Story Photos
 Photo by Bill Wagner Cowlitz County Dive Rescue Team diver, Brian Hogg, talks to a team member on the shore of the Lewis River during a training session Tuesday in Woodland. The yellow rope contains microphone cord that enables divers to communicate with land-based tenders. |
New gear helps Cowlitz dive team
Wednesday, August 24, 2005 11:39 PM PDT
By Marissa Harshman
Printable version
E-mail this articleFor several days, dive teams searched Ocean Shores in vain for the body of a young boy who had drowned.
Then, on July 1, the Cowlitz County Dive Rescue Team was called to the scene. In less than 10 minutes, diver Brian Hogg thought he found something in the weeds of Duck Lake.
"We thought with a two and half year old, he would be within 10 feet of the shore," recalls Bob Moore, training officer for the Cowlitz team. "Brian told us that when he got to bottom he lost visibility, so we told him to stay near the top and look for depressions in the weeds where something might have sank."
"He was only in the water about five minutes before he said, 'Yeah, I think I found him,' " Moore said.
One of the keys to the successful search, Moore said, was new communication equipment that enabled Hogg to speak through a microphone directly with people on shore. It helped him conduct a more systematic search. In the past, the only communication the divers had with the surface was tugging on a rope.
In the Ocean Shores search, the new equipment "helped because we were able to talk to the diver. ... We were able to tell Brian where to go," Moore said Tuesday
The new equipment also helps make searches safer for the divers, he said
Retired Woodland resident Gregg Harder donated $4,200 to the dive and rescue team so they could upgrade their communications equipment, Moore said.
"We're moving out of the stone age and into the modern," diver Vince Rolie said during a demonstration of the equipment in Woodland Tuesday.
With the donated money, the team purchased full-coverage face masks, ropes embedded with microphone cords, microphone ear sets and a new communication box .
The face masks have microphones attached to the mouth piece and ear phones that are hooked on to straps. The 200-foot rope containing the microphone cord is attached to the face mask and to the tender on shore, who wears headphones and a microphone.
The voice-activated microphones allow the tender to monitor the diver's breathing and to check oxygen supply without the diver needing to surface. The equipment also allows tenders to keep divers informed about water conditions and snagged ropes.
Because the team consists of all volunteers and doesn't receive government funding, the divers have invested thousands of their own dollars to buy equipment, diver Brett Duling said. The team has received donations in the past but none so large as the gift from Harder, whom The Daily News was unable to contact.
"We really just want to thank (Harder) for his help," Duling said.
Moore said he had met Harder before but hardly knew him. One day they were talking about the dive team earlier this year and Harder offered to provide money so the team could purchase the new equipment.
"When (Harder) asked how we communicate, I told him 'Two tugs means this, three means that,' " Moore said. "His jaw just dropped."
The new equipment also had one other, perhaps unexpected, benefit during the Ocean Shores search.
Once Hogg had found the little boy, Moore could tell him to wait near the body and not bring it ashore until a body bag arrived
"It was really nice to talk to Brian while he is looking at this two and a half year old in the face," Moore said. "There is a lot of comfort to the diver to have someone to talk to. We were able to reassure him, ask if he was okay."
"We wouldn't be able to find any of that out with rope tugs."
Past Month's Most Commented Stories