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Sometimes there are moments in diving that are not very pleasant. The recovery of a body. I am not going to tell anything gruesome in this story, it is only the bazaar events of this recovery.

We had a call to go to the drainage ditch by Barcelona bridge area over the Rio Grande river. This ditch was on the west side. It appeared that several persons were "skinny dipping" at a culvert area where the water was running very fast. Also, there was a very large tree at the culvert that the swimmers(?) had tied a rope to swing out and drop into the water. One swimmer had hit the water, had gone under, and never came back up. The State Police were called.

Three of us "State Police Divers" went to the scene. The three of us, J.W., Jack, and I had dived together many times. I was the senior diver on the scene and Jack was second in line, so he and I suited up for the dive. J.W., being a field investigator, was assigned the task of retrieving as much information about the accident as possible. This required a long list of questions to get the best results for the recovery. Keep in mind at all times we are not sure what to expect. We hope we are prepared, through training, for most any diving situation. Also on the scene were the "ditch walkers", a county fire department sub-aquatic rescue group, trying to do their best to help. State law says that the New Mexico State Police have jurisdiction over any recovery operation. So we basically took control of the area and assigned jobs to other officers.

On this recovery we had a lot of spectators. Mainly family. And the scene was not peaceful. Yelling, screaming, and general chaos was taking place. The officers tried to maintain order so we could get helpful information to conduct a proper search.

Jack and I went in, on full scuba. The current at the culvert was very fast making it difficult to stay in one place. We did a complete search of the perimeter hoping to find the victim. We had determined it was a male in his late 30's or early 40's. We spent about 30 minutes looking with no results. As we approached the edge to climb out, Jack was still underwater. I was standing in water about up to my butt. I could see Jack at my feet, seeing his equipment barely inches from the surface.

I waited a short time and wondered just what the hell he was doing. What had he found. I reached for his tank and lifted it. I couldn't move it or pull Jack up. I then knew that something was not right.

Unknown to Jack and I, he had arrived at the shore in an area where a large tree limb (about 2-3 inches in diameter) stuck out from the side about a foot underwater. He had swam into it with the limb going through the area between his buoyancy compensator and his neck. Wearing a wet suit didn't give him any feel of the problem.

I didn't see the limb for a while and realized that this was a potentially dangerous situation. I had to take off my gloves to start tracing around him to find out what was wrong. I was really surprised to find the limb causing the problem. It was difficult to communicate with Jack. Finally I was able to push him backward enough to get him out of the situation. He was balking to some degree because he thought I was messing with him. Sometimes we do that.

Well, we got out. At that time another SP diver showed up. It was now dark and the fire department had set up powerful lights for the search area. I got us together and re-evaluated the scene. It was J.W.'s turn, so I buddied him with the new arrival. I decided to have the two of them enter the water at the culvert. We tied ropes on them for safety. We had received information as to where the victim had entered the water. My judgment was that we would drop under at that area and just drift. This was in hopes of bumping into the victim.

The divers went out to the area and I gave the signal to go under. Within a few minutes the divers drifted right into the victim, as planned. They brought the body to the side and several of us got him out of the water. The time frame was too long - at least 3 hours - to help the victim with CPR.

I had mentioned the family earlier. As we were cleaning up our gear and packing, chaos developed again. One of the victims relatives came over to us, grabbed Jack and started to threaten him. The relative said that "we" caused the drowning, that we took to long to retrieve him, that we should have given him CPR. He actually took a swing at Jack. J.W. and I stepped between the two and called several officers to take care of the guy. Several of the other members of the victims family were yelling and screaming at us in the same manner. We could tell that they all had been drinking. One of the major causes of drownings.

Hey- - we didn't cause the accident. We were only trying to do a thankless job for the citizens. As I had mentioned before, it is very stressful for us too! We are not only dealing with family, but diving under extreme conditions. Why do we do it? Why do people like us even mess with it?

Several reasons. We are specifically trained for this job. We volunteer for this, never forced. One year, when I was in another profession, we lost four of our fellow employees in a plane accident in the Pecos. They were scouting for elk. Not to tell this story, but we found that the relatives could not collect insurance for seven years. If they collected early, they would loose about 50% of the value of the policy. A major penalty. A person missing is not declared dead until 7 years. At that time they could collect the full amount.

Well, this is one of the reasons. But the main one is to help the family have a closure on the death of a love one so they can move on with their lives. Some of the lakes in this state, and others, still have drowning victims in them. Some have been there for years - never found. What is the victims families going through - not to have a closure. Would you like to be wondering where your love one is, what happened? This is why people like us do this job. It is for the families.