Company 8 Dive Team

"Avast ye harties and shiver me timbers". Grab yerself a mug of rum and sit back as we tell ya some deep sea stories from Davey Jones's Locker.

The rescue divers of Company 8 are exposed to almost every kind of condition and situation that can be imagined. For starters let us take an actual car and put some dummies in it each filled with about 250 pounds of lead. Now, lets put this car in some totally black, fridgid water where you can not see your hand in front of your face.

"Get the people out!" shouts Wayne Klinger (our beloved and sometimes hated dive coordinator) and within a blink of an eye fully suited up divers plunge into the water teathered to shore. As the divers surface, with their weighted "dummies", Wayne Klinger is looking at his watch and yells "Not fast enough. Do it again!". And so it goes...over and over and over.
The divers training does not end there, they have also trained with "Eagle One" police helicopter, jumping into the water below, while hovering 15 to 20 feet off of the surface.

The divers training is also focused on one primary objective: "Rapid Response". When a call goes out for "Dive Team 8", within minutes all necessary equipment and personnel are enroute and all divers are fully suited up before even arriving on the scene. TIME is of the essence and a major factor in any of the dive rescue operations. All of the divers are not only Dive Rescue trained and certified (and swift water certified) but are Emergency Medical Technicians as well. That means immediate basic life support even before the first ambulance arrives.