March 17, 2022 at 12:17 p.m.
Joint dive team training exercise held at Clear Lake
Joint dive team training exercise held at Clear Lake
Other departments taking part in the training included the Minocqua and Newbold fire and rescue departments and the Lincoln County dive team.
Both airboats for Oneida County, Newbold's "Airboat 1" and Minocqua's "Airboat 2," were centerpieces for the training, which consisted of divers practicing diving through the ice and what sheriff's captain Terri Hook said were "lost diver drills."
"It's very important for our dive team, as well as the Lincoln County dive team, to get an opportunity to work with the volunteer firefighters who are actually going to come out to a scene to help us recover or get someone out of the water," Hook said. "Today was a prime opportunity where the weather was nice and everyone could get together and the ice was actually thick enough we could do some ice diving and practice that."
Hook said the Oneida County and Lincoln County dive teams normally train together.
"We don't normally have the firefighters with us, though," she said.
Hook said both airboats have been used at the same time on calls, with one of those being the recovery of a body in the Tomahawk area.
During Sunday's training, Newbold's airboat was used as the diving platform at the scene while the Minocqua airboat ferried divers back and forth from the Clear Lake beach to the Newbold boat.
"Some of the divers are new and they haven't been around the airboats," Hook said. "This is good for all of them to see how things work."
As is the case with nearly every emergency call, timing is of the essence and that includes, in the case of things onboard an airboat, being familiar with surroundings.
"The divers need to know how much space is on a boat and the people on the boat need to know what kind of equipment the divers are bringing out there," Hook said. "So they have an idea how to work together."
Mark Vapnar, assistant chief for the Minocqua fire department, explained why such exercises are held.
"The importance of it is we are a team," he said. "Whether it's law enforcement, our medical units, other fire departments, we're a team," he said. "This (airboat) is a unique piece of equipment for Newbold, for us, for the county and surrounding counties and we need to keep up our training with the boats."
Vapnar said conditions, in general, are "rough" when the boats and divers are operating.
"It's a very stressful situation most of the time," he said. "The more training we can do, the better we're going to be in serving the community."
Brian Jopek may be reached via email at [email protected].
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