I’ve had to one water rescue in a lake, and it sucked. The water was in the 50s and it was about 30 degrees outside. I can’t imagine doing one in Chicago.
And in my case the rescue wasn’t that difficult. I’m a scuba instructor at a university and we were doing a big dive weekend at the end of the Fall semester, and any time we have a bunch of people in the water, we like to leave one instructor on the surface to organize and be in charge of everything. A group came up yelling for help.
I ran into the water and swam out to meet them and tow in the victim while having my divemasters prep the aid station and assemble the O2 kits, and the guy was barely conscious and turning blue.
As I stripped his gear off, I noticed he was wearing a semi-dry wetsuit that was REALLY tight. I cut relief slits in the suit with my shears and by the time I’d dragged him out of the water he was fully awake and color had returned. Turns out he’d found the suit on Craigslist really cheap and insisted on using it even though it was too small, and between that and the colder water down deep his circulation had been restricted.
But even with that fairly easy rescue (the same suit that caused the problem also made him supper floaty), the cold air and water made it exhausting. I can’t imagine doing a much more difficult rescue in Chicago water.
I’ve had to one water rescue in a lake, and it sucked. The water was in the 50s and it was about 30 degrees outside. I can’t imagine doing one in Chicago.
And in my case the rescue wasn’t that difficult. I’m a scuba instructor at a university and we were doing a big dive weekend at the end of the Fall semester, and any time we have a bunch of people in the water, we like to leave one instructor on the surface to organize and be in charge of everything. A group came up yelling for help.
I ran into the water and swam out to meet them and tow in the victim while having my divemasters prep the aid station and assemble the O2 kits, and the guy was barely conscious and turning blue.
As I stripped his gear off, I noticed he was wearing a semi-dry wetsuit that was REALLY tight. I cut relief slits in the suit with my shears and by the time I’d dragged him out of the water he was fully awake and color had returned. Turns out he’d found the suit on Craigslist really cheap and insisted on using it even though it was too small, and between that and the colder water down deep his circulation had been restricted.
But even with that fairly easy rescue (the same suit that caused the problem also made him supper floaty), the cold air and water made it exhausting. I can’t imagine doing a much more difficult rescue in Chicago water.