A Former Water Phobic Becomes A Dive Team Leader

Transcript

Welcome And Jamie’s Backstory

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Yeah, there it goes. All right. Hey, welcome to the show. This is uh Mike Hitness. I'm the uh host of uh Newsmakers Podcast here at the Martin County Star. And today I got a real trick. I've been looking forward to this one all week long. Uh Liz talked uh Liz Smith, our reporter, she talked to Jamie Nelson last week on the front page. He's a volunteer dive leader. I'm dive team leader. Dive team leader, okay. And uh, you know, I said to uh Liz last week, I said, Oh man, I want him on the podcast. She said, I can set that up. And so here he is. So, folks, let me introduce to you first of all Jamie uh uh Nelson, and he's the dive team leader, and uh he's a he's a grown-up terrified of water guy. You're just telling me, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Yeah, at one time I was absolutely petrified of water. Yeah, and now here you are. Yeah, I a lot of people find it ironic.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

You know, you used to be so scared of water you wouldn't even put your face in it, and now you're a diver.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

How does that work, right? What if I got over my fear? Luckily.

The Call That Sparked Training

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Uh so let's start at the beginning. What got you into diving?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Well, I always had an interest in it when I was a kid. Okay. You know, watching Jacques Crusoe and stuff discovering shipwrecks and whatnot, you know. Uh I got on the fire department and there was a homicide in Fairball County. Back would have been in '98, I believe. Okay. And or maybe the spring of '99. But anyway, uh our fire department got called over there to drag a little old gravel pit, thinking that the victim's body was thrown in there. And we kept hooking something, but we couldn't get it pulled up. Okay. So they called uh Man Cato's dive team to come down and dive it to verify what we were hooking. And it took them over three hours to get down there and put a diver in the water. And I was standing going, geez, you know, if something happens, you know, Martin County, you know, it's gonna take that long for them to get to us, too. And without talking to anybody, uh I signed up for uh dive classes over at RLT Divers in Fairmont, which is now closed. And unbeknownst to me, one of the other guys that was on that call signed up, and we actually went through all our dive training together. About that. So it was kind of fun, you know, both of us being out of fire departments, you know, doing the same thing. That's kind of what started the dive team.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Okay. All right, so you're on the dive team, 98, 99?

SPEAKER_01 2:36

I certified as an open water diver in 99. 99. Okay. And certified as a dive rescue specialist in 2001, I believe. Okay. And a dive master in 2005.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Oh man. So how many times have you guys gone out? Is there more than you can count? More than I can count. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

You I didn't I didn't think about that. And we we get called quite a ways away sometimes. And we've been all the way up to Lake Benton. Okay. Uh we just got back from Lake Peppin. There is a serious Boeing accident up there. Uh, we've been down to Fort Dodge, uh Soldier, Iowa. So we travel quite a ways to help out.

Ice Rescues And Vehicle Recoveries

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Yeah. Yeah. That doesn't include just the falls in Martin County.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

What's the is there a most common reason you're diving? Uh you know?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Usually it has to do with somebody putting a vehicle or a four-wheeler or something through the ice. Oh, through the ice, okay. We want to get in there and get them out of there because of the gas and oil and everything in them. And you know, sometimes they can cause a navigation hazard too.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

So I think uh not this past winter, but the winter before, there was a guy in Fairmont who went to the ice. They got a picture of him uh standing on top of his car. That was Big Twin. Oh, Big Twin?

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Oh, okay. And yeah, we're involved with that. You're involved with that. Doing the rescue and then doing the recovery on the video. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

It's it's scary stuff. It can be. Yeah, yeah. Diving, going down in in the winter in the ice. Uh, what's that gotta be like?

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Uh it's gotta be it gets cold, that's for sure. Uh you gotta be well equipped to do it. Yeah. Uh, and you gotta be trained to do it. Uh, a lot of times, though, we actually get better visibility. Once the lake freezes over, you don't have the waves and the water and stirring up the bottom, so we actually can see a little bit better in the wintertime. I hadn't thought of that. Uh other than that, it really isn't that much different diving in. How long can you stay can you stay down in the winter? Depends on the depth. Uh, every 33 feet is another atmosphere. So every 33 feet that we go down, in order for us to take a normal breath, we actually breathe twice the amount of air in that one breath. So if your lung capacity is, say, one liter at the surface, okay, at 33 feet, every breath you're breathing two liters. At 66 feet, you're breathing three liters, and so on. So your bottom time all depends on your depth and how much you breathe. You know, if we're underwater working, dragging chains and stuff, that stuff hooked up, you're gonna breathe more at the pressure. But yeah, it all depends on the depth. Okay. Temperature-wise, I've done ice dives where I've been underneath the ice for over an hour. Oh, no kidding. Real shallow.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

Oh, I wouldn't have guessed that at all.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah, your hands get pretty cold. I bet they do. You come back up, you definitely like that nice hot cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

I gotta say, something in your hands, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:42

So yeah, we actually carry coffee maker that we uh carry chicken broth and coffee in so we can have either

Shipwreck Diving On Lake Superior

SPEAKER_01 5:50

or.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, uh, what's the most uh memorable dive you've been on? Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Do you have one or do you have a couple? We went up to uh a group of us went up to Isle Royale diving the shipwrecks on Lake Superior around the island. Oh really? And that was really fun. Spent a whole week up there. We go to the Emperor, uh, the Congdon, the America, uh, the Chisholm Cumberland rack. So I mean, it was that was really a lot of fun. So I mean, being a diver, you know, a public safety diver, you still get the chance to go out and dive, you know, recreationally. Yeah. See a lot of this stuff. Any memorabilia that you brought back that you're no, you're not allowed to. Oh, you're not? No, that's all uh I think it's a national park area around them. So you get caught taking something off them shipwrecking. You're in trouble. You're in big trouble. Okay. But before that became a national park, uh, yeah, there was a lot of divers that would go down there and they'd strip stuff out of them. Oh, I bet. The wheels and bells and stuff. And yeah. Most of them very collectible.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Oh, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah. But a lot of them have been returned to the historical society up there. That's nice. So

Lives Saved And Cold Water Clock

SPEAKER_01 7:04

yeah, that's nice.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Um lives saved your dive team.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

We've been involved with a few. Have you? Yeah. Uh mostly ice rescue. We saved a puppy one time. He the owner let him out, and or she, I'm not sure if it was male or female, but uh dog took off and had open water where geese were out there and took off across the ice chasing the geese and couldn't get back up on the ice. Yeah, I'm but not. Uh, we got in the water and got the dog corrowled and got the dog up on the ice and it shook off or looked at us and took off back towards shore.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

How long was he in the water?

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Uh about an hour.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

No kidding.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Wow, that's amazing. So but yeah, we're pretty happy about that one. And we've had a few we saved uh had a guy uh walking across uh Cedar Lake that fell through. And along with Triamount Fire Department, we're able to get him out.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

And how long can a can a person be in the water before you know they pass?

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Uh that's gonna depend on age and water.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

Yeah, you know. Uh if somebody falls through the ice, you're looking about 10 minutes before you become unable to really move. You're still alive. Yeah, you're still conscious. After about 25 minutes, you're gonna start becoming unconscious due to hypothermia.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

So it's a real quick it's uh uh you gotta be on the you're on the spot to be able to get them out. Yeah, and you guys gotta be get notified and be there within no time. Yeah, you're not wasting time. That's I'll bet you're not. You gotta figure water cools the body twenty-five times faster than air. Oh, okay. So if you're in the water, say 10 minutes, that's like being in the water well over or in the air naked. Oh, on well over two hours. Oh. You know, in the same 34 and a half degree air temperature. So it's quick.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yeah, it is quick. Okay. So I wouldn't last long. Other than I got lots of fat, I would be fine. You'd float well. I'd float well.

Keeping A Volunteer Team Alive

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Well, we don't want that to happen. Uh what's some some of the some of the what's some of the dreams towards your dive team, you know, things you guys are are looking forward to.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Uh, we want to keep it going. Yeah, we're looking always looking for new members. Trying to get that drive to get new members in there, get them excited about it, and you know, carry on the team to where some of us are getting older and you know, get to the point where it ain't gonna be too much longer. A lot of us are gonna be retiring and be able to medically do it anymore. Right, yeah. How many's on your team now? We have 13 on the right. And this is based out of Trimont? Yeah. Okay. That's where our home address is. Okay, but you take people in from multiple areas. We've got people from Primont, Welcome, Ceylon, Fairmont. So mainly Martin County.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

And you're funded. How are you funded?

SPEAKER_02 10:00

We're a 501c3. We rely totally on donations. Oh, totally on donations. Yeah. So you don't send a bill out if somebody falls through the ice to pull them out or no.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Our 501c3 is based on we do not charge for victim rescue or recovery. So if somebody drops a vehicle through the name will charge. And insurance companies pay for that, I'm guessing. Sometimes insurance companies will. Uh some insurance companies will pay for it once, and then you're on your own if you do it again. Yeah. Uh some insurance companies won't cover you unless you're on a quote public roadway. Well, but going across the lake is not considered a public roadway, so you've got a vehicle in, and some people just don't have insurance on some of their like four-wheelers, snowmobiles, and stuff. So they have to pay for that out of their own pocket.

Funding, Costs, And Ice Safety Tips

SPEAKER_02 10:53

What advice would you give people when they're going out of the lake in their vehicle to avoid it? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Check with your local bait shops. They know the ice conditions by talking to fishermen and stuff. Yeah. And they can tell you, yes, stay away from this point. That's always thin out there. You know, we've had incidents out there before. Uh and if nothing else, walk where you're gonna go. Walk first. Yeah. Or walk. Curry a stick, wear a life jacket, carry a stick, you can thump the ice, and you can tell where it's getting thinner. I see. It doesn't all freeze equally, does it? Oh no. Yeah. Uh we've actually been under the ice diving, and we'll look up and see our bubbles on the bottom of the ice, and they'll actually be moving away from the hole that we cut to go in. So you can tell the bottom of the ice is kind of domed in spots. Yeah. And usually it's because there's uh algae decaying, uh, plant life decaying. Oh, okay. Geese might have kept it open longer. Uh fish, there might be a structure down there where the fish are swimming around and keep that water stirred up so it keeps it thinner. So yeah, it definitely varies. You can move three feet and fall through and have six inches.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

Oh, and oh, that's that's interesting. I did not know that. That that's really fascinating. Uh so underwater,

Hazards Underwater And Lake Debris

SPEAKER_02 12:16

what's what's some of the challenges? Uh I mean, do fish get in the way?

SPEAKER_01 12:21

We've actually had fish pulling on our mast straps.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

Have you really?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

As we're diving, yeah. Uh, I thought it was the guys on the surface messing with me, but I was about 20 feet down. And it's like, there's no way they can reach my mass strap, right? But I could feel something pulling on my top mass strap, and I reached up, just kind of hit it, you know, thinking it was them guys, and it was a big carp, I'm guessing. But I had no visibility, so I can't verify for sure what type of fish. But yeah, it was actually just sitting there pulling on my mass strap like it was fishing bait. Yeah. Well, you should have had a little hook in the We've thought about that, but I don't know how the DNR would feel about going down there with a fishing pole. Yeah, they I mean it would be really fun to have the fish swimming around the bug around you, but they frown on that kind of stuff, don't they?

SPEAKER_02 13:07

I would think so. Yeah, yeah. What kind of stuff have you run across when you've been on a dive for one reason or another that that wasn't part of the plan?

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Oh, we've come across a lot of stuff. Have you? And you wouldn't believe the amount of debris that's on the bottom of the lakes, you know, cans and bottles. Oh, yeah, you know, toilets. We even found full toilets. Toilets in there, tires and uh the worst one is when fishermen take their old Christmas trees, time to a concrete block, and then go out there and throw them in a lake for fish habitat. I was gonna say yes. Because if we have to go in there and do a search, now we're getting tangled up in that with our search line ropes and stuff, and yeah, that creates a big problem. It can kill one of us.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Yeah, so not good.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Yeah, so don't do it, guys. Yeah, definitely. Please don't do it. Please stop. Yeah. Um, what else?

SPEAKER_01 13:54

There's plenty of you know, natural fish habitat in the lakes, if you know where they're at. And what amazes me is you know, when I'm diving, uh if I've got visibility, a lot of times where the fish are at, you never see fishermen.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Oh, that's funny.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

Uh West Okoboji, for instance, did a lot of diving down there and where the fish are at, where we always go in to look at the fish and stuff, you never see any fishermen there.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

I wonder why. I'm not sure. Maybe you should start a business where you you map out where the fish are as a dive expert. You know, you might be obviously I was gonna say, you know, fishermen are yeah, you'd probably do very well. Uh, what kind of equipment do you guys need?

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Uh our equipment is actually specialized. I bet it is. Uh for instance, normal recreational dive equipment, we could use it, but because we're diving contaminated water, uh, we're dealing with drowning victims, and there's the biohazard from them. Uh, we're dealing with vehicles and the gas and oil stuff, we have to be fully encapsulated with a full-face mask.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

So, like a normal recreational wetsuit, for instance, you can pick up a really good seven mil wetsuit for you know four or five hundred bucks. Okay. Uh for you guys Viking Pro 1000 dry suit, and that suit when I bought it was well over 1800. And right now, uh they're running right in that 2500 to 3,000 range. So you have to supply your own? Yes, our divers have to pay for their own equipment. Oh wow. And they're also required to pay for their own training. And then insurance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

You you again it's it's on you?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

So you go out and dive as as a volunteer. You you you don't get any money from the county, or do you?

SPEAKER_01 15:44

The county has uh graciously allotted us so much every year, and that covers the license and insurance on our trucks.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Oh, okay. Wow. So of course you'd accept donations from from listeners and from people, correct? Oh, absolutely. Okay. What's a what's a good phone number that they could call you?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Uh 507 236-6849. That's a good one. That's my personal cell phone number. Okay. Uh otherwise 50728507. That is our treasurer's home phone number.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Okay. And and uh it's it's tax deductible. Yes. Okay. So people can make a gift if they wanted to. Um, you know, it's a great service. Um how many people have you think you've saved over the years?

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Uh, that'd be a tough question. Okay. You know, I could go back to our reports and but I there's at least a handful.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Okay, okay. So are so there are people who have passed who've I mean who've oh yes gone to the water for whatever reason and you guys have been able to get there and get them out. That's great. That's very satisfying, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 16:54

It's a good feeling when you uh you get back to shore and you're taking off the gear and put them in an ambulance and you know, yep, they're gonna make it. And yeah, there's some mamas standing there going, thank you. Or wife. Or wife or kids. So yeah, that's a pretty pretty good feeling.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

Yeah, and we know about one dog at least. Yeah. What else you got?

SPEAKER_01 17:19

What else you need to know? I want to know. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:23

Um we've covered how far you've gone. You guys go all over. Wherever you guys get a call, people call you. Is that how it works? Yeah, usually they'll call either my phone number or they'll call the law enforcement. Okay. And then how about do you ever do any diving for people who I've lost this?

SPEAKER_01 17:42

We were out boating, and we try to avoid that because the a lot of times the cost of the object is gonna not be near as much of what we cost to recover. Yeah. You know, even a twelve hundred dollar cell phone, you gotta figure if we get called out and we put a diver in the water, it's a minimum of a thousand bucks. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

So it better be expensive.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Yeah, you better lose a couple of bars of gold. Yep. If you're gonna call you guys out. Can you imagine trying to try to find a ring or something on the bottom? We've found them. Oh, I'm sure you have, but not the ones you're probably looking for.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

No. But we've got an underwater metal detector for evidence. Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Um, okay, that was that

Strange Finds And Favorite Dive Spots

SPEAKER_02 18:30

was where I wanted to go, and I forgot to write it down. Uh what about uh uh you've got some kind of a uh law enforcement situation. Do you guys do dives looking for you know the the verter weapon and things like that?

SPEAKER_01 18:43

We have, yes. Okay. Uh one of the one of the first times we went down to Fort Dodge, we were actually looking for a shotgun that was used in a homicide. Okay. Did you find it? No, it was thrown in a river. Uh we pulled up and they wouldn't tell us exactly what we were looking for. That's the problem. And they just said it was a long object. Okay, so we were bringing up bars, you know, sure pipe down there, you know. You can get somebody over the head with a pipe. Absolutely. Uh we were finding rocks that were longer, and it's like, okay, you didn't hit them with a rock. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Why the secrets to I can't they tell you? Look, you're looking for a rifle. It would sure it saved you guys time. Yeah, I I'm not sure why they sometimes wouldn't disclose it. But as soon as you find it, though, then they're gonna say, Yeah, that was it. You're going, okay, now we know. Yeah, yeah. You ever found it? What what weird items have you found? Anything strange that you're going, wait, how did this get here?

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Well, yeah, but I don't know if the listeners really want to hear it. Uh friend of mine or helped start the dive team. We decided to go down to West or East Okoboji and dive an area down there, and we call them Okoboji mushrooms now, but uh we're diving along, and there's always what looks like little white mushrooms on the bottom. And I'm going, geez, out of all the dives I've done in the wintertime, I've never seen plant life that looked like that. And I finally went over and pulled one up and used condoms. And it's like, oh, I'm glad I'm in a dry suit with dry gloves. And so yeah, that we call them okay books mushrooms now, but oh that's funny. Uh but on that dive I did find uh solid brass prop. Really? Uh off of one of the them old wooden crisscraft boats back in the 40s, 50s. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was I still got it at home and polished it up.

SPEAKER_02 20:49

Wow. What's the most valuable thing you found? Probably that. That probably that. Okay. All right. Where's your favorite place to dive? Lake Superior. Lake Superior? Yeah. Not in the winter.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

Even in the winter. Even in the winter. When you get a depth up at Lake Superior, yeah, uh, it isn't much cool uh warmer than what it is in the winter. Oh, that's probably true. Can't figure uh water temperature underneath the ice is gonna be about 34 and a half degrees.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

And you get down to 150 feet in Lake Superior, you're at 150 degrees. 150 degrees. 50 degrees, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

Okay. About 150 feet. Okay. Oh, well, that's not so bad. So yeah. What makes it so so uh uh your favorite place?

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Just the structure. The the way the shorelines and the way the bottom is. I mean, there's drop offs there that you can be in 30 feet of water and you can swim over a ledge and you can drop down to seventy, eighty feet. Oh hit another little ledge and start dropping down, and that'll go down. You could go down to four hundred foot. Oh wow. So and it's just so erratic, and yeah, you know. Rock structure and stuff underneath the water is just amazing.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Do you guys carry under underwater uh

Fish Encounters And Camera Evidence

SPEAKER_02 22:05

cameras with you?

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Yes. Okay. I bet that's we do stuff like that. Yeah, I was gonna say, I bet that as far as the dive team, we put a GoPro on us. Oh, GoPro, sure. So that we can video anything that if we're doing a body recovery or something, it's a questionable yeah. You know, uh, we can videotape exactly where we handle the victim so that when it goes to the coroner's office, they can say, okay, this is where they tied the rope to secure the victim. That's why these marks are on the body. Uh oh, okay. It's more for evidence than anything. It's not like we're gonna put it on Facebook. No, no, yeah, right. Nobody wants that. Yeah, still cameras. Uh when we're recreational diving. I gotta say, that would I bet there's some the real beauty. It's really interesting watching the fish too. Is it? Yeah. Uh we used to go up to uh uh Crosby Iron dive in the iron ore pits up there. And Portsmouth Pit had a brush pile on a ledge down about 30, 40 feet below the surface, and we were doing a night dive up there, and there was a big northern that always hung around that brush pile. I called him scar because it looked like he'd been caught at one time, and then the hook ripped through his mouth. And so he had a big scar along the side of his head, and we're swimming by there, and we're kind of hovering a little bit above it, and off probably 15-20 feet. And scar comes out of the brush pile, he swam up over my right shoulder, slapped me in the face with his fin, turned around behind me, slammed, swam over my left shoulder, and slapped me in the face again, then went down by the pile, turned around and looked at us like, come mess with me. And it's like, okay, we're leaving. Yeah, we're out of here. Yeah, so yeah, and watching the fish down there, they're not scared of us. They're not. No, they'll come right up to us. In fact, uh, there was two smallmouth bass up there called Fred and Fredette. And we used to be able to pick up rocks, catch crawdads, take the regulator out of our mouth, put the crawdad in our mouth tail first, yeah, and they would actually come up, take the crawdad out of our mouth, spit it around, and eat it tail first. No kidding. Yeah. We used to play with them all the time. You ever get any any any movie of that, any GoPro of that? No, we've got still pictures.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Still pictures of it? Oh, that's pretty great.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

But yeah, it's you get to see so many things that I bet you do. You know, it's hard to sit and explain everything.

Call Volume And Non Diver Roles

SPEAKER_02 24:37

Oh, I bet I imagine so. So how many times a a month do you all get called out on a on a That depends on the year. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Uh if you get a season where you got real bad ice, we'll get called out more. Oh sure. Uh and then you get a season, you know, summertime where it's really hot and there's a lot of boat traffic and stuff, and we'll get called out more.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

So you get a cool summer where people don't want to be on the water, uh. Yeah, you're right, right.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

There's not much. That's interesting. That's this is fascinating. Uh, you know. So you can always use some more volunteers. Always. We're always looking for more help. Okay. They don't have to be dive certified. Nope.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

No, you guys will take them and get them trained. Yeah, in fact, most of our team isn't divers. Uh, we have to have boat operators. Oh, I think for the divers. Okay. You know, shore support. Okay. So we got people that actually just stay on shore. And then we radio dive information, you know, like our tank pressures when the diver went down and they keep track of it. Even though we're all running computers, uh having that information readily available when the diver comes back up, okay. Blue divers back up, orange divers back up, they write the time down, and then they can say, okay, how long was the orange diver in the water? Uh 23 minutes. Why does that matter? Because that all depends on our uh

Narcosis, The Bends, And Oxygen Stops

SPEAKER_01 26:02

surface intervals.

unknown 26:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:04

We have to, after we do a dive, depending on what our next dive is going to be, we have to stay on the surface so long to get rid of the excess nitrogen that's in our bloodstream. Oh.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Okay. There's a lot to this, isn't there?

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Yeah. Uh and the reason that is it's called the nitrogen narcosis. Uh, what happens is because we're breathing you know, a lot more air and we're breathing straight air. Yeah, right. So we're breathing all that extra nitrogen into our body, but our body can only get rid of it so fast. So it builds up into our bloodstream. And they say every 33 feet of depth is like taking a good shot of Irish whiskey on an empty stomach.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

That's what the nitrogen narcosis is. Wow. So you get down to 150 feet, and I mean, you you could you just think you're gonna live there. You can get a little loopy. I don't care if you go back to the surface or not. I mean, it's yeah, you could get a little loopy, couldn't you? And then if you ascend too fast, because all that extra nitrogen and everything that's in your bloodstream and the pressure that your body's under, uh, as you leave that pressure, if you do it too fast, that gas will actually turn into an actual gas rather than under pressure, it's a liquid.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

And as you're coming up, it'll actually change into a gas form, and then that'll go through your bloodstream and get in your heart, your brain. Okay, so then usually it's around your joints, that's why they call it the bends. Yeah, because if you've had an injury in the past, uh, usually that's where that air, that excess air would accumulate, and it causes extreme pain. Yeah. And once you do get to the surface, you're getting a real low-altitude helicopter flight to a decompression chamber. I bet you are. They're gonna put you back to a depth deeper than what you were, and then slowly start bringing you back to the surface. So it gives your body time to get rid of that excess gas. Kind of like diving the shipwrecks up there. Uh, because we're diving so deep, uh, we can do a safety stop at 15 feet below the surface. And on those safety stops, we're breathing 100% pure oxygen. And if you do that too long, you wind up becoming oxygen toxicity, which can kill you too. So you gotta be real careful doing that. But I tell you what, you get that 15-foot mark, and you grab onto that line and you put that regulator in your mouth, you're breathing that pure oxygen. Wow, there's nothing greater than that. I mean, you just your whole body just goes, ah. So then you play rock, paper, scissors for a little bit, and well, yep, our five minutes is up. Let's go to the surface. Okay, so five minutes, huh? Yeah. All right. That's what we were doing.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

All right. So you you've got you need a whole team of people all the time. And like you

Heavy Gear And Search Technology

SPEAKER_02 29:03

said, some are retiring, some are coming in. So yeah. So if anybody's out there, what age uh can they can? They gotta be 18. 18, okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah. All right. But other than that, there, I mean, there's no good doesn't do you have to be uh uh uh physically fit? Uh somebody you're gonna want to be. Uh that equipment's heavy. Yeah, if you're one of the 80 cubic foot aluminum tanks is 35 pounds. Oh wow. So you start carrying them from the truck out to the boat, and yeah, you know, most of us will carry two at a time.

unknown 29:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

So it it gets heavy. Yeah, plus the weight we need to get down.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Average diver uh in a dry suit, we're running 32 to 34 pounds of lead alone. Wow just it gets to sink. Well, but we wait heavy too because we're public safety divers and we don't want to be out in the water, knowing there's somebody on the bottom and we got a chance to get to them, and then we're messing around on the surface, adding four or five pounds begins to sink. Oh we wait heavy all all the time. Yeah. So when we hit the water, we know we can get down. Right, right, right. You want to go get them.

SPEAKER_02 30:12

They're relying on you. Yeah. Wow, there is a lot more to this than I ever would have thought.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Well, and then you're looking at, you know, doing the searches. Yeah. You know, uh, we can do it multiple ways. Uh, we're pulling side scan sonar with a toe fish. And what toe fish does it allows us to get the transducer about eight, ten feet off the bottom, so we get really good images of what's on the bottom. And I mean, we can see logs, rocks, uh, holes from fish that are making their nests in there. Uh, and if you see a body, you're gonna know it. Well, you know, vehicles you can almost identify, you can tell whether it's a car or a pickup. Uh, and a lot of times you can even tell what model it is.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

Really?

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Yeah. Oh, that's an extended cab pickup. Oh, that's a four-door car, you know, it's upside down, and so and then we can also, if the sonar, for instance, in a real shallow area, like a swimming beach, and you got a long young child that's missing, uh, we can just wait in, and then our tenders will hold a rope, and they just let us go back and forth kind of in a U pattern. Oh, okay. Until and this every time we get to one end, they'll give us a little more rope, and we come back and we just hold that rope tight so that we cover every square inch that's on the bottom and we know it's covered. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Well, I didn't think about how they did that. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

Yeah, yeah. And doing evidence recovery, uh we'll even take uh PVC pipe and make a whole bunch of squares. Okay. They're all connected together, like a big grid. Yep. And we'll just lay it on the bottom, we'll search one of those squares, move to the next one, move to the next one until we've cleared that whole area, and then we'll just take the whole works, flip it upside down, and move ahead to the side or wherever we need to go. And okay, that way we know we've covered that area thoroughly. Yeah, because it can be really easy to uh get confused. Oh, yeah. Uh you get underneath uh most of the lakes in Martin County we consider like black water, meaning we can't see our gauges even. So we're totally relying on just hands and feel, and you know, if we are using the metal detector, you know what that's if it's giving us a signal or not. Yeah. So yeah, you can get lost underneath there pretty quickly. I bet you can.

How To Donate And Final Thanks

SPEAKER_02 32:44

I bet you can. So let me give you a phone number one more time. Jamie Nelson, 236-6849. That's your cell number. That's my cell phone number. And then uh the other number I've got is 728-8507.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Yeah, 728-8575-728-8507. Yeah, 8507. And who's that one for again? That's our treasurer. That's your treasurer, okay. And she's the one that has processed all the checks and everything, so sure.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But if they wanted to talk maybe about joining the team, they might want to call your number. Yeah. She you'd probably know more about that than but she could probably help them too. Well, it's it's been a pleasure having you on. Uh next time I drive by and I see you guys out, I'll know. Say a prayer for you. You know. Live times we need it. I bet you do. But you're doing good work. Thank you. Yeah, you're doing good work. This is great. This is Jamie. It's it's so nice to meet you. Uh uh, you know. That was nice to meet you too. Yeah, yeah. We'll uh we'll have to do this again. Uh yeah, yeah. You know, next time we have something that's going on, give me a call. All right. Anyway, folks, uh Jamie Nelson. Uh let me see. Volunteer Trimon, what do you guys call it? Self Central Volunteer Dive Team. Self Central Volunteer Dive Team. All right. Good job. Uh look forward to talking to you again. Folks, that's it for this this episode, Newsmakers Podcast. I'm Mike Innis. Um, and uh we'll see you next time.