TASKING: RESCUE SWIMMERS

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Underwater Search and Recovery Unit (U.S.R.U.) dive team are a 13 person unit of the OPP based in Bracebridge Ontario. The main focus of the team is providing safe underwater search and recovery operations for evidence of major crimes (ie. weapons, etc.) and recovery of missing and drowned persons. The team is also trained in the disposal of explosives. The two six officer teams under one supervisor travel the province wherever the need takes them. The U.S.R.U has the capability of diving to a depth of 100 feet, the Side Scan Sonar capability to 250 feet, and the Remote Operated Vehicle (R.O.V.) to 500 feet

Cold Water Boot Camp was something new in which members of the team left their SCUBA equipment on shore and provided the critical task of supporting the Boot Campers in the water. It was the dive team members’ responsibility to ensure the safety of the Boot Campers as they struggled in the water, to lend a hand when asked and to decide when it was time to intervene and pull a Boot Camper who had become too incapacitated to continue.