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Are You Prepared to go to Court?

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by Thomas Powell:
testifying in court

In March of 2014, a simulated body recovery exercise near the east coast of North Carolina brought a concern to light for many dive teams that do not involve sworn law enforcement divers. On the day of the exercise, two senior detectives associated with a local Sheriff’s Department were working with a local search and rescue dive team for the first time. The two detectives were largely unaware of dive team operating procedures, and the dive team had not spent any considerable length of time training to adapt to the needs of Sheriff’s Department representatives. As lead crime scene investigators, the detectives, expressed worry about volunteer divers having to face an attorney in a courtroom with regard to evidence recovery and crime scene security.

Sworn law enforcement personnel are trained to deal with crime scene procedures and to follow evidence recovery protocols. Those sworn officers, deputies, or agents are then taught how to present information to a court room or court official in an honest and proper method. In a similar fashion, dive teams are taught to follow basic standards that must then be adapted to local needs and historical precedence. The problem is that many volunteer dive team members have never had to sit before a court room or defense attorney looking for problems associated with dive team actions. In most cases, volunteer divers have never even been trained on how to handle a court room scenario.

A court room can be a scary place. A defense attorney may seek to ruin a diver’s credibility, or find issues related to operational procedures. No dive team member wants to let the “bad guy” get away, or harm the credible image of his or her dive team. For this reason, a diver may crack under pressure, or become a problematic witness. Imagine you are a 19 year old volunteer who has joined a dive team in an effort to help your community and protect the people you love. You work hard, learn as much as you can, always show up, and establish true team dedication. Then one day you are the person who is tasked with recovering a child murder victim, surrounded by potential evidence, at 20 feet in zero-visibility water. You do your best and follow every standard you have learned in a methodical fashion. At the end of the day, your team and the local law enforcement representatives are proud of you and your actions.

Now fast-forward six months to a local court room where the evidence you collected helped bring a “bad guy” before the legal system. The defense attorney begins to question your methods. What did you miss because you could not see? What have you forgotten after six months of time? The attorney makes you question your skills and what you accomplished. Your concern begins to show before the jury, and you grow visibly upset because you know you did your best and now someone is questioning your abilities. This scenario could lead to the elimination of evidence and the release of a person who may have been truly guilty. This is a scenario that must be avoided if at all possible.

To compensate for a lack of basic education, the ERDI Testifying in Court program was developed to help any public safety diver be better prepared for a court room experience. This program helps a diver understand what may happen, how to dress when testifying, and even how to speak to the attorneys or a jury. A dive team must remember that this course is a fantastic preparatory tool, but then the divers must take a further step. The information learned in the Testifying in Court program must be practiced. Divers must work with leadership to cover the types of knowledge needed for a court room scenario, and then run through simulated practice scenarios to ensure diver comfort and ability when facing a real attorney.

Now go back to the court room in which you, the 19 year old volunteer was testifying. Imagine you are well-dressed and prepared with organized notes covering your actions and activities during your recovery operation. With each question, you are able to provide a confident and honest response that explains why and how you performed specific tasks. When you leave the court room that day, you know you were able to represent your team and your actions in the best manner possible. This secondary scenario is also one that would leave any diver more confident in relation to testifying during future court room scenarios.

A dive team of any sort must always be prepared to defend its actions. Data must be maintained as well as any information regarding activities, evidence collection, and scene operations. Prior to a court case, this information must be pulled and reviewed. Every step must be taken to ensure that any diver being asked to appear before court is confident, prepared, and supported in every possible fashion. To begin this process, the ERDI Testifying in Court program is an awareness-level course that can be used to better educate divers and prepare them for any court room experience that they may have never entertained before.

Thomas Powell
Instructor Trainer – Air Hogs Scuba
www.airhogsscuba.com

The Most Contaminated Dive: Recovering Human Remains

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contaminated dive

Photo Credit: Riverside Dive Team

It’s a late Thursday evening, the shift operator at the local sewage plant notices something floating in the first settling pond. Upon closer investigation he discovers that it is a hand… A human hand that still has a ring on its finger. He immediately calls the authorities, when the authorities arrive the investigating process proceeds.

Often as public safety divers we face circumstances that may be dangerous and life threatening; either during the dive, or later when we are at home with our families. The first priority as a public safety diver is our safety and well being. After all there is NEVER a time that two dead bodies are better than one. We should always consider our scope of practice and whether it is within our ability to perform the operation we are considering.

Simple questions to ask ourselves: Is this operation beyond my scope of practice and have I been properly trained for this mission?  Do I have the proper haz-mat equipment to do the job safely? Should this be a commercial dive operation?

Every public safety diver should have a solid foundation in the basics of Boyles Gas Law. It is imperative to have a good understanding of how Boyles Gas Law relates to decomposition of human tissues at depth. Let’s take a look at how these gas laws can affect our recovery efforts. When it comes to recovering human remains from a liquid environment there are several factors to consider. It has been said that a body that is at a depth of greater than 100ft will not surface on its own accord. Simply put, gases will be at four times the pressure at this depth as they would be at the surface.  The total volume of gas at 100ft  is 1/4 of the volume it would be at the surface. The likelihood of gas building at this depth is very unlikely. Depths less than 100ft our recovery efforts become a more complex. Decomposition is able to take place at shallower depths as gas production takes effect in the body.With direct relationship to Boyles Gas Law, the body will begin to lift and make its way to the surface due to the decomposition process within the tissues and  increased gas production. Besides the contamination hazards that exist we will also need to be concerned with the buoyancy characteristics  of tissues after the process of decomposition has occured. The expansion of the body mass due to gas production is now of greater concern and becomes a buoyancy issue that may have direct consequences with our recovery efforts. We must be able to control our ascent to the surface, when recovering a body at depth.

As public safety divers we expose ourselves to environments that are contaminated to varying degrees, whether it be biological, chemical, pesticides, insecticides or other harmful bacterium, the bottom line is this; any body of water must be considered contaminated. We must understand how important it is to protect ourselves against exposure to elements that may be life threatening. The use of the proper protective equipment will significantly lessen the potential risk of exposure. With this in mind, we must protect our mucus membranes as well as our extremities, in order to best accomplish this we should be diving with a full face mask and a dry suit.

I would like to think that most PSD (should we spell out Public Safety Divers here?)dive units are properly trained and understand the importance of using full face masks, with the knowledge and understanding that  90% of our mucus membranes are located on our face. While there are many FFM available on the market today they will all offer some form of contamination protection, some considerations that should be made are as follows. What is the air volume of the mask, and the positive pressures that will allow a greater possibility for water to enter the mask?  Both instances may create buoyancy issues and must certainly be considered. Remember that 1 pint of air is equal to 1 pound of buoyancy,  given the fact that the head of most adults will weigh between 4 and 6 pounds (dry weight) this doesn’t seem to have much of an effect as you are still negatively buoyant. However, this may become an issue within your attached hood. Air that escaped from the mask may become trapped underneath your hood which may cause you to become positively buoyant. A recommendation to consider is the use of hood vents to manage the escaped air from the mask. These hood vents can be installed easily, but the placement of the hood vents is crucial. Observe the FFM you are diving, you will notice where the spider straps position themselves when tightened. Placing a vent on each side near the back, directly on top of the hood, this placement is the best position to manage the air that may get trapped underneath the hood.

It is the belief of at, Public Safety Dive Services, that you should consider any and every body of water a contaminated body of water, especially if you are in search of a victim. If you are diving a dry suit, you should be trained by a professional ERDI dry suit instructor that completely understands and is familiar with the diving environment and the proper equipment required for every situation.

You will have several factors to consider when diving a dry suit, which depend on the style, the material, the thermals you wear, and the fit of your dry suit. One major factor is buoyancy, air trapped within your dry suit is directly related to buoyancy and may create potential hazards. We should be trained to manage the air within our dry suit to prevent emergency situations. Here are a few considerations: Use a properly fitted dry suit. Use the appropriate thermals that will offer optimal thermal protection for the water temperature you are diving. Know and practice proper donning techniques. Know and use proper burping procedures. Be properly weighted, consider using a weight harness system that allows air to move within the suit. Understand and use proper inlet and exhaust air management skills, this will allow useful and important air management that will help with buoyancy. Practice emergency skills that help protect you from injury.

In short, every public safety diver should have a solid foundation in the basics of Boyles Gas Law. We need to know how to manage our personal air supply at depth. It is imperative to know how Boyles Gas Law relates to decomposition of human tissue at depth, and how it affects our recovery efforts.      Public Safety Dive Services offers training that keeps public safety divers as safe as possible.

Public Safety Dive Services
Bo Tibbetts
ERDI Instructor Trainer – 16061

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