Sunday, June 26, 2011

How Prepared Is Your Safety Diving Team for a Bridge Collapse?

BY WALT “BUTCH” HENDRICK AND ANDREA ZAFERES

Public safety diving (PSD) has gone from being an “exotic” within a fire or police department to the norm. The size of the department, whether it is career or volunteer, or the amount of water in the jurisdiction doesn’t seem to be a criterion for establishing such a team. Despite the growing number of teams with decades of experience, the key question of the day, sadly, is the same as it was more than 20 years ago: What is the mission of a PSD team? What levels of training and maintenance are required for the operations the team intends to perform? “(See “Training and Maintenance Requirements for PSD Teams” on page 76.) How can we establish regional specialty dive teams to ensure reasonable response time for mass-casualty underwater emergencies? And, in the absence of that, what is the Go/No Go risk assessment for local teams during the immediate potential lifesaving part of the emergency?
The catastrophic collapse of the eight-lane I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in August has made it more imperative than ever that these questions be answered. Such a collapse sends trucks, cars, trains, and human bodies into the water—in this case, the Mississippi River. In addition, twisted metal, cables, concrete, and other debris were scattered and piled on top of each other in every direction, some in the most tenuous ways.


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(1, 2) These sonar images show the old river bed and the road decking and trusses of Kimberling City (MO) truss bridge. The total depth is 175 feet. The sonar was above the bridge, and there was a great deal of wave action, which distorts the images by causing reflections. Lake Taneycomo was created at the site, and a dam also was ultimately constructed. The old bridge remains today, many fathoms below the surface. The waters of the lake caused it to submerge before it could be dismantled. [Photos by Lee Summit (MO) Underwater Recovery Unit.]

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This disaster gave new meaning to underwater search and rescue/recovery (US&R/R) or water search and rescue/recovery (WSAR/R). A bridge collapse water operation is similar to urban search and rescue/recovery, with added dynamics.
What are these dynamics? First, water adds pressure differentials1 that can cause lung overexpansion injuries, ear barotrauma, and other minor to potentially life-threatening gas-bubble injuries. There is a constant need for a source of breathing gas, which is used up more quickly as depth increases. The dynamics may likely include the following:

  • Zero visibility and even blackwater. Not only will the diver not be able to visualize the debris, but the debris may be sharp, hanging tenuously, or ending in seriously confined spaces. The divers would require highly trained tenders to continuously guide and monitor them. Just as the divers cannot see, the tenders also cannot see the divers unless they are using specific types of very expensive sonar, which may not work when inside the debris.
  • Currents.
  • Floating and hidden hazmat problems in which the divers are immersed.
  • The need for properly anchored operational platforms, such as boats or floating barges.
  • Short search times (a maximum of 15 to 25 minutes) because of air management, diver and tender concentration capabilities, cold stress, loss of hand dexterity from heat loss, dehydration, diver rotation, and other issues.
  • Aquatic animal concerns such as water moccasins, alligators, snapping turtles, and less-threatening critters such as eels and fish that bump you in the blackness.

UNDERWATER SAR/R VS. US&R/R TEAMS

Let’s examine some of the basic ways Underwater SAR/R teams differ from US&R/R teams.

Uniformity in Training

US&R/R teams can come from all over the country and be trained in similar techniques and operations. Training facilities around the world, like Reykjavik, Iceland, teach procedures similar to those taught in the collapse school in the Calgary Fire Department Training Academy in Alberta, Canada. US&R/R teams have a trained, unified command structure and understand safety procedures and how to use the proper equipment for the job at hand. They have trained backup teams.


(3) In rescue mode, victims are not bagged on the bottom. Teams need to practice how to bring victims up while keeping the airway as dry as possible. For recovery situations, divers practice bagging bodies and body parts underwater. (Photos courtesy of authors.)

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On the other hand, Underwater SAR/R teams are rarely similar. Within a single county, you can have teams that wear wetsuits and sport masks and octopuses who use handheld tether lines with buddy divers. Then there are other teams in vulcanized rubber drysuits, full face masks, quick-release pony bottles, harnesses with locking carabiners, and highly trained tenders who can run safe and effective solo tendered-directed dives. The former teams have a contingency plan of “send the backup diver down when the diver rapidly pulls the line and the backup diver feels around the needy diver to figure out what the problem is.” The latter teams have well-practiced blackwater contingency plans with diver-to-diver hand signals, a graduated system of help-line signals, and contingency equipment.

(4) Well-practiced contingency plans are a must. These two fire department divers are practicing using each other’s quick-release gas switching blocks while wearing gloves over their hazmat dry gloves. When diving in debris-filled environments with currents, contingency divers should have a way of providing an entrapped diver with additional air sources, such as a surface supply line, without removing the diver’s mask.

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How can these teams in the same county provide mutual aid to each other on a bridge collapse site when they cannot assist each other on standard calls? The answer is that they cannot. And the bigger question is, are any of these teams trained and equipped to respond to such a call?

(5) Debris divers need dexterity when searching, to assist in managing entanglements and to search for a small body part (finger) that may be within the diver’s reach. Items such as carabiners and quarters are used as search objects in basic search classes to develop this dexterity.

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The majority of dive teams have basic training only; they dive in sport diving-configured equipment and often have poor and only tabletop self-rescue plans. Usually, there is poor funding at best for professional training and equipment. Where can PSD teams even go to get training for such large-scale incidents as a bridge collapse when they realize they need this training? Only a couple of professional companies do this type of training.

(6) Divers need to learn how to feel debris underwater to help prevent and manage entrapments and entanglements and move debris to access bodies.

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Federal and State Regulations

Where do the state or federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration come into play in relation to PSD teams? Are they still exempt when it comes to confined-space operations, which bridge collapse dives can be? Are they exempt when the job requires commercial or military diving capabilities by divers and tenders who have hundreds or thousands of hours of experience instead of PSD divers with fewer than 50 to 100 dives?

What Are the Benefits?

In US&R/R, victims have been saved after days or even weeks (up to 16 days) of entrapment, which is very different from Underwater SAR/R, where the only people who can be saved are those on the surface or, in extremely rare circumstances, in a location accessible to divers who can reach them while they are still viable.
Victims submerged in vehicles usually have no air pockets in which to breathe or survive. To survive, submerged bridge collapse victims would have to be in a totally encapsulated airtight pressurized environment with a volume of air large enough to dilute the exhaled carbon dioxide to prevent suffocation.

Visibility

On land. Once the dust has settled, artificial lighting can be introduced in any number of ways, anything from handheld to stationary halogen. Practically every fire and rescue company in our country carries portable high-intensity lighting. Thousands of feet of cable can be run to support a single light source or a passage for access. Once lighting has been established, rescuers can see and can focus on specific items of danger. Rescuers can plan the reaction of an action—how to support an item to remove another item. Visibility allows for planned movements, thereby reducing the extent of the unknown danger.
Underwater. If there is no visibility because of turbulence or particles in the water, no amount of light can change it. You won’t even notice a 10,000-watt light. An infrared unit that can see in the dark but cannot light up the area can see only what it is looking at. Without light, every movement is a danger; actions can require three times the amount of planning and measuring before anything can be done. Unless they have been taught some tricks, divers may not even be able to monitor their own remaining gas supply. Visibility, or the lack of it, is typically our number-one issue.
Sonar can be used to help map out areas of debris that can be viewed by the sonar. But, sonar cannot read through concrete or other materials; it does not work like an X-ray machine reading through a body. So where a US&R/R technician can hold a light around a corner to peer into another space, sonar may be completely ineffective. The key difference is that US&R/R technicians see the collapse for themselves in live time. Divers only have access to sonar pictures when they are sitting on land or on a platform. They cannot access these visuals while diving.

Currents

On land. Usually, there are no currents in US&R/R. The definition of a land scene is that there is no water in the scene. Once part or all of the collapse is submerged, that location becomes an underwater scene. The Minneapolis bridge collapse was no longer a land scene. Only divers could enter the underwater part of that scene, and currents existed only in the water.
Underwater. Currents are a major issue. First, divers should dive into water with currents greater than one-half knot in a downstream manner, since currents greater than this make it very difficult to move divers back and forth parallel to shore.
The accuracy of the search can be seriously compromised, and divers can become overexerted and have far greater air consumption rates. Most importantly though, what is the contingency plan for performing an effective rescue of your own when diving from shore in currents greater than one-half knot?

(7) Stationary platforms that can be moved at will are necessary to work from on a bridge collapse site. These Nashua (NH) Fire Department boat operators are learning to perform hurricane anchoring in water up to four knots. (Photo courtesy of authors.)

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We have met teams who perform such dives, but we have not met teams who can physically and realistically demonstrate effective contingency plans for divers who are entrapped or entangled in fast-water dives performed from shore. Currents have the potential of moving debris at any time; the constant force is an unknown on all objects underwater. Put a diver in the wrong place and at the wrong angle to a current as little as one knot,4 and the resulting force can be such that the diver may require assistance to get out. One knot is a physical movement of 100 feet of moving water per minute, or 1.7 feet per second—a force of approximately 15 psi on the diver’s body. A force of three knots equals 16.8 psi on the legs and 33.6 psi on a body stuck or not physically moving.
In moving water such as urban rivers, there is the constant threat of surface and subsurface moving debris such as logs, couches, and tires. They can injure divers. If a diver becomes trapped by such debris, the force pushing against the diver can be increased by the additional surface area of the item that is also affected by the current.

(8) To prepare for the blackwater of a bridge collapse incident, divers should always dress without looking so that they learn how to manipulate their equipment completely by feel. The fact that this diver is using his eyes to close his chest strap could be an indicator that he may not be very confident should he have to remove his buoyancy compensator device to get out of an entrapment. Notice the spread-out hose wrap on the pony regulator hose. Only the pony hose has this wrap, which allows divers to easily feel it with thick gloves should it become disconnected from the neck strap. (Photos courtesy of authors.)

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And, keep in mind that in a low- to zero-visibility river, none of this is visually avoidable.
The risk of a diver’s becoming entrapped against debris by current goes up when the amount of debris or the current increases. Bridge collapses definitely increase the amount of debris and number of obstructions, which in themselves can increase currents. So it is a double risk.

(9) At minimum, divers should be wearing hazmat tested suits and full-face masks, true redundant air, and electronic communication systems. If there should be a truck with a higher-level of hazmat contaminants submerged from a bridge collapse, this diver and tender would not be wearing appropriate personal protective equipment for the conditions.

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Chicago Fire Dive Rescue




Air Sea Rescue

The Air Sea Rescue Unit was established in 1965, where they provide search and rescue services for 37 miles of lakefront, an extensive river system, numerous lakefront venues, and the largest harbor system in the U.S. 
Chicago’s busy lakefront offers the Air Sea Rescue Unit unique emergency challenges including, assistance to boats in distress, water rescues and air search missions. Divers assigned to the Air Sea Rescue Unit are trained under public safety rescue diver guidelines specific to Chicago’s needs and particular environment. 
All pilots are trained in helicopter search and rescue, and hoist rescue techniques patterned after nationally recognized standards. The Air Sea Rescue Unit uses two (2) Bell 412 EP helicopters to aid in their efforts. This equipment is used for multi-mission roles, which include administrative, law enforcement, and primarily search and rescue flights. The unit also has dive rescue vehicles equipped with the latest available communications devices, full facemask and dry suit dive equipment, and lighting for night operations. They also have a dedicated swimming pool for training the members.

Battalion 6 Multi-Company Drill

Fire Boat 4 pumps to the deck monitors at a Battalion 6 multi-company drill

Boat 2 supplies land companies using master streams

Monday, June 6, 2011

New Website Feature

Introducing new website features
Now get the latest search, rescue and recovery news with daily updates of incidents 
around the country.
  
Also follow the LAFD Rescue Dive Team by signing up for email updates of the website.

See the news feed in the left column

LAFD Divers Participate in Public Safety Dive Training

Members of the LAFD Rescue Dive Team as well as members from LA County Fire USAR Task Force participated in a Public Safety Dive Training course hosted by the Riverside County Sheriff Office (RSO) Dive Team.   The courses, PSD I and PSD II were two separate 40 hour courses and part of the RSO dive academy.  "The courses were well organized and comprehensive.  It was a great opportunity to train with one top law enforcement dive teams in the state" said Bill Evans, Backup Diver from Fire Station 49-C.


Steve Meiche, Firefighter from fire Station 49 organized the fire department participation. "I would like to say that the RSO Dive Team is an exemplary professional organization of committed and loyal members.  They are highly competent, most of their members possess advanced dive ratings, instructor certifications and have advanced technical dive experience.  Most impressive though, is that they are a true "TEAM".  Every member exhibited a commitment to a team effort throughout the entire program, it was truly admirable and appreciated" stated Meiche.   "We have a lot to learn from this team and others like them.  We really need to strive in developing the professionalism, camaraderie and commitment they have" Meiche continued.


Mate Todd Hix and an RSO diver prepare for a search and recovery operation

Training video from the confined water training.  

This portion of the training focused on diver safety, team work and mitigating dive emergencies.

Team Skills
 Divers are challenged by completing a series of obstacles as a team then swap scuba equipment while buddy breathing





 Entrapment
Divers navigate through an entrapment prop to experience the difficulties and stress of freeing themselves when fouled by lines and debris.  Divers first navigate with full visual then with masks blacked out.

  




 







Dive Training

Deep Dive Training

LAFD Backup Divers prepare for a deep dive on the wreck of the Avalon.  Mate Todd Hix finalizes the dive plan.  This dive was the final certification dive for the new Backup Divers.  



With the completion of this dive, the Backup Team completed a 40 hour dive training academy certifying the members and all LAFD dive SOG's.

 


 Victim Rescue Drill

Divers surfacing after locating a drowning victim at a depth of 30 feet.  The dive team conducted a sweep search of the location last scene.








On the surface, Divers Curtis Ogle and Chad Crouthamel, Fire Sation 49-B swim the mock victim to Boat 3 for resuscitation.



















All Boat Drill
Fireboats stage outside Fire Station 49 for a small vessel firefighting drill





Lines Aloft Shipboard Firefighting Drill

Boat 4, with Boat 3 backing up, nose in for preparation to send firefighting lines aloft at a shipboard firefighting drill on the U.S.S. Lane Victory.

2-1/2 and 1-3/4 firefighting lines on the deck
Hoisting the lines
Firefighters board the ship from the water side
 
 The confined area of the engine room

Towing Operation

Members from Boat 3, Boat 4 and Engine 49 participate in a towing drill in the main channel.

LA Port Police Regional Law Enforcement Maritime Training Center

Located next door to LAFD Fire Station 49, Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano toured a new training facility for law enforcement at sea Monday and discuss heightened security measures to combat terrorism at the Port of Los Angeles.
 
Napolitano toured the Maritime Law Enforcement Training Center with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Police Chief Charlie Beck and other dignitaries. The center will provide state and local agencies with updated training on maritime boardings, arrest procedures, vessel identification, searches and counter-terrorism procedures, officials said.

The course will be based on Federal Law Enforcement Training Center(FLETC) curriculum, and will be developed jointly by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Los Angeles Port Police, Long Beach Police Department and FLETC staff.

The five-week program trains law enforcement personnel on various boating laws, maritime intelligence and how to spot terrorist threats or weapons of mass destruction that could pose a danger to cargo and cruise vessels.  Instruction will include the nation's first curricula approved by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and California Emergency Management Agency.  Police officers across the country can now undergo five weeks of maritime security training at a new operations center that opened Monday at the Port of Los Angeles. 

Classes will be held at the new $16.1 million Maritime Law Enforcement Training Center in San Pedro, which was funded by federal and state grants. The facility is equipped with classrooms, a helicopter landing pad and floating docks. 

The new training facility also is expected to help relieve a backlog in training law enforcement officials on federal security protocols, Napolitano said. The first class at the Port of Los Angeles began two weeks ago with 24 officers. 


Vessle Fire

Engine 112, Light Force 48, Engine 101, Boat 2, Boat 5 and Battalion 6 responded to a 55' fishing vessel well involved with fire on the main deck and pilot house.  Engine 112 initiated fire attack from the land side backed up by Light force 48.  Boat 2 and Boat 5 assisted from the water front.

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Wharf Fire in Baltimore

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Boston firefighters battle a 3 alarm blaze in a commercial waterfront building.  75 firefighters were called in, including a dive team to fight the fire underneath the pier and on the building’s first floor.





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New Equipment

Team members receive a presentation on the latest in rescue dive equipment
Dive Team members at Fire Station 49 take a look at the latest public safety dive equipment available.  "Updating our program to meet NFPA standards and the training demands of public safety dive training is a priority.  The team will be in need of the latest personal protective equipment available on the market" states Dave Bender, dive team training coordinator.  

"It's important to not only increase the level of protection for our team members but have modern equipment that allows us to operate effectively and effectively.  The equipment we have been using is for the most part is recreational equipment.  What we are looking at is equipment designed to meet the needs of technical rescue and recovery work ."  Bender continues.

Contaminated Water

A perfect example of the importance of having a contaminated water SOG. 
After a heavy rain, the water around Fire Station 49

PSDiver Monthly

 See the website

PSDiver Monthly is a FREE Internet resource for Fire, LE, EMS, SAR and Water Rescue and Response Teams
  In This Issue of PSDiver Monthly:
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PSDiver Fatality
 
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Fitness for Diving
Public Safety Divers
 
By Divers Alert Network
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Regular Features:
News and Information for Water Rescue and Recovery Teams -  Found on the Web - Information You Can Use - Events - Diving Medicine - Continuing Education
 
 

Dive Team Meeting

The dive team meeting was held on April 27, 2011 at Fire Station 112.  Dive team administrators, Assistant Chief Manning, Special Operations,  Assistant Chief Terrazas and Battalion 6 Commanders Chief Gomez and Buck conducted the meeting.  The agenda addressed the many current issues that face the dive team.  

While the team is advancing in a positive direction, the dive team command maintained a solid commitment to providing funding for training and equipment through various grants available to the department.   Some of the priorities outlined in the meeting include meeting NFPA standards for training and equipment as well as expanding the number of backup divers on the team.