Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tom Priddle on January 26, 2009 at 11:01am

Rescue diving is nothing like resort diving although it gives you underwater experience. I am from Mid Illinois and we have very few places that we can see our hands in front of our masks, so dark water is our primary concerns. We also have lots of lakes, creeks and a river that all poses its own problems. Lakes offer a wide variety of snags from trees to trout lines and other fishing lines and the same goes for the creeks and river. The creeks and river are a problem due to the swift water and it never fails that someone tries to cross a flooded bridge and almost makes it. key word being almost. I will say that I do enjoy it and not to mention PADI dive cert. can be used on vacations. Good luck hope this helps.

Permalink Reply by Jeremy mcclung on January 26, 2009 at 9:46pm

Thanks for the reply. Where I live we have one river its a constant 40-45 deg. year round, and a lake that in some parts, some of the year you can see a long ways and in some parts its alway murky. Im almost shure that this is something that I want to do. A few of the guys on the dept. want to start a dive team. There is not one in the county any more. Were also wanting to get a rescue boat. Part of our district covers a good part of the lake.

Permalink Reply by Tom Priddle on January 29, 2009 at 10:41am

Our Dept. has had a dive team for years but trying to get funding for it is difficult due to the needs in other areas of the dept. We started a golf tournament about 6 years ago and we get between 4-5 thousand a year from it. It doesn't sound like much but we went from having 7-8 divers to having 17 and a new dive boat and new underwater communications along with all new wet and dry suits. We run 3 ambulances and it seems when we buy a new ambulance we convert the old one into a dive unit so far it has worked out. being by the river that is that cold you will want dry suits and insulation. Seems around here even in the middle of summer you get a drop in temp. about every 20 feet and it can go from 80 degrees to 40 in the matter of inches.