User:Rescue Diver375

Thanks for stopping by!!

I started my emergency services career with the Waterford Emergency Team in 2003 with a strong desire to help the community any way that I could. After being a member for only a few months, I quickly realized what specialty I wanted to strive for.....Public Safety Diver. After taking the beginners course of "Open Water", I completely fell in love with both the sport of diving and the real necessity within the greater eastern upstate New York, Vermont and Massachusetts area. What I found was volunteer fire departments suddenly creating dive teams within each of their own respective departments and the divers were only required to individually certify to an advanced level. If you know anything about diving then you'll know that that is not near enough training to be considered a public safety diver! I then took that as a personal insult and continued, with my own money and not the Team's or any fire or police departments funds, to achieve the highest certification that I could to personally acquire to be considered locally, regionally, nationally and internationally (if so required). Finally, after thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of training, both in the classroom and in the water, I finally received my c-card for Public Safety Diver. Once I was finally certified, the Team was called to a few reported drownings and we were even requested to do some recovery work in Vermont and New Hampshire. Then, tragedy struck me personally. I was diagnosed with a cervical herniation which required surgery. I am currently undergoing rehabilitation and clawing my way back to full dive status!

I've been the Chief of the Tri-State Emergency Team from 2006 to 2012 and have been a member since 2003. I am currently the Vice President of the Team.

Rescue Diver375 (talk) 09:36, 29 April 2008 (UTC)