Pittsfield Fire, Sheriff's Office Train for Underwater Rescue
Divers suit up to enter the waters of Pontoosuc after a call of a 'baby overboard' came in.
The scenario at Pontoosuc Lake was an underwater rescue training drill with the Fire Department's dive team and the Berkshire County Sheriff's Office.
The victim — a weighted baby doll — was rescued from about 12-foot-deep water within the "golden hour" at Blue Anchor Beach. Tyer played her part in frantically alerting the team of a baby overboard after the doll was deployed.
"This is a perfect example of forging relationships and collaboration," Sheriff Thomas Bowler said. "We've been training with the Pittsfield Fire Department over the last couple of months, they are now certified as well as we are, and so if there's an incident, we are very well prepared to handle the incident."
The first witness report came in at 9:10 and the victim was recovered at 9:43. After the report, multiple divers suited up with extensive gear and the team worked to first interview the witnesses to pinpoint a location as best as possible and then execute the rescue.
Because the subject was found in under an hour and it was an "infant" in cold water, resuscitation may be possible. The golden hour is considered the period of time after a traumatic event during which an immediate and coordinated response can significantly raise the chances of survival.
Two divers were deployed to the water for rescue, the second being successful in under seven minutes after the first had an issue. They were assisted by the responders on shore and a responder in a boat.
The teams were recently certified with dive training and rapid deployment search and rescue.
"It's been a long time getting here, it's been two years of planning and buying stuff and training," Deputy Fire Chief Matthew Noyes said.
Lt. Colonel Thomas Grady of the sheriff's office said the drill was perfect because it was imperfect.
"That gives us the opportunity to go into our safety planning to get the second diver in there, other divers to now backfill that to make sure that somebody that's coming out of the water is safe," he said about the first diver having to come back to shore.
"And it couldn't have gone any better. The fact that we actually recovered the victim in a short period of time was huge as well. Berkshire County, we have a little bit of advantage, sometimes we can rescue because of the temperature of the water and the deeper that you go the thermal climates switch here so it buys time."
Fire Chief Thomas Sammons was also impressed with how the drill played out, saying that it went "swimmingly."
The dive team is now a full-time department within the Fire Department and was able to purchase a majority of the diving equipment with grants. The department had previously disbanded because of budget constraints.
"Pittsfield Fire Department, the goal of trying to get their team back up and running was specifically that we wanted to be able to have people off of every shift that were fully certified to do underwater," Grady explained.
Though everyone in the department is capable of surface water rescue, underwater capabilities were limited.
"They can be on the surface, but they don't have any underwater capability," Grady said. "So we wanted to add the ability for them to dive and be able to go under, so bringing those two capabilities together with a full-time agency buys us a better response time and gets people in the water quicker solid, so it's just huge for the county to be able to have that resource available."
The department is on board with a mutual aid program in which they can assist on any calls. Recently, it provided relief on a search in Sheffield.
Being on the westernmost side of the state, Bowler said collaboration is essential to perform a successful rescue.
"The unique thing about Berkshire County is resources are all down at the central part of the state, in the eastern part of the state," he explained.
"That's why we have to do this collaborative effort with all the agencies here, because by the time we get resources here, time has lapsed, and time is of the essence. That's why we do what we do, so we can respond and help this community as fast as we can."
Tags: emergency drill,
