Marrs Twp. Fire Dept. Water Rescue Team

New Swift Water Photos

The Marrs Twp Water/Dive Rescue team was organized in 1995 after an incident in the town of Mount Vernon in which a 10 year old boy drowned. After that incident a group of Firefighters from Marrs and Black Township Fire and Rescue decided to put together a dive rescue team.

Both departments started their own dive team shortly after that, after accessing the needs of the area.

The area of Marrs and Black Township is bordered by many miles of River Bank from the Ohio and Wabash rivers not to mention the many numerous lakes and streams.

Both departments started their teams on very little funding and with the members from each department buying all of their own equipment and a used ambulance that was put into service for very little money and a lot of sweat and hours to get it into service.  It has been an uphill battle all the way.

Over the past 10 years we have seen a lot of changes in the fire service we used to all join to fight the fires now today 75% of the runs made are medical runs and very few are fire.  Some years we have actually seen more water runs than actual structure fires.

We have seen an interest from the new members that come on board with the dive team.

Over the ten year time the team has been into operation we have seen a lot of changes made, many great strides have been made and we have grown into one of the premiere water /dive rescue teams in the area. We have been called to assist in all parts of the tri-state area form Central Indiana, Illinois, and Kentucky. We have a mutual aid agreement with Ohio Valley Search, rescue teams from the surrounding departments. When called upon to help with a water incident or search we are one of the first on the list to be called due to our professionalism, commitment and the pride we take when we put our team on or near the water.

Black Twp which is a near by community provided on going support in a joint effort with Marrs Twp they recently decided to get out of the water /Dive rescue business making us the first call for water emergencies in Marrs and Black Township along with the area covered by the City of Mount Vernon.  Which means that our coverage area just tripled in size.

The one thing that has not grown with the dive team is the Ambulance that we use to carry the personnel to the scene and has become a maintenance nightmare. The Dive rescue team’s ambulance was no longer capable of serving the needs of the team and needed to be replaced.  So a new dive rescue truck was designed in 2006.  It was delivered in late July 2007.