Medical Diver

We got a call to dive the lakes in Colorado to search for four MK-82, 500 pound aerial bombs that were scuttled. In 1997 Air Force Captain Craig Button crashed his A- 10 Thunderbolt jet into Gold Dust Peak in the Holy Cross Wilderness in Colorado not before he scuttled the bombs that were attached under his jet. I understand he was on a training run with three other pilots when he split off from the group in Arizona some 800 miles away. The Air Force recovery teams verified that the bombs were not with the jet when it crashed since MK 82’s make a big hole in the ground when they go off. There were many other ordnance pieces recovered from the mountain wreckage.

I was told to pack up the TRCS and get a tent and go with a team to the Colorado Army National Guard High Altitude training Base in Eagle, Colorado.

Using special rigging we used a helicopter to carry our inflatable Zodiac boat to each of the respective lakes. We rigged side scan sonar to the side of the zodiac and scanned and mapped the lake bottoms. The only one we dove had several objects shaped like the Mk-82 bombs. So, we needed to prosecute them, to get a visual confirmation. Big Spruce Lake was at 11,699 feet above sea level.

We determined the depth of the lake at the greatest was 74 feet and located at 11,699 feet above sea level. Charlie’s dive was to 74 feet, so he was on an 80-foot table with three decompression stops on the way out. The stops were at 22 feet for 2 minutes and, 13 feet for five minutes and 7 feet for 13 minutes. Once Charlie hit the surface we had him breathing 100% O2 even before he got out of the water. (See scuba chart record sheet page 160).