YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – Earlier this month, WKBN 27 First News showed you Youngstown firefighters training for possible rescues on ice-covered lakes in Mill Creek Park. But Paul Lutton, who has been with the department’s ice water rescue team for years admits what divers have been doing since Wednesday night in the icy Potomac River in Washington is completely different.
“Once someone goes under the ice and we can no longer see them, that becomes a dive thing,” Lutton said.
Nick Catsoules is one of more than a dozen volunteers on the sheriff’s dive team. He said even if victims of Wednesday’s mid-air collision between a commercial jet and an Army helicopter had survived the crash, responders would have been racing against the clock to save them in the water.
“There’s no amount of training that can prepare you for some of these circumstances like what these divers are going through now,” Catsoules said. “The average person can last 15 minutes before hypothermia sets in in water temperatures of 30 to 35 degrees — roughly.”
Local divers practice routinely wearing gear to protect them against the cold, but those trying to recover victims from the crash wouldn’t be able to stay in the water long — requiring a lot of manpower.
“Rotating them through, getting them back warm, getting new air tanks filled up and getting your people rotated through just to maintain your own body temperature,” said Deputy Rob Hovanec, a dive team member with the sheriff’s office.
Besides the cold, divers must also be watching for crash debris and fuel in the water.
“That’s kind of a nightmare situation they’re involved in. One aircraft is bad — two aircraft in current, cold, in dark is absolutely miserable,” Hovanec said.
But a job, experts say, is one that needs to be done.