Boulder Citizens' Fire Academy continued

This last Saturday we spent the morning at the Boulder Reservoir learning about dive rescue as part of the Boulder Citizens’ Fire Academy. The first exercise involved trying to locate a “drowning person.” A buoy was raised and then hidden again, and we had to triangulate to locate where the “drowning person” had disappeared in the reservoir. We than gave directions to a diver in a flotation suit to  get as close as possible to that location. Then the buoy was raised again to see how accurate we were at sighting the correct location.

The next exercise was to practice using a banana boat for a stream rescue. Guiding with four ropes we maneuvered the boat as if we were using it in a stream.

Then we road in a dive rescue boat equipped with sonar to see what we could locate underwater.

 

 

 

 

A final exercise was to guide a diver and communicate through a headset to sweep the bottom of the reservoir for a rescue. No body was recovered, but the diver located a number of plastic cups and piece of dock connector. The visibility is a best two feet underwater in the Boulder Reservoir, so the diver needed to sweep using his hands.

 

 

All in all, an interesting day where we gained an appreciation for key elements of dive rescue.