Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 6, 1995 TAG: 9508070004
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-18 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Long
It will be hard to sleep that night if you do, says Saunders, who has been diving since 1981.
It's a lesson learned from experience. He once looked at the face of a childhood friend he pulled from the New River who had been shot three times.
Divers from local law enforcement or fire and rescue departments, including the eight-member Radford Fire Department team Saunders leads, find themselvesO searching river bottoms and quarry depths for everything from a body to a pistol.
These divers are usually unsung heroes. Their complex and dangerous efforts to rescue a swimmer or recover a drowning victim draw little mention in news reports other than: "Divers pulled the body from the water."
It's much more complicated than that.
When the police radio crackles with a drowning call, Curtis Cook feels a rush of adrenaline and his mind begins racing through a plan of action for his team of divers.
"Most of the time, it's mass confusion. You're trying to get to that person as quickly as possible," said Cook, a sergeant with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office and organizer of its four-member dive team.
"When it's a drowning, you're like full-speed, tunnel vision. You want to get in the water."
Divers undergo hours of training that help them locate bodies and evidence much faster than the catch-all dragging operation once popular.
"We didn't use divers until recently. We used dragging hooks," said Sam Bell, a captain at the Radford Fire Department.
But snagging a body with a hook was "not a very respectful way to treat a body" or the families waiting for the recovery, said Bell. "It is a lot more respectful ... to bring them up in a more caring manner... ."
There are recreational divers, rescue divers and evidence recovery divers. They all want to help, but they sometimes find themselves at cross-purposes.
Rescue divers are most needed during the first hour after a reported drowning. "In extreme cold water, you can exceed an hour [before death occurs], especially in small children," Cook said.
"There is medical data ... that a person isn't dead until he is warm and dead," Bell said. "If the water is 70 degrees or less and they've been in the water less than an hour, we're in a rescue mode."
After an hour, the person is presumed dead and the search focuses on recovering the body or other evidence.
Karen Price, a member of Montgomery County's team, obtained her diver's certification last year because several friends were divers.
Diving provokes a range of emotions for Price, depending on whether the dive is for fun, to collect evidence or recover a body.
"Any of them are exciting," but a rescue has a special urgency, said Price, who is an investigator with the Sheriff's Office.
Recreational dives or even diving for evidence provide more time to enjoy the scenery.
"Down there, it's your own little world," said Price. She once saw a fisherman's line floating by, wriggling worm and all.
Earlier this year, Saunders found Jeffrey Scott Altizer, a 28-year-old Dublin man missing after a wreck near the Little River in May.
Altizer's pickup had flipped and he couldn't be found, although witnesses who saw or heard the crash were at the scene moments after the wreck.
A tracking dog searched with no success.
The following day, Saunders was surveying the river and noticed light and dark patches in the muddy water.
The light patch was Altizer, not more than three feet from the river bank. He was shirtless and "his skin was light enough that I could see him in the water."
Saunders thinks the man, perhaps disoriented from his injuries, walked over to the road drop-off and hit the water head-first.
How does one develop the fortitude to turn a hobby into the often gruesome work of rescue diving?
"I don't know ... I've often wondered myself," Saunders said, who dives for sport in Fort Lauderdale, the Florida Keys and the Bahamas.
Saunders recalls the first time he dove to recover a body. It was at the Peppers Ferry Bridge near the Radford Army Ammunition Plant. When he and his diving partner found the man, "I didn't really want to touch him, [but] this is just what you do, you just do it."
Saunders says he has no happy-ending stories of saving someone from a near-watery death.
"We've never had a near drowning. ... If we ever do, we'd probably be on 'Rescue 911,'" Saunders said.
Diving is a team effort, but at times Saunders has gone in alone.
Last year when a call went out for a drowning on Claytor Lake, Saunders was nearby with his scuba gear.
At the site, he found a witness to tell him exactly where the victim was last seen, in 6 to 7 feet of murky water. He tied off ropes to an anchor and a buoy that marked the spot. With a rope in one hand and sweeping the water with his other, he began a circular search. "I couldn't see my hand in front of me.
"I felt the guy's head," Saunders said. He pulled the victim almost to the surface and then had someone bring a sheet to roll the man in before placing him in a bodybag and taking him to the ambulance.
"I still can't tell you what that guy looks like, and I slept that night."
Lester Dale Harris was another story. Saunders pulled the body of his boyhood friend from the New River in December 1992, five days after Harris had disappeared.
The water temperature was in the 40s, and Saunders was the only diver with a suit that could keep his body warm at those temperatures.
A boat search had found Harris' shoes and wallet on a river bank, prompting the dive.
"And that's where I found him," completely submerged near a tree. "He was just six feet away" from the river bank.
The gun used to kill Harris was recovered from the New River the following summer in Wythe County by state police divers. Garnet Price, a Pulaski County contractor, was later convicted of Harris' murder and sentenced to 37 years in prison. He is appealing the conviction and is free on bond.
Saunders looked into Harris' face. He saw the bullet wounds. That's when he learned Rule No. 1.
by CNB