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January 1997

DIVE TEAM 6 COMMUNICATIONS KIT

The cellular phone will not run from the briefcase battery pack. The cellular phone battery has to be charged in order to use the Alphamate. If the cellular phone battery is discharged you can still use the phone by putting the cellular phone in the base and plugging the briefcase into either a 110VAC wall plug or a 12VDC cigarette lighter plug.

To charge the cellular phone battery, you must connect the briefcase to an electric outlet and also put the cellular phone in its base.

FULL FACE MASKS

The new full face mask and communicator sets have arrived. They will be at the Wednesday, February 5 meeting.

We are going to start training with the new masks in February. They will be put in service after we have enough pool and lake training to use them effectively and safely.

TRAINING

January Training

The January training dive was intended to be a pool familiarization session with the new full face masks, but the equipment did not arrive in time for January training. The February training session will be a pool session at Tom's Dive and Ski for familiarization with the equipment. Schedule will be announced in the hardcopy and online newsletters. We have to schedule this session around classes in Tom's pool and availability of the instructor.

Everybody will have to complete pool and lake training with the new masks. Only members who have completed pool and lake training with the full face masks will be allowed to use them on operations. We need to get experience with them as soon as possible so we can start upgrading our search procedures.

Upcoming training

Lewis's PADI Underwater Search and Recovery specialty class will be scheduled during March and April so we can complete it before the busy season starts on Lake Travis. This will be the standard PADI class, using our equipment and procedures, with some additional topics like Vehicle Investigation and Recovery. We intend to make the April and May training dives satisfy the dive requirements for the specialty class.

We will also have a combined work and training session with the Apparatus Trailer, probably in March. We will take a complete inventory of all the equipment and test everything. This will be a good chance for all members to see where the trailer lives and what's inside. Even if you can't tow it, you should know how to get equipment from it.

ALPHANUMERIC PAGER RESPONSES

There are occasional wrong-number page calls to the All Call group pager number. Some are accidental and some are questionable. You can tell whether it is a legitimate Dive Team callout pretty easily.

• All legitimate Dive Team callouts will be alphanumeric, with some description of what the callout is for.
  • All of our callouts come through the Sheriff's office.
  • For an emergency callout, the Sheriff's office puts out an alphanumeric page on the All Call number.
  • DT6 and most of the officers have alphanumeric paging capability. For non-emergency callouts, they will put out an alphanumeric page.

• If there is a page on the All Call group number with just numbers, it is not a legitimate Dive Team callout. Whoever has DT6 may check it out, but they don't have to put out a cancellation message. Everybody else can just ignore it.

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February 1997

NEW MASK AND COMMUNICATOR EQUIPMENT

The new full face mask and communicator equipment has arrived and we will start training with it later this month. The Team now has two diver sets and a surface communications set. Several Team members also purchased personal diver sets on the Team group purchase.

Paul has built the communicator into a metal briefcase similar to the Dive Team 6 kit. The communicator kit includes a tape recorder. The diver sets also came with complete manuals.

TRAINING

February Training

The February training dive is Sunday, February 16 at 1:00 pm in the pool at Tom's Dive and Ski, 5909 Burnet (just north of 2222). This is our first training session with the new full face masks and communicators. George Rosenberry is the instructor and will be working with us to set up training and checkout requirements.

There is a lot to learn about using this equipment safely and effectively. We will have strict requirements for using the Team equipment, and nobody who is not currently trained and checked out on the equipment will use it on operations.

Upcoming training

Lewis's PADI Underwater Search and Recovery specialty class will be integrated into the open water training sessions this spring. This will cover the standard PADI course content using our equipment and procedures. The open water exercises will generally be tougher than standard course exercises.

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March 1997

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April 1997

TRAINING

April Training Dives

We had training sessions with the new Divator masks and communications gear on the first 3 Sundays in April. On April 6 and 13 the lake was up around 684 and the LTTS training area was under water. Barstow's Windy Point park let the Team train at the park in beautiful diving weather. We got some valuable experience setting up the communications console and placing the hydrophone, and we started working with surface-directed navigation. On April 20 the lake was back down to 681 and we continued work at the LTTS training area, still in beautiful weather. The session on April 27 was cancelled because of lingering storms that had already brought the lake back up to 685.

We have learned some useful things about the new equipment:

• Calling Protocol: We are using the military protocol of "Listener this is Caller" for underwater calling. It should be a little faster than the civilian protocol ("Caller to Listener"), but remember that emergency services use the civilian protocol in surface radio conversations.

  If you call somebody with the wrong protocol, don't worry about it. The voice quality is pretty good and listeners can probably tell what you meant.

• Conversation: After one person talks and before the other person replies, both people need to inhale. That synchronizes their breathing so the listener is not exhaling. If the listener exhales, the bubbles interfere with reception.

• Surface-Directed Navigation: we tried two ways:
  1. Surface gives a compass heading before divers start moving.
  2. Divers start moving in the right general direction, and surface gives steering corrections.

  Most of the divers found it easier to start moving and get steering corrections from the surface.

  Surface personnel working the console will need to practice "steering" divers at our training dives.

• Air consumption: divers seem to use more air with the new equipment. We will have to do some air consumption measurements during May training.

• Cold water is less noticable with the full face masks. All of the divers who used the Divator-communicator masks went without hoods and didn't have problems.

• Passive Listening: If you are not wearing a communicator, you can still hear conversations if you are close to somebody who is wearing one.

Search and Recovery Specialty Course

Pick up the paperwork from Lewis at the next meeting or dive if you haven't done it already. We will start the required dives during May training.

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May 1997

TRAINING

The training dive scheduled for Sunday, May 18 was cancelled due to high water. We more than made up for it in operations on May 17 and on Memorial Day, May 26.

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

Several Dive Team members rode in the Sheriff's Office patrol boats over the Memorial Day weekend. We will continue putting riders in the patrol boats on holidays and some weekends.

OPERATIONS

Hamilton Pool, Saturday May 17:

The Dive Team was called to Hamilton Pool on Saturday, May 17 to recover the body of a 7-year-old boy who was reported missing while swimming. Search operations began shortly after 7 pm. The subject was recovered in 19 feet of water after about 5 minutes of search time.

Hamilton Pool is a difficult dive site. Team members had to carry all the gear in a long, narrow trail and then contend with visibility less than 2 feet and a bottom littered with loose obstructions.

This was our first operational use of the new communications gear. Divers working the circle pattern could start and stop the pattern easily to let sweep divers investigate holes and obstructions. Divers also reported the recovery conditions when the body was located, and investigators from the Sheriff's office found the console recording to be very useful for their investigation.

Pace Bend Park, Monday May 26
LCRA Mansfield Dam Park, Monday May 26

We had two operations at the same time at opposite ends of Lake Travis on Memorial Day. The first was a drowning reported at Pace Bend Park shortly before 4:30 pm. Divers from the Dive Team and the Lago Vista Fire Department were gearing up when another possible drowning was reported near Mansfield Dam. Travis County Parks rescue divers were sent by boat to Mansfield Dam while the Pace Bend Park search continued.

At Pace Bend Park an initial 30-foot spiral search around the PLS buoy was unsuccessful. A combined team of 8 divers from the Dive Team and Lago Vista set up an 80 foot circle pattern at the PLS buoy. With this large team in place the pattern moved rapidly and the subject was recovered after approximately 5 1/2 minutes of search time, approximately 50 feet from the buoy. After recovery the Team did a fast redeployment to Mansfield Dam. The Starflight helicopter took two divers and some search gear while the rest of the team reloaded equipment and left by boat and car.

The Mansfield Dam Park operation was in very deep water with a steeply sloping bottom where the old channel passes near shore west of LCRA Mansfield Dam Park. Divers searched the area around the PLS buoy on Monday night but did not locate the subject. Operations on Tuesday were interrupted by violent weather. Divers from the Dive Team and DPS continued operations and had searched the entire area to a depth of 110 feet by late Thursday.

Communications Gear

The new communications gear has proved to be a very valuable tool. At Pace Bend Park divers and surface observers coordinated deployment of a large pattern with divers from two different agencies. On the Mansfield Dam Park operation Team divers used voice communcations to work the modular search line through an area of large rocks and submerged trees. Surface support personnel were able to monitor the divers' status during the difficult and dangerous deep water operations.

We now plan to deploy the surface console, hydrophone, and tape recorder on all dive operations.

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June 1997

JULY 4 HOLIDAY

LAKE TRAVIS WILL REMAIN CLOSED TO RECREATIONAL BOATING DURING THE JULY 4 HOLIDAY WEEKEND. We will not place divers in the Sheriff's patrol boats.

We still need to be ready for possible dive operations. There will be swimmers in Lake Travis and every other body of water in the area. If you will be available for call over the July 4 holiday weekend, call Paul's voicemail pager (listed in the roster) and leave your unit number. 

TRAINING

The June training session scheduled for June 28 was cancelled due to the flooding at Lake Travis.

Here is what we had planned to cover:

• Communications Gear Familiarity: We will do some shallow water familiarization dives for Team members who are not yet familiar with the full face masks and Buddyphone communicators. The procedures for donning the mask and for handling mask floods underwater are much different than with a separate mask and regulator. Everybody who has used the new gear is enthusiastic about it, and we are looking at ways to get more sets available in Travis county.
  We also want to train more surface support people in how to deploy and operate the surface console.

• Contour and obstructed area operations with the modular line and communications gear. This combination has proved to be very useful in the past month's operations. We want to get the whole Team ready to work this kind of operation by July 4.

• Possible demonstrations and training with other emergency service agencies in the lake basin area.

Watch this newsletter and the hardcopy newsletter for further details.

DT6 VOICE MAIL

The Dive Team 6 (Primary Responder) kit is now set up for voice mail. You can leave voice messages on the DT6 pager number and receive messages with the cellular phone. Ge the details at the June training dive or at the next meeting.

INCIDENT COMMAND SYSTEM

Our search operations are now better organized and equipped  than they were just a few years ago. You may have noticed that the surface support operations by other agencies are also much better organized and equipped.

Fire, rescue, and medical emergency operations are run under the Incident Command System or "ICS". The ICS  is a standardized set of responsibilities that are assigned at the scene of an operation. It was originally created for large forest fire operations, and it worked so well that it is now standard operating procedure.

• The overall director of an operation is called the Incident Commander or "IC". The IC is in fact an incident manager. He or she does not command emergency operations - the IC's responsibility is to see that all of the other responsibilities are being carried out.

  Usually the IC will be from the Fire or EMS agency with jurisdiction at an operation.

• Different responsibility areas are called Sectors, with a Sector Commander responsible for each sector. Dive Team operations fall under the Operations Sector. If there are several  emergency activities going on, we may be designated as Dive Operations Sector.

  The Incident and  Sector Commanders are usually stationed at a central Command Post or "CP".

• The Sector Commander for Dive Operations will be called "Operations" or "Dive Operations". This person will usually be from the Dive Team and will usually be stationed at the command post.

  The Dive Operations sector commander talks to the top level of the ICS, and other sectors will do whatever they can to support Dive Operations. It is much easier to keep Dive Operations going when other sectors are taking care of lighting, drinking water, and emergency medical care of divers. And it is much easier for the IC to keep track of things when there is a Dive Operations sector commander at the command post.

COMMUNICATIONS GEAR

We now deploy the surface console, hydrophone, and tape recorder on all dive operations. Here are some things we can do to make the console tape recording more useful:

• First diver down: The first diver down the anchor line should read out the depth and visibility. Normally the point diver is the first down. If the visibility is so bad that the point can't easily do that, the anchor diver should do it.

• Recovery diver and recovery assistance: The first responsibility of the diver who locates the subject of a search is to retain contact with the subject. The first diver who comes to assist should read out the  position of the subject and the depth at the recovery point. If you deploy a marker buoy at the recovery point do that first, before reading out the recovery conditions.

• Surface communications: Whoever is operating the communications console should read out significant events with the time, for the record, like "For the record: First diver down at 6:04 pm". Read out the time even if the tape is running continuously because you will lose a few seconds when you flip the tape when it runs out.

  Also be sure to advise officials at the surface when the recovery divers locate the subject. Some of the other agencies at the scene may not realize that you have voice contact with the divers.

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July 1997

TRAINING

The first rain for over five weeks washed out the July 30 training dive in thunderstorms and heavy rain. We had planned to review line patterns and practice crime scene evidence search and recovery. Instead of diving we met at the Dive Team trailer and reviewed the procedures. We may be sending a team to compete in a statewide competition for law enforcement dive teams in March of next year. 

Lewis also had a test model of a search buoy that has an attached anchor line reel with a hand crank. It should make it easier to set and recover buoys. We will try it in the water at the next opportunity.

The next training dive will be in early August to get ready for Labor Day - the lake will be really busy. You might want to hold off on watering your lawn for a few days before the training dive.

We now have a blank microphone plate for the Divator masks so we can train on mask flooding and clearing without getting water in the microphone. If you have not checked out on the full face masks, there will be enough time for practice at the training dive.

LABOR DAY WEEKEND

We are going to have divers riding in the Sheriff's patrol boats over the Labor Day weekend. Check your vacation schedule and be ready to sign up for a shift at the July Training dive or the August meeting. The most critical times will be from 2:00 pm to about 9:00 pm each day.

OPERATIONS

The Dive Team had two callouts on the weekend of July 19-20 and another on August 2.

July 19: Shortly after noon on Saturday July 19 a boat being driven at high speed in the Arkansas Bend area struck a wake and overturned, ejecting the occupants in a reportedly spectacular series of flips and rolls. Several of the occupants were injured and the boat was extensively damaged. The Dive Team was dispatched while officials at the scene determined what had happened. By 1 pm officials had accounted for all occupants of the boat and cancelled remaining responders. Dive Team personnel already in the area assisted in recovery of the wrecked boat and finally cleared the area at 5:30 pm.

July 20: Just before 5 pm on Sunday July 20 the Dive Team was dispatched to LCRA Mansfield Dam park for a reported possible drowning. The callout was cancelled at 5:18 pm when the first officials at the scene determined that it was a false call.

August 2: At 7:45 pm on Saturday August 3 a Travis County Parks ranger at Pace Band Park was advised of a reported missing person in the water. TCSO alerted the Dive Team while EMS, Parks, and Sheriff's office personnel converged on the scene. They found that one person had reported that a second person had said that a third person in a boat had told the second person that her husband had fallen overboard somewhere between two coves at around 7 pm. The second person, the woman, her husband, and the boat were all missing. Finally a fourth person was located, who reported that a fifth person in second boat had picked up a man in the water near the area and taken him to shore. The incident was closed and the Dive Team alert was cancelled shortly after 8:30.

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August 1997

TRAINING

We scheduled two Saturday morning training sessions in August, one on August 9 and one on August 16, at 9:00 am at the Test Station. The plan was to start serious work on crime scene investigation and evidence search and recovery, with the training dives counting toward the Search and Recovery Specialty.

For the August 9 Training Dive fourteen divers and surface support people worked on evidence search and recovery. We used the evidence search scenario that was set up for the July 30 dive. First a search team located and marked several evidence items. Then a recovery team measured and recorded the exact locations and brought back the evidence in containers with samples of lake water and bottom material. It took longer than we expected, but in the end we had everything ready for law enforcement people to use for evidence.

We also had a close call with some [expletives and derogatory nouns deleted] in a water ski boat who drove his [more expletives deleted] boat through the search buoys and close by the dive flag while the recovery team was down.

The August 16 Training Dive on evidence search and recovery turned into an operational dive. Fifteen divers and surface support people searched a cove in the Pedernales area for a weapon reportedly thrown off a dock by one of the participants in a mid-July incident. On the last dive of the day we used the communications gear to do a surface-directed eight-person out-and-back line sweep. It covered a large rectangular area quickly - we will add that one to our regular repertoire.

This week when a boat started driving through the dive area, several uniformed Sheriff's Officers suggested that the boat driver alter his proposed course. Which he did.

PATROL BOAT RIDER SHIFTS:
LABOR DAY WEEKEND AND OTHER WEEKENDS

We want to put divers in the Sheriff's Office patrol boats over the Labor Day weekend. Paul Eisman has now has the boat schedule. Call Paul to arrange a  ride time. The critical times will be from noon until 8 pm each day.

The patrol boats can always use diver riders on any of the hectic summer weekends. It helps the boat officers and it gives us a chance to deploy divers quickly on emergency calls. It's also a good way to see the lake from a different perspective. The Sheriff's Office, LCRA, and Travis County Parks all have patrol boats on the lake so there is plenty of room for riders. Contact Paul about scheduling a shift on one of the boats. (Final note: ten Team divers put in over 100 man-hours on board lake patrol boats over what turned out to be a quiet Labor Day weekend.)

OPERATIONS

There have been four callouts so far in August.

August 2: At 7:45 pm on Saturday August 3 a Travis County Parks ranger at Pace Band Park was advised of a reported missing person in the water. TCSO alerted the Dive Team while emergency responders converged on the scene. They found that one person had reported that a second person had said that a third person in a boat had told the second person that her husband had fallen overboard somewhere between two coves at around 7 pm. The second person, the woman, her husband, and the boat were all missing. Finally a fourth person was located, who reported that a fifth person in second boat had picked up a man in the water near the area and taken him to shore. The incident was closed and the Dive Team alert was cancelled shortly after 8:30.

August 16: The training Dive turned into a real evidence search operation. See the story above in the Training report.

August 21:  At 11:45 AM the Dive Team was called out for an accident involving a diver working on a dock on Lake Travis. Hudson Bend VFD personnel  had recovered the subject by 12:00 and the callout was cancelled. Later that afternoon Dive Team personnel assisted TCSO in investigation (right) and evidence recovery. It was determined that the subject was electrocuted when he touched a pipe that had fallen and cut an electric power line.

August 28: Recreational divers discovered human remains in 125 feet of water west of LCRA Mansfield Dam Park. They marked the site and reported the discovery. The Dive Team was called at approximately 12:30 pm to recover the remains. Six divers and surface support personnel completed the difficult recovery by about 4 pm. The subject was identified as a swimmer who was missing after an accident on Memorial Day.

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September 1997

ID CARDS

All Team members will have to get the new photo ID cards being issued by the Sheriff's office for volunteer firefighters and EMS responders. Application forms were distributed at the last meeting and we will have forms at meetings and training dives. What you have to do NOW is fill out the application form and bring it to the next meeting. TCSO will do background checks and then set up a time at one of our meetings to take pictures and make the cards.

BATTERIES INCLUDED, NOT INSTALLED

The Dive Team Divator masks are stored with batteries removed from the BuddyPhone units except over holiday weekends.There are batteries in the mask case. When you  connect one of the Team masks to your first stage, check the BuddyPhone battery and check that the unit is operating.

The Team dive lights are also stored with the batteries removed. The batteries are in a plastic bag clamped into the wrist lanyard. Loosen the lanyard clamp to open the battery bag. There are also fresh batteries in the upper rear shelf in the trailer.

MAINTENANCE TIPS

Keep your computer contacts clean. Your underwater computers and BuddyPhone transceivers activate when two electric contacts on the case go under water. If you work around wrecked vehicles or boats under water, oil in the water can foul the contacts enough to keep your equipment from activating the next time. Clean the contacts regularly.

Check your light and BuddyPhone batteries for corrosion even if you store them out of the equipment. If you put a leaking battery into your equipment it can do a lot of damage quickly. (I put batteries in my UK400 and did not notice that one of them was leaking.  The light worked, but in one day the leaker damaged the reflector and switch assembly. -LH-)

TRAINING

The September training session on evidence search and investigation was combined with the September 6 Operation.

OPERATIONS

There has been one callout so far in September.

September 6: Sixteen divers and surface support personnel searched the Briarcliff Marina cove for evidence in a case under investigation by the Austin Police Department. The operational dive was combined with the September training dive as we got in more practice with surface-assisted and surface-directed patterns.

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October 1997

TRAINING

The training dive on October 25 covered lift bag operation for the Search and Recovery Specialty, as well as Spiral Search training for new Team members. Nine Team divers and two TCSO marine officers faced bright sunshine and 20 foot initial visibility to lift and lower targets with small (100-lb.) and big (2000-lb.) bags. We are still trying to locate a suitable car for vehicle lift training.

THE FULL FACE MASKS: USE THEM!

We encourage Team members to use the Divator masks and communicators for training and recreational diving. That keeps you familiar with the equipment and it keeps the equipment in operation.

1. There is a clipboard inside the left rear door with a signout sheet. If you take one of the masks, sign out for it and check it in when you return it. Fill in the LOCATION box so we can find you and the mask if there is an emergency operation.

2. If you use one of the Divator masks, clean it and put it back in service as soon as you can. There is a manual for the masks in the carrying case. It shows how to disassemble and clean the mask and regulator. Follow the instructions in the manual!
   Remember to put a battery in the Buddyphone before you dive, and remove the battery before you store the mask.

3. If you want to reserve the masks in advance, call Larry or another officer. We will put out a page the night before announcing that the masks will be in use. Otherwise just go to the trailer and check them out.

On Saturday morning October 4 two different groups went to use the masks and the second group discovered them missing. We found them quickly when the people that had them called in. But by then the paging service's computer had crashed so we couldn't put out a page that they were back.

OPERATIONS

There were no full team callouts in October.

The Team did one investigation dive that was coordinated by telephone. A civilian deep diving class operating off Starnes Island found a partial skeleton on the bottom in 150 feet of water. They reported the find to the Sheriff's office, and three of our experienced deep divers from ARL went to investigate. The Team divers recognized the pelvis and lower extremities as that of a deer, and brought back some of the leg bones for confirmation. They did not, however, find a rack of antlers.

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November 1997

With a big assist from LCRA
MORE FULL FACE MASKS AND COMMUNICATORS
TO GO IN SERVICE NEXT YEAR

With the help of a generous public service grant from LCRA, the Team will be putting five more Divator full face masks with BuddyPhone voice communicators in service early next year. Greg Way did the groundwork to get our application started and then completed, and Paul got strong supporting letters from the agencies we work with.

The new mask and communicator sets will be assigned to active Team members who do not own their own sets. We will still keep two mask sets and the surface console in the trailer.

Team members who receive the equipment will be responsible for keeping it maintained and ready for service. They will also be expected to use the masks for general diving to build familiarity. That won't be difficult - as soon as you start diving with a full face mask and voice communications you will wonder how you ever got along without them.

TRAINING

November Training Dive

Team members who missed this dive will have to make up work on the three patterns before next summer. The Z is our pattern of choice for covering large areas with a small number of divers. The U and expanding spiral without a search line are good tools for hasty searches if you are alone and don't have any search gear.

1998 Public Service Diving Seminar

Because of the TWA 800 and ValueJet crashes, there is a lot of interest in dive operations on downed aircraft. The sponsors have two small aircraft bodies available for training dives at the seminar. Our Team will be placing them in the water early next year. This will be excellent training and experience for lift bag operations. Watch this Newsletter or the hardcopy version for further information.

Deep Diving Specialty

The Team plans to set up a specialty sub-team with training and equipment to conduct very deep operations safely and effectively. Lewis Thompson will be conducting a Deep Diving Specialty course next year. Lew and the experienced deep divers will also assist Team members in upgrading their personal diving equipment. If you are interested in getting into really deep operations, start planning now to carry a lot more air than just one 80 cf tank.

OPERATIONS

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December 1997

1998 ELECTION OF OFFICERS

President:		Paul Eisman
Vice President:		Dean Woodley
Secretary-Treasurer:		Steve Carlson
Captain:		Tim Hoffman
Lieutenant:		Lewis Thompson
Board Place 1:		Lewis Thompson
Board Place 2:		David Key

TRAINING

OPERATIONS

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