Nothing's perfect in a rescue situation, which is why volunteer team members practice problem-solving like they did on Sunday.

The scenario: At a remote cliff-jumping site, two individuals needed attention. One victim (Chuck Gruber) floated in the water, injured. The other entered the water and never resurfaced (a dummy).

It's not extraordinary to have a cliff-oriented rescue, nor is it unprecedented for these crews. And it's more common for the dive crew to be doing body recoveries instead of live rescues, Summit County Sheriff's Office special operations sergeant Cale Osborn said.

Summit County Rescue Group — generally equipped for mountain rescues — set up an anchor and rappel ropes on an unstable cliff high above the water of Dillon Reservoir. They were coordinating efforts with the Summit County Dive Team, who would do the surface rescue and underwater search for the supposedly drowned victim. Both are volunteer operations supervised by Osborn's sheriff's office branch.

“This is unique because (the rescue group) is used to working off the ground, but today, they have water under them,” Osborn said. Likewise, the dive team is used to working off a boat, but in this situation, they're faced with a boat being either unable to get to the scene, or it won't get there until later.

“The partnership helps tremendously” with manpower, one of Summit County Rescue Group's founding members Paul Johnson said. The idea is to work through possible kinks before a real-life situation.

Looking on from a sheriff's office motor boat that wasn't part of the scenario except to provide safety, Osborn said the idea of training is to create a difficult situation and to work through problems toward success.

Often the weather is colder, windier and generally harsher in missions than it was during Sunday's training, Osborn said. Many times, volunteer rescuers work at night, or sometimes, for multiple days. And because Summit County is filled with a wide variety of recreators, rescuers must be prepared for anything.

“We want to be prepared to go do what's necessary — night, day, weather, whatever. It takes a lot of work,” Osborn said.

In Sunday's scenario, onlookers on the boat could hear rescue volunteers talking through various steps of the work.

“There are all kinds of problems built in,” Osborn said. “There's nothing good about (the exercise) other than it's sunny and its in the daytime — and it's not snowing.”

As he watched, dressed in his own dive suit for backup, Osborn chatted with fellow safety diver Jeff Barnhardt about the crew's progress, as climbers rappelled to the reservoir surface, clipped in the injured victim and raised both to safety with a three-to-one mechanical advantage pulley system. After the live victim was recovered, rescue members implemented their plan to lower the divers, with all the necessary gear, to finish the recovery.

“I have a feeling that will be all kinds of lessons learned,” Osborn said.

One challenge was to anchor the ropes system to safely bring several rescuers to and from the site. Another was to get primary and secondary divers Scott Young and Jack Brinker down the cliff face with their 140 pounds of dive gear. Toward the end of the training, the extraction crews had to negotiate the deceased victim (a dummy) that strapped into a litter and tied into a pulley system over a ledge in the cliff face.

One of the few in the state

The 10-member Summit County Dive Team is one of the few remaining standalone dive operations in Colorado, Osborn said, estimating that just three remain — in Summit, Larimer and Pueblo counties.

And it's thanks to the guys who got it started about two decades ago, like Johnson, who has 39 years of Summit County Rescue experience and John Reller, who's been around for about 25.

Continual training for the elite crew, many of whom also cross over into the rescue group, is important because “we don't have a lot of water, but we have cold water,” he said, meaning there's no end to water incidents. They called this year's swiftwater season “the summer of near misses,” because of the extent of the water missions that went out.

The thrill of the chase

There's a thrill in the problem solving of rescue missions — it was evident in the voices of those involved in the training operation Sunday.

When Young and Brinker emerged from the water, they said, “awesome,” or “so cool” to describe the underwater experience, despite the freezing air temperatures. Surface swimmer Preston Burns recalled his missions in the Holy Cross Wilderness, and marveled at some of the sights he saw while out on a search.

But for Osborn and others, it's less about the “cool equipment” and “cool places,” and more about the people.

“The best part is working with all these guys,” he said. “It's amazing what I've seen these guys do... The more time you spend around this team, you'll meet some remarkable people.”