| The Tolland County Rescue Dive Team
is a regional dive team which currently has approximately 81 members from 22 towns in and around Tolland
County, Connecticut.
Our
members are volunteer Firefighters and EMS personnel who make themselves available to
the team. The team is responsible for Dive rescue and recovery operations
in and around Tolland County. The team meets the first Thursday of every month and usually drills the
following Sunday. Meetings are held at a the Tolland Fire Department
Training Center, and the drill
is done on a local water way within the host department's town.
We train to provide the highest level of
dive rescue services for the towns we serve. Primarily we support the towns within Tolland County but do
on occasion get called out to support other towns. We will work
with local police dive team on an as needed basis.
Our normal mode of activations is
through the towns local fire departments. The are alerted to an
emergency through the Tolland County Dispatch Center. Once they
arrive on scene and determine a need for the dive team we are then
dispatched. We have different levels of response depending on what
type of emergency it might be. It is up to our county command
structure to decide what type of response is required.
We work very hard to ensure
effective cooperation between the local fire departments and members of
the dive team. Our success is directly related to how the rescue
effort is coordinated. That is why we hold our meetings and drills
with different departments each month. It allows their officers
and membership to see what the capabilities of the dive team are as well
as how operations are carried out.
We are constantly reevaluating
our training and techniques to ensure we are prepared for whatever
emergency may be put in front of us. We pride ourselves on
having a highly skilled, well trained staff of divers and support
personnel ready to respond. Currently the
team is looking at expanding it's capability from a Rescue Dive Team to
a complete water rescue team which can perform swift water rescue, ice
rescue and flood rescue. Stay tuned for more updates as we develop
these capabilities. |
