Experienced Diver provides insight into what they do locally

Not many people are aware that The Queen City have dive teams considering there are no beaches here.

The Meridian Lauderdale County Public Library has started its Summer Reading Program with Oceans of Possibilities. To correlate with their theme, they brought in a diver to discuss exactly what a diver does here in Meridian.

"So today we have Mr. Allen Dover here. He's come in to talk to us about diver insight.

So what does a diver do, especially in our area? You know, what are the things that take place, you know, on a diving site, diving things and in those situations," said Elizabeth Jolly.

Dover who’s been a certified diver for over 40 years tells us just what the dive team here in Meridian does.

"We have a pretty large diving community around here. A good portion of them also works on our rescue team. Basically, what we do as Diver Recovery is not only if we have someone that unfortunately drowns, then, of course, we recover their bodies. In addition to that, we recover evidence for law enforcement, in addition to just helping the community out," stated Dover.

With over 5,000 hours logged of underwater time, Dover says there is a lot of training that goes into being a diver.

"You've got to deal with the mud and you've got to deal with all this other stuff. So trying to get our equipment back there, get our dive set up, and of course, we're doing training constantly to keep our divers fresh on grid patterns, search patterns, rope patterns, different things of that nature, and of course, going over hand signals."

With the summer heat, Dover says a lot of people will be in or near water and wanted to share a safety tip.

"I just want to point out that, you know, especially with summer, as hot as it is right now, if you're going to be around water or if you're going to be going out in a boat, please wear a personal flotation device any time a boat is under power. I can honestly say I've never, ever recovered a body that was wearing a life vest."

The Oceans of Possibilities Summer Reading Program will continue for the remainder of June.