Divers at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story are testing new equipment to help keep them safe in the water.
The Diver 6 telemetry system is designed to let supervisors better monitor divers in real time. It tracks a diver’s location, diver’s depth, diver’s air pressure, breathing rate and how long they have left to breathe based on the depth.
Until now, supervisors have had to depend on the diver to relate what’s happening under water.
“If a diver were to get trapped, I can now know exactly where he is,” said Chief Warrant Officer Coy Everage, assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Group 2 Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit (MDSU) 2. “I can point another diver to him. I know how much air he has left just while he is doing his regular day to day job and I know how much air he has left for decompression in the event of an emergency.”
In February, two divers from MDSU 2 died in a diving accident at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. They were working in the installation’s Underwater Explosion Test Facility called the ‘super pond.’
