Suisun City diving firefighters assist with car search
(Photo courtesy Suisun City Fire Department via Facebook)
A dive team from the Suisun City Fire Department provided mutual assistance to crews from the Montezuma Fire Protection District on Friday in attempting to locate a vehicle that reportedly went into a body of water.
The dive team was dispatched shortly after 11:30 a.m. following a report of a car that became submerged with at least one victim inside, the department said in a news release.
"Upon arrival on scene, Suisun City Fire Department Rescue Divers geared up and made immediate entry into the water," the release said. "Montezuma [firefighters] and Walnut Grove [firefighters] were on scene already and had used magnets suspended from the Walnut Grove fire boat to locate an object under the surface of the water approximately 15 feet down."
The Suisun dive firefighters followed the magnetic line underneath the water and determined it was attached to an object that was not a vehicle. A thorough search of the water — including, at one point, with SONAR technology — turned up empty, according to a fire official.
The Suisun City Fire Department said it created the dive team after realizing there was "a gap in rescue capability" when it responded to a similar call at a boat ramp in the city earlier this year.
"[Firefighters] trained diligently and became certified rescue divers in order to ensure that we could meet the needs of our waterfront community," a fire official said.
The Suisun City Fire Department has the only dive rescue team in the county and is on call around-the-clock for calls within the city and elsewhere. A similar recovery team is operated by the Solano County Sheriff's Department.
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