How are we going to get it there?"

Anyone who decides to hire a random fisherman to tow an 1800 pound propeller that is attached to a 2000 pound lift bag up a river, is probably not the kind of person that should be making decisions. Well like I said before, this was in our learn the hard way stage of growth.

We finally made it to the forklift and got the propeller out. We seriously almost died twice. We also learned a lot of lessons. Like planning every detail of your mission before you start. If you are doing a hired job for a client, you need to clearly define what that job encompasses, and make it clear that you make the final decision. It is ultimately your safety. These guys had no clue what goes into recovering something like this.

In life you learn. In learning the hard way you learn a lot.