I have now got to the stage where I have written four blogs and some extra articles about myself and the Team.  Each blog I have written has flowed from my subconscious and I didn’t have to think too much about what I was writing as the words seemed to form themselves.  Today I looked back at the blogs and was a bit worried that they may be a bit ‘doom and gloom’.  I raised this concern with Christine Townsend the Multimedia Producer at HQ who is guiding me on the technical and creative use of social media in order to enable me to get across to you what it is really like to be me and do my job on the SSU.  Christine told me not to worry that I thought the content was not that cheerful as that is the reality of the sort of job I do and that is what I should get across in my writing.

Considering that the types of incidents we go to would definitely fall into the depressing category I am an extraordinarily happy and positive person who always sees the best in any given situation.   I have been made proud by my Team on the SSU and what we achieve together.  In everyday situations I can see that good people make up our communities and I will never let the frequency of times that I see human nature at it’s worst make me cynical.

Often in the face of adversity the best comes out of all of us.  I saw this at a diving job we went to last winter where two people from a very close community were drowned in a boating accident and we were called to recover the bodies.  We were in quite a remote place and I can honestly say that at times during this operation I’ve never been so cold in all my life. You tend to feel warmer in the water rather than ‘up top’ but the times when I feel most cold is when you have dived already and then have to sit as ‘standby diver’ on the surface ready to rescue your colleague who is diving after you.  Despite the fact that the community had been shattered over the loss of their loved ones they rallied round and brought us hot drinks, home made soups and food to keep us going.  It was so sad to look at the houses that the people had come from and know that no one who was left in those houses or in that community would ever be the same again.  We were there for days and still the support kept coming from the people who had lost so much.

So, even though we mostly attend jobs after something bad has happened I hope that we are seen in a positive light because we get answers for the good people either by searching prior to an event to ensure the safety and reassurance for the community, in finding evidence to assist a particular investigation or in finding a body to return to a loved one.  In the four and a half years I have been on this Unit I can’t remember anybody not being supportive of what we do, at the very least people are relieved to see us and I will never forget the kindness that some have shown us even when they were having the worst experience of their lives.