PSDarchives.dragging

Dragging

5-22-02

The problem I'm having is our county Rescue Squad (with the
exception of a few of us) believes dragging with hook bars is the best
way of finding and recovering bodies. I do not agree with that. These
people have admitted that they are doing random "drags" with no real
idea of what area has been covered and still they feel its better and
safer than putting a well trained dive team on the job. I know alot of
people on this group are more up to date on this subject than I, and if
I could get some positive feedback and ideas on how to convince my
people that diving has more advantages I would appreciate it.

Thanks - David

5-23-02

We have approached this subject as well. Dragging is not real politically
correct as far as my boss is concerned. The families of the drowning victims
expressed concerns when we told them what we had planned to do. We have not
drug for a body since we formed our dive team. We have had drownings where
we did not make a dive. The last one was a few weeks ago. There was no real
good last seen point so we decided not to dive. We did bring a side scan
sonar unit down to see if they could find the body but we had not luck and
the body was recovered after it refloated.

I would hope that the you can change your bosses minds on this practice. Ask
them if their child or loved one has drowned would they like to have the
last memory of them being snagged by a hook on a drag bar?

Jimmie McCants
Solano County Dive Rescue

5-23-02

Dragging is archaic, the Detroit Police Harbormaster unit used it for years
before a dive team was formed (1968) and sometimes is still used to justify
their existence. It is never a systematic and precise excercise. Dragging
usually screws up the "last seen" point by moving the body out of that area.
This happened on many body recoveries, where we had a excellent LS point and
found the body 100' up stream of the LS point. The body did not go against
the current! (Detroit River).
Usually once recovered, the body's usually had hook marks on the skin
and tears in the clothing, proving that the system works very poorly. The
hooks and bar usually hung up on debris on the bottom and the system did a
very bad job of recovering anything other than old trash cans and other junk.
When ever possible, a Department looks much more professional in calling in a
Dive Team to do the recovery. The problem is getting the Dept. to change its
archaic ways of doing things, and proving to the community that they are
progressing into the future of Public Safety.

Bill Robinette
Detroit Police URT
Metro Airport Water RescueTeam
Training Coordinator / Instructor

5-23-02

Dragging has a purpose and place in underwater body recovery. Don't rule out
dragging operations simply because it was the old way.
Several things to consider for a recovery operation. 1st of all, is the cost
in man hours to bring the incident to closure. Locating and recovering a body
is the primary goal for the public safety responders.
2nd is the many factors that may come into play to establish an operation
plan. Last seen time and point, size of the body of water, winds, currents,
depth, you all know the drill here.
It is important to size up the scene and make a collective plan that will be
the most productive.

Divers have a place in the picture and so do the drag teams, as well as dogs,
sonar, aircraft, etc.

One point often over looked is the incident command system and what to do
with the family of the victim while the search efforts are underway. As has
been said in the past, the family should not be located immediately in the
search area, but rather a place of comfortable sanctuary, with a member of a
religious faith and close by.

Folks, in reality this is a recovery operation and the victim will not mind
the hooks at all. The family is only looking at the time it takes to give
them back the lost member. I have been in body recovery for many years and
never once has any family member made any remark about the use of drag hooks.
Their sole focus is the successful location and retrieval of the victim.

Ramadan drag patterns...... As we have said about diving, if you don't train
then the effort is limited. The drag teams will need to train and practice
the drag methods and when called upon to perform make qualified decisions as
to patterns and efficiency. All tools are good, it is the user that brings
the best out of the tool.

I am not sure if this fits here but, dive teams in the efforts to insert
themselves into the mainstream of service delivery will often make the
approach of "hooking" the body versus bringing the body in cradled in the
divers arms an issue in an effort to appear humane. This is baloney, the goal
is to bring incident closure about in minimal time.

None of us are the single entity, with the ability to every time accomplish
the mission without any help. Use the resources that can produce and form
meaningful operations plans to control the mission and bring coordinated
effective results.

Lets not be Jack of all trades and master of none, but rather be good at what
we do and work with others who are good at what they do.

Chuck
NCURT

5-23-02

If you go by the premise that you may have a crime scene until proven
otherwise, it would be counterproductive to drag the bottom. Drownings are
not always accidental and dragging may destroy what little evidence is left.
We are also tasked with investigating how the accident (if that's what is
was) occurred so we could educate the public and perhaps prevent other
similar incidents. Once again, dragging destroys what evidence may be left.
This is where the rescuer and investigators must come to terms. If the
incident is a rescue, than you obviously do what is necessary to effect that
rescue, but if you have a recovery operation, you must take the
investigation and evidence into consideration. If you represent a volunteer
dive team, I suggest you consult your local Fire/Law enforcement agencies.

Detective Estevan Martinez
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Dive Team

5-23-02

I've recently had to deal with the same problem your faced with, with our State Department of Natural Resources. Where I'm from, our Dive Team serves a very large recreational lake in North Georgia. Once we arrive on scene, anything in or on the water is actually DNR's jurisdiction. Well, DNR loves to use drag hooks. There reasoning is: If used properly, they are very fast, and they are usually effective in finding a victim. I will agree with most of that, they are both fast and effective. However, they fail to recognize the major drawback as you pointed out. We as a Dive team, or DNR, or whatever agency you or your team is affiliated with have an obligation to our "customers" or commonly refered to as citizens. I like to keep the phrase "Customer Service" in mind. As any well trained dive team will tell anyone, if given a "general" area as to where to search for a victim, we will undoubtedly locate the that victim. Or at least be able to say either the victim is there, or the victim is NOT there without doubt. So then we ask the question, We can find them with hooks, and we can find them with divers, which is the best option. Remember "Customer Service". As if the thought of a family member or loved one drowning wasn't emotional enough, imagine replaying the images of your loved one getting dragged off the bottom by there nostrils with a bunch of fish hooks. I think the answer is simple. We have a service to provide to the customer, therefore we should utilize it.

Aside from the customer service aspect, there are other technical aspects that may hinder our (Dive Team's) operation. Understand that once hooks are in the water, any visibility that the Divers may have had is history. Also, it is not uncommon to hook a body several times with hooks, repeatedly dropping or dragging the body until it falls of the hooks. This complicates the matter in that any information regarding a last seen point is useless.

To sum all this up, drag hooks are a very violent alternative to the use of a TRAINED dive team. They should only be used as a last resort. There use however should not be completely banished. I would not recommend utilizing divers to "attempt" at best to dive a rebar packed, swiftmoving river. Or, if your searching an overly large area for a victim, a team can expend their resources very quickly thus making hooks the more practical alternative. Well, I hope this has helped.

Wes Dixon
Dive Team Leader
Cherokee County Fire/EMA Dive Team

5-23-02

All it takes is for the family of one victim to see the hooks recovering
there loved one and the funding for the unit may be at risk. Hooks have a
function, if the water is to dangerous for a diver hooks may be the only way
to make a recovery. Our team doesn't use hooks and we have a policy when
working with other agencies. If the hooks come out the dive team leaves.

Randle E. Burrows, Sergeant
Galveston County Sheriff's Office
Criminal Investigation Division/Dive Team

5-23-02

Well said, Estevan, and I couldn't agree more. One of the largest
hurdles in getting our team formed was re-educating our administration
and boat patrol that a drowning isn't accidental until proven
accidental. Andrea and LGS have an excellent Drowning Homicide course
that I would recommend to not just dive teams, but boat patrol, homicide
investigators and especially administrative folks. The course REALLY
illustrates how often a so called "accidental" drowning is classified so
merely because the responders didn't properly examine, evaluate and
process the scene of the drowning. Dragging for a body is a perfect
example of the "just do something" philosophy and a pretty good way to
totally f$#@ up a potential crime scene.

Simply put, we no longer drag for bodies.

Det. Todd Hancock
Dive Team Coordinator
Napa County Sheriff's Dept
Underwater Search and Recovery Team

5-23-02

Chuck,
I'm sure that I'm not alone when I say that I disagree with your opinions about drag hooks. First of all, you make the statement, "The goal is to bring incident closure at minimal time". Well, I certainly hope you are not responsible for the safety of the members of your team or organization. If you recall, Safety is the #1 goal in any operation. Thus, when we are attempting to "bring incident closure at minimal time" safety is automatically being comprimised. Secondly, if you are trained properly for this type of work, then you would know that time is on our side with a "Recovery" operation. What is your rush?

Whether you like it or not, drag hooks are a very violent, horrible alternative to using professionally trained divers. Now, with safety in mind, notice I said Professional Trained Divers. No, I dont mean anyone with an Open water or Advanced Open Water card. I mean a minimum training of Public Safety Diver.

Now, lets dwell of the other factors. Lets talk professionalism. How professional are a bunch of guys, or girls, trolling around in a Jon Boat heaving bars with hooks on the end over the side of the boat, vs. A fully equipped, professional dive team that can search a given area with absolute certainty that there target is either there or not. And then lets say, once we retrieve our target/victim, we realize that there may be some foul play involved. Ok, next I want to see you on the stand testifying in a court room about your recovery proceedures using "Drag Hooks", vs a well documented dive operation. After all, this is a crime scene right? Ok, I'll get off my horse. Hope this brings some light to your ideas.
Wes Dixon
Cherokee County Dive Team Leader

5-23-02

As stated so eloquently before, I feel that dragging has am important place in body recovery. We all know there are times when it is not feasible to conduct a dive recovery. It may be for any number of reasons. So if we determine we should not dive, do we just stand by until the body refloats? I think not. And any boss, who is in the political arena, will take heat if you "do nothing".
The important thing to remember, and this is where I have seen the most controversy, is never to conduct dive and drag operations in the same area. This sounds logical to divers, but not to most drag teams who are not familiar with dive recovery and underwater crime scene investigation.
We should conduct dive recovery and proper underwater investigations whenever feasible, but the reality is, it is not always the best choice. It's a tough call, but that's why they pay us the "big bucks." :-)

Lt. John Fourcade
Caddo Parish (LA) Sheriff's Office

5-24-02

What if your victim in in excess of 132'...? How do you recover a body (
IF you happen to locate it or the general area) using divers if the water
is deeper than what any normally trained PSD should attempt? Saying NEV
ER DRAG means sometimes not having another option for a recovery...

5-24-02

Chuck ,
    a little common sense goes a long way. Your post was on the money.

    Bruce

    Ulster Hose

5-27-02

I have known and worked on many recovery missions with Chuck over the past 18
years. My team members as well as Chuck's team members are very sensitive
about how we handle the victims we search for, as well as the needs of their
families. If there as been any complaints about drag or hook marks from any
of our recovery missions, I have not been made aware of them. I sure there
could be some complaints out there but that is not as important as the safety
of team divers being used when they are not needed. When the situation calls
for the use of drags, we drag. When we need divers, we dive. It is
important to have a good understanding of all of your resources as well as
training, documentation, an open mind, ect ....

I had planned a long response to all of your comments but the more I typed
the more I thought about how much I appreciated being able to work with Chuck
and his teams members over the past 18 YEARS and I look forward to working
with him on future missions.

Lt. E. C. Scott
Durham County Sheriff's Office
Search and Recovery Team
Durham, N. C.

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