The dangers of diving in icy waters

BOISE -- A Boise Fire dive instructor rescued from the icy waters of Parkcenter pond Wednesday is recovering at home.

Earl Swope is a captain with the Boise Fire Department and an experienced member of Boise Fire dive team.

He was pulled from the water Wednesday afternoon and resuscitated during a dive training session.

Firefighter dive teams are trained to put their lives on the line to help others in dangerous situations, but sometimes even the most experienced rescuers need to be rescued.

“We're in the life and death business when it comes to rescuing people,” said Deputy Fire Chief Dave Hanneman.

Dive teams have to be prepared to rescue people in all sorts of conditions, and all sorts of weather.

It's their job to expect the unexpected and "go with the flow" of the water they dive in.

KTVB file

Earl Swope appears in this file photo.

Dive instructor Dave Brown took to the icy water today with his camera to illustrate some of the challenges divers face.

“They’re doing extreme conditions and training in these kind of environments to help potentially save somebody's life someday,” said Brown.

But as Wednesday's training accident clearly illustrates - even the most experienced divers are sometimes faced with a fight for their own life.

“This is a very dangerous situation for divers,” said Brown.

Brown says cold and icy conditions, like the ones Swope nearly drowned in - are the most hazardous kind.  Conditions where any number of things can go wrong.

“One is the cold, the hypothermia, two you’re in an overhead environment, which means the ice is frozen over, so you have to be prepared for all those kind of emergencies,” said Brown.

Not to mention the possible emergency of your equipment malfunctioning.

Often a diver's breathing apparatus can simply stop working because of the extreme cold.

“That could lead to death,” said Brown.

An equipment malfunction is just one thing investigators are looking into as a possible cause of Swope's near drowning.

An almost fatal incident Boise Fire officials say they've never experienced before - and one they won't soon forget.

“We can get very emotional about losing one of our own and thank goodness we didn't in this case,” said Hanneman.

Earle Swope was released from the hospital just hours after being admitted.

Fire officials say they expect him to make a full recovery and eventually come back to work for the Boise Fire Department.