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  • Duncan police officer Chisholm Hale, center, acts as a drowning victim, while Lt. John Webb, Michael Davidson, Keith Stewart and Sean Kay attempt a rescue Thursday during dive team training. Derrick Miller/The Duncan Banner

    Duncan police officer Chisholm Hale, center, acts as a drowning victim, while Lt. John Webb, Michael Davidson, Keith Stewart and Sean Kay attempt a rescue Thursday during dive team training.
July 23, 2012

Duncan officers undergo dive team training

Derrick Miller The Duncan Banner

DUNCAN — A dip in Fuqua Pool is just the first step a group of Duncan police officers made as they train to save lives.

Seven officers are participating in training as a dive team.

On Thursday, they completed their training in Fuqua Pool and are ready to start training in area lakes.

Through their training, the police officers have been learning about rescuing people in water and recovering lost property.

Officer Chris Perkins, operations leader and training instructor, said the officers are all interested in saving lives, and the training gives them another way to do so.

“We were doing rescue skills for rescuing divers, distress and unconscious people,” Perkins said.

To take part in the training, the officers had to submit a letter of interest to their superiors.

From there, the Duncan Police Department underwent a selection process to choose which officers would be the best fit for the team and had the shift availability that would allow for the additional job duties.

All of the officers had more than 80 hours of training before they were chosen for the dive team.

The officers on the team include Perkins; Lt. John Webb, team commander; Keith Stewart, assistant operations leader and dive master; and dive team officers: Michael Davidson, Chisholm Hale, Jeff Pollack and Sean Kay.

“We’ve got a really good team,” Perkins said. “We all work well together. We’re getting to where we can read each other before we do something.”

Although summer might seem like the ideal time for the officers to have such training, Perkins said the training could come in handy at any time of the year.

“It can be utilized at any time to recover missing property or missing persons,” he said.

The officers did wrap their training at Fuqua Pool. But they still have three more training sessions before they’re officially part of the dive team.

In the coming weeks, they will go out to several lakes to start learning to dive in an unpredictable environment. Perkins said it was important for them to get the basic training in a swimming pool.

“It’s safer to go through rescue skills instead of taking them out to the lakes,” Perkins said.

In the times the officers have trained at Fuqua Pool, they have trained in the morning before the pool opened to the community. He said this allowed the team to get in, train and get out without having to contend with other people.

Davidson, who is among the new dive team recruits, said the training has given the officers more insight on rescuing someone in water. He said there are things the officers have to keep in mind before, during and after getting into the water.

“It’s real good training,” Davidson said. “Perkins and Stewart are really knowledgeable.”

When the officers move into the lakes, they’ll be learning things they haven’t touched on yet in training. Perkins said the next steps in training will teacher them about diving and rescuing in zero visibility situations and about solo diving.

Once the foundation training is completed, the officers will meet once a month for additional training.

Davidson said it is an honor for the officers to be selected for the dive team because it gives them another way to save lives.

“You get to do more training outside of the box of law enforcement,” Davidson said. “It’s another avenue of training to keep you learning.”

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