One of our specialties is public safety diving. Whether it is fire, police, emergency services, or other rescue-related diving, we can help your team.
Most recreational scuba shops you visit will have something to offer a rescue team. Often recreational dive shops will attempt to apply recreational diving answers to the public safety diver mission as that is the only lens they see the diving world through.
Brent Clevenger started his diving career in 1996 and quickly found his passion in public safety diving. Like many public safety divers, he initially began his public safety diving while working for a small county government agency with a limited budget. All the training and equipment for diving were out of his pocket as the department had no budget for diving or knowledge of the differences between recreational diving and professional Emergency Response Diving. His main dive buddy at the time was his sergeant, a former US Navy Medic and rescue diver with a wealth of knowledge in diving.
Brent moved to Gastonia in 1999 and joined a dive team with an actual equipment and training budget. While working for this department, he was fortunate enough to have many great opportunities. He achieved the rating of Dive Rescue Specialist 1 and Dive Rescue Specialist 2, as well as the Med Dive Technician course. He was also certified by the State of North Carolina as a Hazmat Technician. He could also attend (Manta) Mid Atlantic Narcotics Training Academy hosted by the US Army for diving and other narcotics-related training. He also took over maintenance for a more extensive police department's dive team.
During Brent's time on a Public Safety Dive team, he realized the difficulties and the substantial disconnect typical scuba shops have when working with dive teams. His goal, and that of Sink or Swim Scuba, is not to be "just a dive shop" when working with PSD divers. Instead of making traditional sales, it's our goal at Sink or Swim Scuba to partner with your dive team and actively assist your team. We want to be your advocate and partner in all things diving. If you need our help with anything from team creation, budget meetings, advanced training, and equipment needs, we are happy to work with you to meet your goals. We have enough equipment in our rental equipment to outfit a fully functioning team and can even help you do dives and recoveries if needed. When your team partners with Sink or Swim Scuba, it includes full access to all of our resources and equipment if you need it.
Public Safety rental equipment available for demo/training:
Surface-supplied air equipment:
AmCommand II Two Diver Air Control and Communications System
2 Kirby Morgan Superlite 37 helmets with full communications
2 150-foot diver umbilical
Interspiro AGA Full Face Mask with hardline communications
HardWire Communications Equipment:
MK-III Diver Intercom
1 200’ Standard CR-4 Standard 4 Wire Comm Rope
1 150’ Standard CR-4 4 Wire Comm Rope
1 200’ Floating Comm Cable
Interspiro AGA MKII with Communications (both positive and semi-positive available)
Wireless Communications setup:
OTS Power Com 3000D Wireless Diver Radio
OTS CDK-6 Surface Conversion Kit
OTS PowerCom 3000S Surface Station
OTS Guardian FFM with Buddy Phone Package
OTS Spectrum Mask with Buddy Phone Communications Package
Back Plate and Wing BC System, Navy-approved tech BC System, multiple models of recreational BCs.
13 Vulcanized rubber hazmat dry suits, 2 with Yoke for Helmet diving and full encapsulation
Shearwater Nerd 2 Dive Computer (Heads up display dive computer usable in zero visibility)
All shearwater dive computers
All Suunto Air Integrated Dive Computers
Video Ray Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) Fifish V6 Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV)
Rigging hardware and lift bags to lift medium-sized trucks and cars.
BROCO underwater burning and welding rig and associated equipment.
