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Picture yourself blind, deep underwater, weighted down with 50 pounds of equipment.... Unseen dangers lie everywhere, waiting to entangle you: tree limbs, fishing lines, barbed wire, and sharp steel support bars jutting from eroded concrete bridges.... You're a detective and this is your crime scene. In this dark, forbidding world, you must collect evidence, take measurements...and document it all with the same accuracy as an investigator on dry land. 1
Plane crashes, submerged vehicles, boating accidents, suicides, criminal homicide, swimming fatalities, ice rescues, and lost, damaged, or stolen evidence recovery represent just a few of the incidents forensic divers encounter. These underwater investigative specialists face a number of dangers, from underwater hazards to critical incident stress, but emerge from each case better prepared for the next. Agencies that recognize the unique needs of forensic diving teams can properly equip, train, and assist them in their public safety missions.
ENVIRONMENTAL AND PERSONAL RISKS
Environmental factors often create personal risks for divers. These include underwater piping; debris; silt; water depth, current, and temperature; and contaminants. Pollution from lumber, oil, paper, and plastics; medical waste; and organic hazards from both people and animals also pose a threat to divers. NYPD divers once recovered a human corpse in a Bronx sewage treatment plant.2
Divers need not enter sewage systems to experience their effects. Sewers often overflow during heavy rains, allowing unfiltered waste to enter the waterways. Exposed to the bacteria, underwater investigators can contract exotic amoebas and parasites, which often lodge in the intestine. If left untreated, these parasites migrate to the liver, eventually destroying it.3
In addition to sewage, underwater cables for power and telephones, pipelines for oil and gas, and other debris make locating evidence difficult and place divers at risk.4 Divers have become snagged on wires, tree branches, fishing line, rope, and boat propellers.5 One diver got tangled on rope during an underwater training exercise. As he reached down to free himself, some fishing line got caught on his regulator and pulled it from his mouth. Though only a foot below the surface, he had to be rescued by his colleagues.6
Even during ideal underwater rescue and recovery operations, visibility often is poor. Underwater sediment, or silt, can create visibility problems for divers. Just as...