Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Doof]

Some of you may know that I'm a member of our underwater rescue team. You may have read my little story about being called out first thing in the morning because of a truck that was found in a local pond.

Well, we just got called out again.

It was 11:20 PM EST, and it's snowing like crazy here. The roads are all icy. Apparently a car went off the road into a pond. Sounds a lot like last time. The only difference this time is that it was confirmed that the driver was still in the car.

I was sitting here, on the computer, and I had just finished posting to Interact. My girlfriend was sleeping in the other room, something I should be doing since we need to be up at 5AM.

The pager goes off, and I jump up, run to it, and listen. It's so staticky that I can't make out what's being said. So I run into the bedroom to see if the other pager is any clearer.

Other pager? Yeah... my girlfriend is now a member of the team as well. She joined about 7 months ago.

Anyway, back to the other pager. The other pager isn't making a sound at all. And before I can really determine what's being said on the one that is making sound, the transmission stops.

I stood there in stunned silence, not quite knowing what to do. My girlfriend is only a quarter awake and more than a little irritated that I'm standing there with the light on. She still has no idea what's going on.

"You might want to get dressed," I said to her. I could tell she still had no idea what I was doing. Just then, the pager went off again. They use two seperate towers, so that they can broaden the range of the broadcast. The first one they used is obviously a little out of our range. The second one is clear as a bell.

We both start throwing clothes on. (when did this narrative switch to the present tense? my english teacher would be ashamed of me) It's then that I realize that a good portion of my gear isn't in my Jeep where it belongs. It's scattered about the apartment, still drying from my last dive. Bad timing, I guess. I also realize that my girlfriend's car is blocking mine, so I send her down to move it while I hurriedly collect my gear. In the process I knock a shelf off the bracket in the closet and it comes crashing to the floor, no doubt waking up my landlord who lives right below me. No matter, he's a nice guy and I'm sure he'll understand.

I grab my stuff and throw it into the Jeep. I quickly scrape the ice off my windshield, jump in, and take off as quickly as I dare on these icy roads. The same conditions that put that guy (or girl) into the water are the same conditions that could get his or her would-be rescuers in trouble as well. But that's what they make 4-wheel drive for, right? Well, not really, but it will have to do.

So we're driving as fast as we can, and all I can think about is that I'm sure I've forgotten something. See, this is why all this stuff should be packed ahead of time, when you have a clearer mind. Luckily, I know that there are team members who live a lot closer to the accident than we do. We're probably 40 minutes away from my estimates. Hopefully this thing will be all over before we even get there.

As it turns out, it was over before any of us got there. I still don't know what happened, but probably whomever it was either got out on their own, or was rescued by the fire department that no doubt beat us there. The lakes and ponds aren't terribly deep around the edges, so I doubt the person's head was even underwater.

Gratefully, and maybe with just a tiny tiny bit of disappointment - after all, I've been on the team for over two years now and I've never been on a real rescue call - that sort of thing starts to eat at you after a while - we turned around and headed for home.

So why am I telling you all this? Surely there are others out there that handle situations like this almost daily, and reading my little tale must be kind of boring, or even invoke a reaction of "So?"

But I'm wound right now. And I'm hoping that writing about it will calm me down enough. After all, I still have to go to sleep, and I still have to be up at 5AM.

[zevele10]

But I'm wound right now. And I'm hoping that writing about it will calm me down enough. After all, I still have to go to sleep, and I still have to be up at 5AM.  =-=-=

This is a kind of help that this forum can give from time to time , so you are very welcome to use it.

Beside this ,i really think that there is nothing boring in your storie .
And not so many of us have to deal with such situation.
So to tell us is the thing to do.

Anyway ,you may be wake up right now after a short night and not a quiet sleep.
Have a nice week-end and a nice day

[dragyn]

So? ..hehe j/k  

What I don't understand is why do they call you out when you are so far away. You said it was like a 40min drive. Do you have other duties besides recuing ppl? Glad everyone was ok.

I almost went into the ditch after work yesterday. I had to turn sharp left in order to get straight again. Traveling 60mph on somewhat icy roads isn't a good thing...especially when the car started drifting to the right and you're looking at it but not responding trying to figure out what to do. The roads looked wet, not icy.

..and I tell you what. After that incident happened. I kept it under 30. I was still in shock after that. It was going to the right pretty fast. If I didn't hit some dry pavement, I would have went off-roadin', MC style (had MC playing at the time, go figure).

[Doof]

Well, I'm up! 4.5 hours... ugh.

Thanks, zevele. I'm glad my story didn't bore you. I certainly wasn't bored when it happened!

Why do they call us out there? Well, we're a small team, and unfortunately, we're the only team in the area. And it's a pretty large area. When the call comes in, every team member gets paged. If we can get there within an hour, we go.

There's this thing called the mammalian diving reflex. I'm sure you've probably heard of it, but if not, basically it works like this. If you suddenly find yourself in very cold water, the shock of it can cause your body to start to shut down all blood flow to any area not considered essential. The three essential areas are the heart, lungs, and brain. I'm not really sure how it works (not sure if anybody does), but it basically means that you have a chance of being revived even after quite some time of being underwater.

There are certain factors that contribute to it... age, temperature, and whether it was a shock to your system or if you had time to acclimate. So a swimmer who's been in the water and drowns may not have much of a chance of revival after more than 15 minutes or so, but kids who have suddenly fallen through the ice have been revived up to nearly 2 hours afterwards.

So we operate under what we call the Golden Hour. We have one hour after the call comes in that the operation is termed a rescue. I think they've actually expanded it to an hour and a half now. After that, it's deemed a recovery. We don't do recoveries. We rescues.

Realistically though... 95% of them are probably recoveries. There are many things that factor into that...

For one thing, people often times don't recognize an aquatic accident when they see one. Kids fool around and pretend to be drowning, lifeguards with not enough pairs of eyes to keep track of everybody all at once, or just nobody around to see it happen.

Then there's the problem with reliable data. We can get to the scene and have people tell us that a boat has tipped over. Where did it tip over? Right there where the boat is, of course. Problem is, the boat has been drifting for the past 15 minutes.

There's a lot of lake to search when you don't really know where to begin. And around here, visibility isn't very good (10-20'), and can easily be made even worse by a stray fin kick, or a diver with poor buoyancy control.

So we've been really fortunate that we haven't had any real calls since I've joined. I've been told it's very unusual to go this long without an incident. I keep joking that I'm the team's lucky charm.

[Doof]

Oh, I'm very familiar with that slipping car sensation.

I used to drive a Mustang. Loads of fun during New England winters. I think I spent more time in the ditch than out.

I used to go find an empty parking lot and do donuts, skids, e-brakes, etc. After doing that for a while, recovering from things like that becomes pretty automatic. You probably know what I mean.

Still didn't keep me out of the ditch somedays, though.