By Cherrie Anne E. Villahermosa
Variety News Staff

MEMBERS of search and rescue teams from various CNMI government agencies conducted land and sea search and rescue exercises on Friday.
The exercises were part of the two-day training conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Coast Guard Guam Command Center Communications Unit chief Doug Samp and Coast Guard Guam civilian search and rescue specialist Lee Putnam were the instructors.
The 30 participants came from the Emergency Management Office, the Commonwealth Ports Authority police, the Department of Public Safety, the Division of Fish and Wildlife, the Coast Guard and the Navy.
A four-hour navigation instruction review was held at the Pacific Islands Club while the actual search and rescue exercises were conducted at the Grotto and Bird Island
Putnam said the goal of the exercise is to find out how well the responders communicate with each other. “The challenge is how well you communicate with each other and how promptly you coordinate with each other, considering you’re using different radio frequencies,” he said.
“Our scenario is we have a missing diver at the Grotto,” Samp said. “We are not sure if he is underwater, not sure if he is on top of the water, or if he made it to the shore and is injured.”
The dummy victim was set up at 7:30 a.m. by Lt. Jesse Mesa, officer-in-charge of the DPS fire division’s search and rescue unit.
The victim was a 41-year-old male tourist.
At 11 a.m., members of the search and rescue team set up a command post at the Grotto and began the search and rescue operation.
Three rescue vessels with six divers from DPS and CPA were dispatched to search for the victim.
At 12:22 noon the victim’s body was spotted. Three fire personnel went down to the beach site to assess the victim’s condition. After several minutes, the Navy chopper arrived and fire personnel brought down a stretcher for the victim.
At 12:52, the victim was lifted and transported to the hospital.
DPS boating safety commander Sgt. Bernard Santos, who was one of the evaluators of the training, said the rescue team did a good job.
Samp said this was a first time that they conducted a combination of land and sea search and rescue exercises. “The exercises were done perfectly,”he said.