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<\/a>Warning: article contains details about dead bodies.<\/span><\/p>\nCrime scene tape has been posted around your favorite big pond or lake and nobody can get on\/in the water until it has been searched. What has happened? Perhaps a body has been sighted underwater by a swimmer, or a fisherman has snagged something suspicious on his hook. A violent crime may have been committed in the area and the police are looking for discarded weapon(s). Or a report has come in to the police station about a missing person, and that missing person may have been seen in the vicinity of the water. Law enforcement is already on the case and if the crime scene tape is up, along with officers conducting an investigation, then a dive team is most likely working your formerly peaceful spot.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The USA has a great many lakes and assorted other bodies of water, both natural and man-made. Just a few examples:<\/span> Alaska: over 3,000,000 lakes (yes, 3 million)<\/span><\/p>\n Minnesota: 10,000 lakes (it\u2019s even written on the license plates)<\/span><\/p>\n New Jersey: 366 named ponds, lakes, and lagoons<\/span><\/p>\n North Carolina: 78 named lakes as well as several bays, sounds, and hundreds of ponds.<\/span><\/p>\n Texas: over 200 large lakes and reservoirs.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n When that many bodies of water are part of the landscape, it makes sense that the Sheriff\u2019s Department (County law enforcement) and First Responders have teams that specialize in underwater evidence and body recovery. Why the Sheriff\u2019s Department? It\u2019s not about deep pockets financing the operations, it\u2019s all about jurisdiction and best use of available resources. Many large lakes cross town lines<\/strong>, and the Sheriff\u2019s Department has jurisdiction in all the towns in its County. No need to duplicate personnel, when prevailing thought is that one or two teams per County will be able to handle the job of underwater evidence and body recovery.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Note<\/strong>: the local Fire Department usually has a First Responder team on the site of any accident \u2013 they are trained for rescue. At some<\/span> point, it will be determined whether it is a recovery or a rescue and\/or if there is a need to preserve evidence. It\u2019s usually a recovery rather than a rescue at a lake, because after a person spends ten minutes under the water without air, it becomes a recovery operation.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Are there enough on-the-water deaths to make certified-for-recovery dive teams necessary? Sadly, yes. The Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project<\/a><\/span> tracks those stats for the five biggest USA lakes. There were 99 deaths reported in 2016, 88 in 2017, and as of this writing, 47 so far in 2018 in the Great Lakes alone. North Carolina has reported 10 lake deaths so far in 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Most of the time, the lake deaths are accidental, but on occasion, bodies are found because of a homicide.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n A body will float after 72 hours, and continue to float for a couple of days. After that, the naturally occurring body gas is expelled and it will sink again. Bodies are often found fairly quickly, but a body gets like jelly if it\u2019s been in the water for a while, complicating the collection process.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Cold water will preserve a body<\/strong>, and warm water will cause more rapid decay, so divers must work carefully in the warmer locales. Cadaver dogs can pinpoint the location of a body to speed up the work. It\u2019s been discovered that the longer the body is in the water, the wider the smell arc for the dogs. It\u2019s a little like a dead fish smell, more concentrated closer to the body.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n If no cadaver dogs are available, the divers swim in ever bigger arcs from the chosen starting point onshore and they work in grid patterns. If the search area is large enough, one of the onshore\/on<\/span> boat team members keeps a map\/record of the searched areas.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In general, when working in shallow water, the investigation and recovery can be accomplished by dive teams alone. In deeper water, it will be a combination of boats and dive teams that do the search and recovery.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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