In the final part of our series on police diving, Senior Sergeant Bruce Adams, O/C Police National Dive Squad, talks to Fiona Morris about some of the challenges our divers face today.
While the rest of us are dusting off the fishing rods and digging out our togs, the Police National Dive Squad (PNDS) is preparing for the worst.
“It’s certainly a lot busier in the summer months,” says PNDS O/C Senior Sergeant Bruce Adams. “We see the same old avoidable accidents. There’s lot of basic things that go wrong like people not wearing life jackets, or diving alone, or running out of air.”
From its base in Lower Hutt, the squad’s four full-time and eight on-call staff respond to between 60 and 70 callouts each year, including upward of 25 body recoveries.
Bruce says diving to retrieve bodies is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea but for the dedicated team, finding bodies in water is part of life.
“Ninety percent of the time we can’t see what we’re doing,” he says. “It’s a demanding job. We work in every sort of condition, from extreme heat to extreme cold and everything in between.”
Around 83 police officers have worked in the squad over the past 50 years.
It began with a small group of enthusiastic young police who saw a job that needed doing so jumped into dangerous seas, rivers and sewers using their own dive gear to search for bodies and evidence.
They received no additional pay and held full-time policing roles elsewhere. They were leaders, says Bruce, who left a legacy of determination and search discipline which holds strong.
The job has changed out of sight in Bruce’s 26 years with the squad, not least in the way potential candidates are prepared for the job.
“I was a freediver and had done water sports but hadn’t done any scuba diving,” he says. “The first time I put a regulator in my mouth was my first day on the Navy course.”
A change in thinking led to the development of a selection process “to make sure we’re fit for purpose before we send them away”.
It assesses a candidate’s fitness, with opportunities to train with squad members; their motivation; and the mental fortitude required for the work. They must remain on top of regular policing: “you’ve got to be able to do the day job”.
Before the selection process was established, around half of Police’s candidates failed the Navy course. Though the Navy course has an overall failure rate of around 50 percent, Police candidates now usually get through, and sometimes top the course.
The equipment has been transformed from its basic beginnings to state-of-the-art technology – full-face masks with wireless comms; through-water speakers; multiple mouth pieces; suits which completely seal out contaminated water; advanced camera equipment; livestream video capability so officers can direct an underwater search from dry land.
“It’s a sign of Police's commitment to diving as well as the change in technology available,” says Bruce.
While the people are better prepared and equipped to perform more safely and efficiently, the basic nature of the job has not changed. Over time the squad has developed an empathetic approach which Bruce says he’s pleased to see being embraced across Police.
'You’re doing the best you can for the family, friends, and community'.
“A big one with recovering drowning victims is that you’re working for the family, trying to provide closure.
“It’s going back to the core of policing. They’re the victims. So now you’re doing the best you can for the family, friends, and community.
“We don’t own the person that’s passed away. It’s about dealing with people with professionalism, and respecting any cultural considerations as well.
“We’ve sat on the river bank in Napier for a Polynesian gentleman who drowned, and waited for the family to bring a particular special mat where they placed him, covered up within the stretcher, and said prayers.
“It might take us a bit longer to get from the recovery to the mortuary but that doesn’t really matter unless there is any risk of degrading the evidential side of things.
“I remember a job in Wellington. It would have been quite easy to recover the young gentleman on to the back of the Lady Elizabeth III and drive around to the berth and have the undertaker there to see it, but we didn’t.
“It was a bit of a swim but we brought the gentleman back to the beach and involved the family and friends to carry him up there.
“I think it makes our job that much better. It shows we’re human. I think only good can come from it.”
Bruce is proud of the role the squad has played in his 26 years in recoveries and major crime investigations.
The conditions at Lake Sumner tested the squad to the full.
The squad’s most successful deep water retrieval - of a pilot and helicopter in Lake Sumner at depths of 150 metres in 2012 - involved a lot of technology in rough conditions.
"We were stuck in the shearers’ quarters without power and any support from anywhere for three days in a snow blizzard. Being able to work through and get that result is just fantastic.”
The 2005 investigation of the murder of German backpacker Birgit Brauer in Taranaki also stands out.
“Being able to find the coloured pebbles that this young lady had collected and the offender had discarded into a fast flowing river, and also the weapon he had beaten her to death with which still had his fingerprints and her DNA on, was gold.”
In May 2006 Bruce and colleagues encountered more than just crystal clear waters off Stewart Island while diving for the bodies of those lost in the sinking of the Kotuku.
“We had great whites swimming around us on that one. Jeepers mate, they were Hollywood man-eating things.”
Besides searching for bodies and evidence, full-time members of the squad have an investigative role on behalf of the Coroner.
The team coordinates equipment inspections, carries out air testing, attends inquests and makes recommendations to the Coroner for the 14 or so scuba and free divers – both scuba and free divers – who drown each year.
Team members visit dive clubs around the country to drive home the safety messages. They issue media releases for the same reason.
PNDS members give safety presentations to dive clubs around the country.
Of particular concern is what Bruce calls ‘zero to hero’ dive courses, where completely new divers attend one basic course and think they’re Jacques Cousteau.
Bruce says sometimes the team has to give families answers they don’t want to hear, but ultimately it’s about identifying ways to prevent it happening again.
Squad members have a difficult job and rely on their own families for support.
“You couldn’t do it without support from home. As long as you don’t forget that, it doesn’t matter what job you’re doing - generally you’ll get through.”
He says it’s a great team for treating people as you would expect to be treated. “We’ve been to the upper Whanganui River reaches where it’s a heavily gang-populated area and you’re an outsider.
“Then by the time you’ve recovered one of their loved ones, the patches have gone, you’re their best mates, and you’re struggling to leave the hangi and get home.”