Marine Response Thoughts

There is not a post on this incident on this blog, but I did post about it on the Scan Savannah group yesterday. Savannah Fire, SCMPD, and the USCG responded to a jumper on the Talmadge Bridge over the Savannah River.

I've mentioned this issue in posts in the Scan Savannah group before, but I don't think I've posted about it here. I am concerned about Savannah Fire and Emergency Services using a callsign that is a duplicate of a callsign that the Savannah Chatham Municipal PD has been using. Yesterday's Talmadge Bridge jumper incident brought it to my mind again. The callsign in question is MARINE 1, which Savannah Fire is using for their boat. SCMPD's Marine Patrol has used MARINE # for their Marine Patrol units for quite awhile (before Savannah Fire even acquired their boat). In order to prevent confusion in a multiple agency response (and to prevent longer callsigns by having to preface the callsign with an agency name), Savannah Fire should change the callsign of their boat.

Another issue I noted in yesterday's response to the jumper incident was communications between public safety and the US Coast Guard. It sounded like both SCMPD's dispatch (or the Marine Patrol) and Savannah Fire's dispatch were both talking to the USCG. Despite this, it was not communicated to the USCG prior to their helicopter's arrival on scene that the jumper was still on the bridge and not in the water (the USCG was initially told that there was a person in the water) even though the PD and Fire units knew that no one was in the water. This very well could have had tragic consequences because the helicopter came flying under the bridge looking for a person in the water while the jumper was still standing on the side of the bridge. In short, there should have been only one conduit of communications to the USCG and information should have been passed to them in a more timely manner.

Mac McCormick, KF4LMT
kf4lmt@comcast.net