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Volunteers Organize Dive Rescue Team

Western Illinois Dive rescue Underwater Recovery Team

A new group is looking to provide what it feels is a much-needed service in McDonough County.

“The dive team has folded but everyone on the team wants to continue this program,” John Carson said. “So we’ve decided to form a not-for-profit organization.”

The group will be operate as the Western Illinois Dive Rescue Underwater Recovery Team.

So far, about 30 volunteers plan to participate. They were all members of the McDonough County Sheriff’s Department’s Dive Rescue Team, which was disbanded this summer.

The McDonough County Board made that decision after what it called a "thorough review." Sheriff Rick VanBrooker said he wanted to make changes and have more oversight over the volunteer team.

“I would not have under any circumstances kept it the way it was,” Vanbrooker said. “We were either going to support it and have a reliable response or we were not going to have one.”

Vanbrooker did a cost analysis of what it would take to run the program the way he wanted. He said it would have required a $12,000 operations annual budget and another $60,000 for new equipment and transportation -- money not available in the county's budget.

“Sometimes you can put a band aid on something, sometimes you have to take it apart and put it back together,” Vanbrooker said. “I strongly believe it needed to be taken apart and put back together and made better.”

The dive team had been in operation for about 35 years. Carson said the new group is like starting back at square one with volunteers having to once again use all their own equipment and gear.

“We are not going to be able to respond in rescue mode like we did,” Carson said. “But we can still respond safely and try to have a diver in the water, and hopefully if it’s a drowning victim, make a successful recover within an hour anywhere in McDonough County.”

Carson hoped the sheriff’s department would donate the old dive team gear to the new group, but VanBrooker said he was instructed by the county board to sell it.

“It is taxpayer’s money, even though it was bought with a grant and we have to handle it as such,” VanBrooker said. “I am going to follow the instructions from the board on this one. The equipment is still sitting out there we haven’t done anything with it.”

VanBrooker said the county will now rely on the dive rescue team from Fulton County. It agreed to help out for free, but it will take about 75-to-105 minutes to respond, which means the team will be primarily assisting with recovery efforts, not rescue.

VanBrooker added the dive team was only being called out about three times a year and that was frequently outside of McDonough County.

But Carson compared a dive rescue team to a fire extinguisher. “You don’t always need a fire extinguisher, Carson said. “But when you do need it, you really need it.”

Emily Boyer is a former reporter at Tri States Public Radio.