Search & Recovery Unit

Introduction

The club has one of the country's largest active Search and Recovery Unit, serving the community. The unit is totally voluntary responding to requests from statutory bodies and from local communities to assist in search and recovery operations all over the county and more recently in other counties.

Over the years the members have been called upon on many occasions to assist in search and recovery missions. It is funded mainly by annual church gate collections and through funding obtained from Mayo County Council and the National Lottery Fund.

Training

In addition to their existing diving experience, each member of the Search & Recovery Unit are specially trained for search and recovery operations, coordination.

When on a search operation, the members of the unit require the use of specialised such as full face mask, the same as what is used by firefighters and underwater inter-diver communications units.

The unit perform regular training exercises as they need to work as a cohesive unit. On a typical search operation, there are several roles that need to be performed; 

• Coordinator, shore marshals

• Coxwains & boat crews, 

• Snorkelers, divers