Ghost River, Jon Coon [ebooks online reader TXT] 📗

Law enforcement diving, also known as underwater criminal investigation, is a unique aspect of public safety diving and should only be conducted by trained and certified underwater criminal investigators (UCIs). The underwater conditions they operate in are harsh and require advanced training and abilities. Their missions usually involve one of the three cores of UCI diving: body, vehicle, and evidence recovery. Operating in zero viability, muck bottoms, cold water, strong currents, and contaminated water is the norm for these special divers, and dangers like entanglement, out of air emergencies, and entrapment lurk around every corner. To be able to work safely in these conditions and still accomplish the mission is quite challenging and should only be attempted by those who have the right training, met the standards, and have reached the required levels of professional performance.

Jon’s book, Ghost River, gives the reader a glimpse into the world of an underwater criminal investigator. Like Gabe, I have had to deal with the death of a fellow team member as well as discover, on my own, the hazards of scouring around and beneath bridge piers. Once on a dive for a murder weapon, I was on a two-man jackstay grid pattern working toward a pier. The pattern is set with one end of the search pattern three-to-five feet under the bridge and the fifty-foot search line extends ninety degrees away from the bridge, held tight on the bottom by two twenty-pound down weights. Each end of the pattern has an ascent/descent line, also called an “up-and-down,” tied to the down weights that leads to the surface and a surface buoy. Divers holding hands communicate by hand-squeezes and search with their free hand as they move along the bottom following the search line. Once at the end of the pattern, the divers pick up the down weight and move the pattern over a few feet. Both divers re-grip, reverse directions, and continue their search, moving back toward the other end.

While conducting the pattern my search came to an abrupt halt near the end of my pattern when I hit something large and hard in front of me. The visibility was zero, and I had to feel its shape by moving my searching hand around its contour. It felt like a large rock or piece of concrete. I continued to explore its dimensions and discovered it totally blocked our path, and to my shock I soon discovered it continued over us. Somehow we had gotten under the pier, and I quickly realized the pier was suspended off the bottom and no longer supporting the bridge. My partner and I were wedged between the bottom and the pier like meat between two pieces of bread. I quickly grabbed my partner’s thumb and pulled backwards twice, meaning “Go back, okay?” He squeezed twice, meaning “okay,” and we quickly retreated, following our search line backwards. Keeping one hand up, following the concrete over our heads, we continued to retreat until we cleared the pier. I grabbed his thumb again and pulled up twice, meaning “Go up, okay?” and we ascended along the pier. Once on the surface we discussed the shock of our discovery and its possible consequences as vehicles drove across the bridge above us.

Jon has a way of taking underwater criminal investigations, with all the dangers, challenges, as well as the glory, to a level that takes the reader on a suspenseful, heart-pounding adventure. This book, even though fictional, is based on real conditions, missions, and challenges. Gabe Jones represents hundreds of true professional underwater criminal investigators who serve as vital parts of their departments’ and agencies’ investigative teams, brave men and women who are called on when the land investigation leads to the water’s edge. You may be one of these special public safety divers. If you are, thank you for your service! If not, you’ve received a glimpse of the life of a true diving professional, an underwater criminal investigator. I hope you enjoyed the ride!

—Mike Berry

Mike Berry is a first sergeant with the Virginia State Police and serves as their search and recovery operations coordinator. He is a PADI master instructor and the founder and owner of Underwater Criminal Investigators (UCI), an internationally recognized leader in the training of underwater investigators. With thirty-five years of experience, Mike is a prolific author and has directed dive recovery operations for FBI, Secret Service, and many other police and military agencies internationally.

About the Author

A former dive safety officer for NASA and an oil field commercial diver specialized in explosives work, Jon Coon was a dive officer for collegiate, scientific, and archaeological projects internationally. His primary employment for the past thirty years was as a regional manager for PADI, the world’s largest scuba training agency, with over 25 million divers certified, who certifies a million students per year and is active in 170 countries. His job included oversight of 120 dive centers in seven states, sales, instructor training, writing, and photography. In addition to his work for PADI, he authored numerous articles, three novels, and a diver handbook for underwater archaeology. Jon is married, retired, and lives in South Carolina and winters in central Florida.

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