By Michael O. Allen, Record Staff Writer | Sunday, September 29, 1991
The Record (New Jersey) | All Editions | NEWS | Page A03
Kingsley Pond, with its shimmering brownish-green surface, has been the site of many drownings in past years. Saturday, it was the site of rescue training for the Oakland Fire Department scuba team.
Joe Bogonian, the team’s coordinator-dive master and a member of Oakland’s first dive team, said the emphasis since the group was formed 21 years ago had been on recovering bodies and objects.
“We weren’t so much thinking about rescuing people,” Bogonian said.
But, as Oakland Fire Chief Roy Bauberger said Saturday, new methods of reviving near-drowning victims have since been developed.
On Saturday, the procedures were being taught by Lifeguard Systems, a training group, to Oakland’s 10-member scuba team, plus 10 divers from the Bergen County Police Department and the Pompton Lakes, Lyndhurst, and Wallington fire departments. Butch Hendrick, president of the Hurley, N.Y., group, said it teaches tactical water operations to military, police, fire, and emergency medical service workers.
Oakland has several bodies of water including Potash Lake, where two men drowned last year, and Kingsley Pond, where a 17-year-old drowned four years ago.
Matt Gallup, an Oakland firefighter and a member of the first aid squad, said he was startled at first when he came face to face with a bass on his first dive Saturday. He was supposed to rescue a baby-size mannequin in the training.
“It looks pretty easy, jumping in the water and just swimming,” Gallup said. “But you take a pretty good beating down there.”
A diver may have to go around many objects tree limbs, refrigerators, automobile parts, and other debris to reach the victim.
The problem with most dive teams, Hendrick said, is that they are sport oriented and not prepared to retrieve a body or objects in black or difficult waters.
The weekend’s training the first leg was at the man-made Kingsley Pond three weeks ago concludes there today.
Keywords: RESCUE; FIREMAN; LAKE; OAKLAND; SWIMMING; ACCIDENT; DEATH; VICTIM
Caption: 1 – PHOTO – ROBERT S. TOWNSEND / THE RECORD – Above, rescue personnel participating in training exercises from the banks of Kingsley Pond on Saturday. 2 – PHOTO – ROBERT S. TOWNSEND / THE RECORD – Below, Robert Ventura, left, and Tony Galka of the Wallington Fire Department practicing procedures as a dive team one man stands by just offshore to aid the diver.
ID: 17356740 | Copyright © 1991, The Record (New Jersey)