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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Cape Coral Fire Department\u2019s team of rescue divers is rigorously trained to respond swiftly and effectively to emergencies involving vehicles in canals.<\/p>\n
William Wood, a fire lieutenant and field training officer for the water rescue program, highlighted the prevalence of such incidents, saying, \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of cars that end up in canals here in Cape Coral, more than probably people know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wood explained the requirements for joining the dive team: \u201cTo be on the dive team, before you even apply, you have to have your open water and your rescue diver certifications through an outside agency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wood described the initial steps in a rescue operation: \u201cThe first thing we want to do is search the driver\u2019s side of the vehicle. The car got in there somehow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once a victim is located, the team works to safely extricate them. Wood detailed the procedure, saying, \u201cOnce the window\u2019s broken and the glass is cleared, the diver is going to go ahead and do a search without entering the car. For safety reasons, we don\u2019t want our diver actually entering the vehicle. That way, in case they get entrapped, we don\u2019t want to run into any situation where they need to be rescued.\u201d<\/p>\n
Preparation begins before arriving on the scene, with equipment prepackaged for quick deployment. The fire truck is designed specifically for rescue divers, featuring a specialty compartment for dive gear. Wood described, \u201cWe have a specialty compartment in the back that specific to holding our dive gear, whether it\u2019s our communications, our spare bottles, any other type of dive equipment that we might carry.\u201d<\/p>\n
The training is ongoing. Wood explained, \u201cOur divers are required to do two training dives a year, and we alternate between night dives and boat days.\u201d<\/p>\n
WBBH-TV NBC 2 Fort Myers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cape Coral Fire Department\u2019s team of rescue divers is rigorously trained to respond swiftly and effectively to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,28],"class_list":["post-161147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}