Brandon Twp.- For Charlie Liggett, it wasn’t the average dive.
He was in clear, warm water, about 14 feet in depth, in the Brandon High School pool. But the new equipment he was testing would come in very handy in dive conditions he might normally encounter, with water depths up to 300 feet, in zero visibility, and temperatures reaching to 25 degrees below zero as he goes on search and rescue missions.
On Tuesday, as part of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Marine Division dive team, the Brandon deputy was trying out a 4,200 PSI high pressure system for diver safety from the fire/dive rescue company Interspiro, based in Wisconsin.
‘It is a surface supply system,? explains Jeffery Stigall, regional sales manager for Interspiro. ‘It gives the diver more air, a back-up plan and takes the weight off a diver.?
Sgt. Dan Toth said the equipment demonstration, of which both Oakland County divers and ones from Macomb County participated, is part of a continuing cooperative effort between departments.
‘Resources are limited,? he said. ‘It’s cost intensive to have a dive team and there are liability issues. It’s more important now than ever to get on the same page with basic equipment and share specialized equipment, so we could effectively respond to a Minneapolis bridge type incident.?
He was referring to the Aug. 1 disaster in Minnesota in which an interstate bridge collapsed, spilling vehicles into the Mississippi River.
There are 13 Oakland County Sheriff’s Office dive team members and 454 lakes in Oakland County. The team responds to about 20 callouts per year. It costs about $4,000 to outfit each diver with the new equipment and costs $8,000 for the surface supply unit. Toth says it is worth it to make divers safe.