This weekend was one we’ll remember for a long time…
From the very first class we ever taught, our goal at NePSD has always been to push ourselves towards giving Pubic Safety Divers the best possible education we can. To always pack more ideas and concepts into training, to continually raise the bar on what our students should know, and to try our hardest to distill operational experience into practical lessons divers could use immediately.
In pursuit of that goal, we’ve pushed a lot of boundaries many thought were immovable… And this weekend, we pushed quite a few.
At 5pm today, 17 public safety diving students completed our approved rendition of the ERDI Underwater Crime Scene Investigation course… A course that has been in development for over a year and combines operational dive, criminal law, and evidence processing experience into a compact (if somewhat intense) 16-hour intro to the complexities of underwater evidence collection.
That isn’t what made this class special, however… That was all the students.
See, when we announced this class, a top-shelf group of Public Safety Divers in Alberta, Canada wanted in. And who were we to say no?
So, thanks to the clever use of two separate computers, a high-speed data connection, and some excellent audio and video equipment, we joined our classroom of 10 U.S. divers from six different states with 7 Canadian divers from two different provinces, in a truly unique two-way learning opportunity.
As the class progressed, both American and Canadian students asked questions, engaged with each other in real time, told stories, spoke of operational differences and similarities and even engaged in some light-hearted banter (especially between the American and Canadian law enforcement students).
It was a truly captivating experience that left all of us, staff included, feeling a camaraderie not affected by distance.
We also want to thank Law Professor and Prosecutor Ron Weller, for taking time out of his day to come speak to the students and give them the benefit of his 25 years’ experience as a prosecutor, and Gareth Lock of The Human Diver: Human Factors in Diving for graciously providing our students access to his award-winning webinar program.
A special thanks to Mark Phillips for your help and contributions to our program.
Finally, we want to thank “The Legend” Mike Berry of Underwater Criminal Investigators for his continued guidance while we created this program… and for agreeing to join forces with us.
Our students were the direct beneficiaries of these contributions, and we know they appreciated it all.
Once again, congratulations to all the students today… You’ve taken a BIG step towards seeing public safety diving in a whole new light.
You all earned it.
#Turning Training Into Responding
