Meeting of 10/11/05

The meeting was held at the Boise Fire Station No. 1. We were there to learn about the Boise Fire Department Dive Team. 15 members met in the parking lot at 7:00 PM and we proceeded into the fire house. A short business meeting was held before we began the tour of the building. We discussed up coming meetings and put more names on the list for the tour of the decompression chambers at the next meeting. Earl told us about his trip to the San Juan Islands (Friday Harbor). He said that the dive charter he and Mimi used offered to set up a trip for a group with lodging included. The diving was excellent with a lot of life and color. If people are interested let Earl know and he will start planning a trip.

The main instructor, Earl (go figure) Slope and assistant instructor, Greg Briggs, for the Boise Fire Department Dive Team gave an introductory talk about the requirements that must be met to qualify for the dive team. Instead of PADI, the certification is done through Dive Rescue International. The certification is Public Safety Diver.

The training and qualifying is very rigorous. It involves many hours of classroom and then a 500 yard free swim, followed by an 800 yard fin swim. Then there is the 15 minutes treading water, the last 5 minutes with your hands out of the water. Then 30, 25, 10 and 5 pound weights are put in the pool and each must be retrieved individually and in that order. Each task must be completed within a certain time limit. All of this is done one right after the other. Then there is all the training in the actual rescue techniques and use of the equipment. The initial training for new people is done over the period of 1 month. This is all they do for that period is train and dive; as many as 50 dives. You must also be a Boise Fireman first, having gone through all the training and testing required for that.

We then went out to the garage and Earl Slope showed us the “Dive Mobile”. This vehicle looks like a converted ambulance. Two fully ready SCUBA units are hanging on the double doors, one on each side. He said that in a rescue situation, two divers can be in the water 40 sec after they pull up to the site. He showed us the hydrophone masks that the divers wear. There is a transponder unit that is floated in the water that picks up the sound of the divers voice in the water and relays it to the backup personnel on the surface. He showed us the zodiac boat that they use and also the personal water craft that is used to tow an inflatable raft with up to 6 divers in it to sites where the zodiac’s draft is to deep. Since sometimes the hydrophone won’t work because of to much noise in the water, he also showed us the rope tug codes they use when doing a search. Can you imagine being tasked to find a hand gun in Bob Rice Pond, or a canal that has a current of 8 to 10 knots? And in the case of the current you are not tied to the rope. You hang on with one hand and search with the other. That is where all their training and physical fitness comes in.

After questions about the equipment and boats were taken we went into the kitchen area of the station and Earl Slope gave us some pointers on how to be a good witness to an accident. He showed us the proper way to triangulate the position of someone in the water from the shore by using terrain and other non-moving (very important) objects that are on the opposite shore.

Everyone there agreed that this was a very interesting and informative meeting. The next meeting with Dr. Eric Johnson will be very interesting also. It will be a tour of the new decompression chambers. See the Web site for location and, if you haven’t already, email Wade, Dirk or Earl that you will be there, as Dr. Johnson requested that we get a head count so he knows how many will be there. This meeting will be on November 8th. We hope to have another good turnout for this one also.

Dirk Spackman, Sec/Treas.