Working in a systematic manner, using his hands to feel around because visibility is low, Capt. Dan Byrne rises from the muck-filled water of what, in better weather, is the Rocky Point Yacht Club pool. He holds in his hands not a knife or other object commonly tossed into water, but a woman’s hoop earring.

That’s OK, though, because it’s only practice.

Without hesitation, despite the steadily falling rain on the cold, dark night last Wednesday, Capt. Byrne and his colleague, First Lt. Chris Broadbent, donned drysuits and jumped into the pool to train with other members of the Sound Beach Volunteer Fire Department scuba team.

Now made up of nine divers, who, as a requirement, are all volunteer firefighters, the dive team trains monthly at various town locations to prepare for the handful of calls it receives each year. The past few years have been busy, District Chief Alan Yantorno said, but the team, currently all men, has been ready each time, even working with the police department’s dive team on occasion.

The most recent incident that called for the Sound Beach team’s assistance was an unfortunate one, the men told the Post during their recent training session. It involved the drowning death in the Mianus River of Joseph J. Moore of Riverside. As with most dive operations, said firefighter and dive team member T. John Cunningham, the August call started with emergency officials trying to figure out where the missing person was, whether at a bar, a friend’s house, a nearby store, or in the water. All this, he said, was going on while dive team members were suiting up.

Once on a scene, Mr. Cunningham said, a diver can be in the water within 10 minutes, once there is an assessment of the situation, witnesses are interviewed and a search pattern is formed. He added that divers will search for one to two hours in a rescue mission before turning it into a recovery operation.

“Everything is methodical,” Mr. Cunningham said. “No one rushes. It’s a very planned-out process, even in an emergency.”

In addition to responding to incidents in town, the team provides mutual aid to surrounding towns, even in New York state.

On this night in Old Greenwich, Capt. Byrne, one of the divers who helped recover Mr. Moore’s body, and First Lt. Broadbent are at one end of a tether. On the other end is a person called a “tender,” who controls the movement of the diver. Each tug of the tether signals a different move, a sort of Morse code for divers, District Chief Yantorno said.

To understand that code requires training, and before joining the dive team, the firefighters must receive that training and certification in public safety diving operations from Dive Rescue International, a Colorado-based company. Divers must maintain that certification while on the team, as well as maintain their status as volunteer firefighters with the department.

Like an NFL coach giving his quarterback the plays, dive team members on land are able to communicate with the divers through a wireless underwater communications system, which is part of the full face mask they are equipped with.

At a fire station open house on Oct. 20, the public was able to get a firsthand look at what the dive team does and what equipment it uses. Many people, Mr. Cunningham said, didn’t even know the Sound Beach department had such a division, which is part of its technical rescue team. The Sound Beach department is the heavy-duty technical rescue department for the town, performing emergency services such as fire suppression, search and rescue, vehicle extrication, confined space rescue, trench rescue, urban search and rescue, hazardous materials management, and high angle rope rescue.

“There’s not a lot of fun things about diving up here,” Capt. Byrne said last Wednesday. “It’s part of the technical rescue. When people come to Sound Beach, that’s what they expect. [Diving is] another aspect of it.”

While the depth of the Rocky Point pool is about 14 feet, Capt. Byrne said he’s been down 25 to 30 feet in different locations, including the Mianus River, where he said finding barbecue grills, picnic tables and even a hockey goal is not uncommon — all things people left out on the ice before it melted in the spring.

Part of training new dive team members, Capt. Byrne said, is to make them close their eyes underwater, so they can get used to the zero to low visibility they are bound to find in emergency situations.

“You don’t know what to expect when you’re in the water,” firefighter Cunningham said. “You can’t see anything, it’s pitch black, you’re feeling things, so you have to have a certain mindset when you go in the water that you’re doing this for a rescue or recovery. Not everyone can do it.”

The Sound Beach scuba team trains in all weather, including the ice and snow, because, members said, that’s what can be expected when they are called to a scene. The job is physically exerting, Mr. Cunningham said, adding that all the equipment necessary to go under water weighs about 45 pounds. Divers must also keep their tether taut, which, he said, gets harder the farther from shore they get.

When divers come out of the water (as they are rotated throughout a mission), their only job is to rest up and relax.

While the town does support some of its equipment purchases, the Sound Beach Volunteer Fire Department relies mainly on responses to its annual appeal and donations throughout the year from people in town. It costs about $4,000 to outfit a diver, not including the cost associated with training.

Part of that cost is providing each diver on the scuba team with a personal “deployment bag,” containing a drysuit, fins, knives, flashlights, and other diving accessories. Each fire truck is equipped with some equipment, Mr. Cunningham said, but the majority is stored on Rescue 5, the department’s primary technical rescue response vehicle. The department also owns two boats.

For more information, call 637-1806 or visit SBVFD.com.


spoirier@greenwich-post.com

© Copyright 2007 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers