Police divers who recover bodies from underwater warn youngsters of the dangers of swimming in reservoirs this summer

If you can handle rescues on mud banks under the Humber Bridge at low tide up to your waist in sludge, fitness checks, working in enclosed water spaces, countless dive drills while combating claustrophobia and the fear of drowning then you might make it into the next stage of training for one of Yorkshire’s most elite policing teams.

Many candidates don’t make it past the first week and those that do are more likely to be spotted on a riverbank than arriving in a flurry of blue lights and police cars.

This is Yorkshire’s police underwater search unit where a team of 10, led by Sgt Paul Jackson, cover underwater policing needs from recovering dead bodies, discarded weapons and patrolling flood devastated villages for Humberside Police and the North, South and West Yorkshire forces.

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They are trained to dive to 50 metres deep, search while wading or underwater, search cesspits and storm drains, and use scanners to find who or what they are looking for.

Police divers PC Roger Bennett, and PC Paul Coupland, waiting for the order to entering the water on this training exercise.Police divers PC Roger Bennett, and PC Paul Coupland, waiting for the order to entering the water on this training exercise.
Police divers PC Roger Bennett, and PC Paul Coupland, waiting for the order to entering the water on this training exercise.

Sgt Jackson said: “Because you have done recreational diving it does not mean you can do this – it is a totally different way of diving. For most jobs in the police there is an interview and suitability assessment, for this we need people for a week. It is risky and dangerous and we need to make sure people are of the right mind and able to do it.”

Most work is searching for missing people and unfortunately recovering bodies.

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This was highlighted last year when emergency services across the region faced high numbers of drowning cases, attributed to lifting of lockdown measures and good weather.

Members of the Regional Marine and Underwater Police Search Unit taking part in a training operation  to recover a firearm held at Scuba Dream Eight Acre Lake dive site, Mires Lane, Brough, near North Cave.Members of the Regional Marine and Underwater Police Search Unit taking part in a training operation  to recover a firearm held at Scuba Dream Eight Acre Lake dive site, Mires Lane, Brough, near North Cave.
Members of the Regional Marine and Underwater Police Search Unit taking part in a training operation to recover a firearm held at Scuba Dream Eight Acre Lake dive site, Mires Lane, Brough, near North Cave.
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“Last year we had a big problem with reservoirs,” said Sgt Jackson. “It was just after lockdown, people were allowed out, the sun came out and it just went crazy for incidents. We had four or five young children, under 16, in the space of a month that we got called out to.

“They don’t understand the dynamics of the water or how cold water gets them and they go into shock. This year, we are going to try and prevent it. When we are not deployed we will go to beauty spots where people go swimming and educate. We don’t want to stop them having fun but it is about making them aware.”

The unit has also worked with students and universities in York after increasing numbers of deaths where young people have fallen into the river while on nights out.

Some missing people can end up 20 to 30 miles away in flowing water, but the team will not stop looking.

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He added: “We can be on a job for months. There is no cut off point. We have people we have not found since 2015. That is somebody’s child or family member and if they are in the water we want to find them.”

However, there are some lighter moments too... one report of a body in the River Humber was a life-sized stuffed toy which was recovered anyway so it didn’t cause any more alarm and on another river bank search the team saved the life of a sheep stuck in mud and in danger of drowning.

Two divers dug it out, heaved it into a boat and sailed it to a safe drop off point where they made a ramp from an old pallet so it could re-join the herd of 20 other sheep stood watching.