The Baltimore City Fire Department Dive Rescue Team was dispatched to the Francis Scott Key Bridge to locate and retrieve a side scan sonar torpedo.

The sonar torpedo was being used by the Baltimore City Fire Department Emergency Rescue Boat to locate a possible missing child in the waters under the bridge.

During the search of the Patapsco River, the torpedo became held fast by some unknown obstacle, approximately 51 feet below the surface.  The umbilical was still attached, but operation personnel were not capable of remotely retrieving the torpedo.

A diver was deployed to the Patapsco River floor just fifty yards outside of the channel, and approximately 200 yards west of the Key Bridge.  The torpedo had burrowed itself in approximately 3 to 4 feet of mud and silt.

Visibility was negative, but the torpedo's umbilical was used to estimate the location of the target. The diver used his upper extremities to excavate the target.

At 1153 hours, the target was retrieved  intact and operational.  The Dive Rescue Team stood by as the sonar torpedo continued its search for the missing child.

The exercise was a combined effort by the Baltimore City Fire Department's Dive Rescue Team, Special Rescue Operations Team, Hazmat Team, Fireboat Vessels, I.T. Communications, and several Federal, State, and Local agencies.

The exercise simulated an attack on a ship by an unknown entity, encompassing hostages, injured civilians, detonation devices, hazardous materials, and other obstacles faced during the events of re-taking the vessel, and liberating the hostages.

Video #24 - WJZ-TV, Baltimore Interview

You're losing body heat 25 times faster in the water than on the surface. They're breathing mechanical air, it's dry, so they get dehydrated much faster. It takes a lot of wear and tear on the divers," said Chief Joseph Brocato of the Baltimore Fire Dive Team.

That same toll is being taken on divers working to recover those still missing in last week's Minneapolis bridge collapse.

Visibility and wreckage were also obstacles in Baltimore. Divers photographed the wreckage on a remote controlled mini-submersible. But before it could be used, targets had to be acquired in a large area of open water, so sonar was brought in.

Sonar systems are also being used in Minneapolis, but here the target is huge, unstable and in shallow water. Navy divers are working off air lines running from the surface to a 17-pound enclosed helmet.

Alex Demetrick - WJZ-TV               

         An autopsy was to be performed today on a man who apparently drowned yesterday while swimming off a pier at Fort Armistead in South Baltimore.

The man's name was withheld pending notification of his family.

Chief Kevin Cartwright, a city Fire Department spokesman, said the victim and some male friends were fishing in the Patapsco River off the pier about 1 p.m. when the victim decided to go swimming.

Moments after entering the water and swimming for a short distance, the victim called for help, Cartwright said.         

Cartwright could not confirm a report that one of the man's companions entered the water to rescue the man but was unable to find him in the murky water.

After receiving a 911 call at 1:17 p.m., a Fire Department dive team, members of the department's Special Rescue Operations Team, a Coast Guard vessel, a city police boat and state Natural Resources Police officers arrived and began searching for the man.          

At 4:30 p.m., Cartwright said, the man's body was found in shallow water and was taken to the medical examiner's office.
 

Richard Iwrin and Monica Lopossay

                 Baltimore Sunpaper

 0 Dive Team Tryout

2007 Dive Rescue Team Stats

2 Dive Team Tryouts

2006 Dive Rescue Team Stats