About a dozen member of Davison County Search and Rescue spent the weekend at Lake Mitchell learning. Emergency Manager Jeff Bathke says the two-phase training was for the divers in the water and just as important for the shore personnel. “We have a lot of guys on the team who have never worked the shore,” said Bathke. “So that was our primary goal for those on the shore, was to get a good training of how to run the com system and the ropes and the grid patterns and everything else that goes along with being on shore.”
On Saturday the training at Sandy Beach involved divers recovering clay pigeon targets on the bottom. Sunday’s training at the Lake Mitchell campground involved a search for a human sized dummy on the bottom. Bathke says it took about 90 minutes to find it.
He says the search and rescue dive teams have been dispatched twice this year in the James River. Once to find and recover a missing garbage truck and the two deceased men inside it and another incident where minivan went into river and its deceased driver.
Bathke says continuing training is important.