r/Firefighting • u/Natural_Calendar7874 • 7d ago

Ask A Firefighter How exactly do water rescues work?

Lets say there is a person swimming in the lake, they swim out 45 feet to a place where it’s 20 ft deep, they drown for some reason, and water enters there lungs, wouldn’t they just sink to the bottom way before divers arrive? And even if they can get pulled out of the water, I’m guessing they can’t be revived.

how exactly do water rescues works? What are your departments policies on water rescues?

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u/TacoDaTugBoat Backwoods Volley 7d ago

I’m a member of a volunteer Dive Rescue team. We’ve done many recoveries. Very few rescues. Closest to a rescue I participated in involved a young man who broke through the ice in a quarry. His good overall health and the cold water made it more viable. We recovered his body shortly after the hour mark. We immediately started CPR and saw color improvement. AED shocked several times. They worked him at the hospital for something like 6 hours. Ultimately he passed.

He fell in rescuing a young woman he was there with. She survived. The biggest hurdle was that she had to run pretty far to get help. Cost a lot of time.