When danger occurs in the bodies of water around Evansville, a special group of first responders is called. Armed with scuba equipment and three boats, Evansville Fire Department’s dive team pulls people from submerged watercraft to safety onshore.
The unit formed in the late 1980s and early ‘90s to provide water assistance as Indiana’s first riverboat casino docked in Evansville and the city hosted hydroplane races. Since then, it’s grown to 30 active divers, plus support and shore personnel, spread across three shifts.
The team deploys when swimmers, vehicles, or watercraft are stranded or submerged in area waters. EFD typically responds to around 16 incidents a year. Because of heavy rain in 2025, EFD already had hit that number by June 30 — eight incidents alone when Evansville received a record-setting 3.93 inches June 13. Capt. Adam Brock, an EFD firefighter since 2011 and a dive team member for nine years, refers to those responses as “high-risk, low-frequency runs.”
“They’re high-risk when they do happen,” Brock says. “That’s what we spend the majority of our time training, and it really pays off when the call comes in and we’re able to make a successful rescue.”
Each 24-hour shift’s water rescue team is made up of EFD firefighters who are certified through Dive Rescue International. They train at least once a month for different response scenarios, such as search patterns, swift water, ice rescue, boat operations, and potential hazards. In early January, rescuers took advantage of a rare ice storm to practice water rescues in the lake at Garvin Park. Brock says divers enjoy training on the sandy beach resulting from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dredging the Ohio River in late summer because it offers the clearest water.
Each member has a speciality, from administering medical aid, operating sonar equipment, and driving the boats to tending lines and keeping submerged divers from entanglement — a critical need, since underwater visibility is 3-4 feet. Divers slip on dry suits, buoyancy compensators, scuba regulators, air tanks, and full face masks with microphones to communicate with team members on shore. Active divers must complete a watermanship test and demonstrate scuba skills each year and recertify every three years.
All that training pays off, Brock says. Several years ago, he was part of a crew responding to a capsized canoe on Pigeon Creek. Rescuers found the caller in high, rapid water, clinging to a tree. “His canoe was completely sunk,” Brock says. “We used the Zodiac to get up to him, got a life jacket on him, and got him into our boat safely.”
