Macon : CSI

I told some folks last week that I had something cool coming up that I couldn't really talk about until after it was done. Well, it's done, so here it is.


As most of you know, my friend and scuba instructor, Scuba Steve, is also a Sgt with the Macon, GA Police CSI (Crime Scene Investigation) Unit. Last week, Steve called and asked me to get up a small group of advanced divers that were comfortable with their skills. He said he needed us for a special task. That task: Diving a small lake at a local campground to search for two murder weapons. Holy crap!! How cool is that?? OK, not the murders, but the fact that we got the call to help look for them. So, I called my 4 "top" divers that were going to be in town and asked them if they wanted to join us for the dive. All 4, of course, said yes and I told them I would get the details to them over the week on when and where to be.

Friday, I got the call from Steve with the details that we were meeting at the campground at 1100 on Monday and dive at high noon for the most sunlight. I passed it along to my group over the weekend.

Monday came and got a call from two of my four. One was sick and the other got called into to work on Monday and wouldn't be able to make it. So, it was just going to be me and M2 meeting Steve and his group of divers. He had 4 or 5 others lined up, but most of them bailed. So, come the actual day of the dive, we had 4 divers and 1 surface support man.

Mark showed up at my house around 0930 and after we loaded the gear in my truck, we headed off for the 45 minute drive to the campground. We made good time and decided to hit a fast food joint and grab a bite before going in. Just as we were pulling in Steve called me on the cell and asked where we were. 5 minutes later, he was in the parking lot with us. 5 minutes after that, the 4th diver, Hyatt, was with us.

We get to the campground and Steve goes in to talk to the clerk. They knew we were coming and had everything ready for us and even offered up a cabin right near the lake so we would have a place to change before and after the dive. We all got changed, got our gear together and got our briefing. By this time, Lee, our surface support was there and helping out also.

We got in the water and Steve devised a search plan and pattern for us to work. We were to drop down within touching distance of each other and stay side by side as we ran a hands through the muck at the bottom working our way from one side to the other. Easy enough.

A few things we were noticing about right now: 1. The lake was a bit bigger than a football field. 2. The sun never came out. It was complete overcast. 3. The bottom was non-existent. You stepped down and your foot went, at least 10-12 inches into the mud. 4. The water was damn cold!!! 63 degrees at the top is what were reading. We had no idea what it was at depth. Three of us, Steve, Hyatt and I, were all diving wet, Mark was diving dry.

We all line up and descend. You could see only about 1 foot in front of you as we starting dropping, but you could see daylight around you. Unfortunately, about 8 feet down, the daylight was gone and it was pitch black. Nothing could be seen at all. After we got down and realized we couldn't see anything or anybody, Steve signaled and we all surfaced. We decided to hold wrists while we dropped and squeezed when we were ready to search. Even that didn't work. Mark came up with the perfect way to explain what it looked like: Go into an elevator, shut the door and turn off the power. That's what we were diving in. It could be called "Oh My God Black." So, Steve had us all surface again and made a judgement call: He said, as long as everyone was comfortable doing it solo, then we would all just pick and area and go search it ourselves. He said anyone that didn't want to, didn't have to, but it was the only way we were going to get anything done. We all said yes and we about our business. So, we drop down, get to the bottom, stick your hands in the bottom and move them side to side seeing if you hit anything, If you hit anything, you feel of it trying to figure out what it is. If it feels like the type of weapon we are looking for, you bring it to the surface.

Mark had an ear problem and had to bail out early on. So, he worked as a surface spotter for the rest of us. Steve and Hyatt worked with Lee and used a line to traverse the shore line and I just did shore to shore runs through the middle of the lake. I would use mark as my target and just hope I was somewhere close when I surfaced. I found rocks, cement blocks, logs, sticks, coke bottles, Dixie cups and even a bike flag. But no weapon. In fact, no one found a weapon. We search for an hour, but, because it was such a haphazard search, it was worse than a needle in a haystack scenario. We're actually going to go back with more man power, search teams with ropes and warmer water.

The details: 24 foot max depth. Water was 63 degrees at the surface and 51 degrees at depth. 1 hour of bottom time logged and zero weapons found.

Although the diving REALLY sucked, it was a cool time and I do appreciate Scuba Steve calling and asking for our help. We'll do it anytime!!! Nice to try and use this hobby to give back every once in a while.