Police diving is a branch of professional diving carried out by police services. Police divers are usually sworn police officers, and may either be employed full-time as divers or as general water police officers, or be volunteers who usually serve in other units but are called in if their diving services are required.
The duties carried out by police divers include rescue diving for underwater casualties and search and recovery diving for evidence and bodies.
"Public safety diving" is a term coined by Steven J Linton in the 1970s to describe underwater rescue, underwater recovery and underwater investigation conducted by divers working for or under the authority of municipal, state or federal agencies. These divers are typically members of police departments, sheriff's offices, fire rescue agencies, search and rescue teams or providers of emergency medical services. Public Safety Divers (PSDs) can be paid by the previously mentioned agencies or non-paid volunteers.
A fictional example of a police diver is Eric Delko from the CBS crime drama CSI: Miami.
Read more about Police Diving: Public Safety Diving, Recreational Rescue Diver Courses, Professional Public Safety Diving Courses, Public Safety Diving Equipment
Famous quotes containing the words police and/or diving:
“The duties which a police officer owes to the state are of a most exacting nature. No one is compelled to choose the profession of a police officer, but having chosen it, everyone is obliged to live up to the standard of its requirements. To join in that high enterprise means the surrender of much individual freedom.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“A worm is as good a traveler as a grasshopper or a cricket, and a much wiser settler. With all their activity these do not hop away from drought nor forward to summer. We do not avoid evil by fleeing before it, but by rising above or diving below its plane; as the worm escapes drought and frost by boring a few inches deeper.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)