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The IUCRR is an all-volunteer, not-for-profit organization.
Mission The mission of the IUCRR (International Underwater Cave Rescue and Recovery) is to support all Public Safety Agencies in the rescue and/or recovery of victims in an underwater environment (with an overhead obstruction such as caves, caverns, mine shafts, etc.).
The all-volunteer IUCRR team consists of Regional Coordinators who have the responsibility to assist law enforcement agencies -- at their request -- with the rescue and/or recovery of divers who have entered an underwater overhead environment, and not returned within their allotted time. Each Regional Coordinator is responsible for maintaining a current list of qualified recovery divers in their area. These divers must be certified by a recognized cave diving organization to dive in underwater overhead environments, and attend an IUCRR course before being placed on the call-out list for rescues/recoveries. They must be qualified to dive in the environments involved before they are put to use by the law enforcement agencies.
History At the 1982 NSS-CDS (National Speleological Society - Cave Diving Section) Cave Diving Workshop, held in Branford, Florida, the executive committee authorized the organization of a Cave Diving Recovery Team to be made available for law-enforcement agencies that are affected by cave-diving-type accidents. They acknowledged the quality and credibilty of such a recovery team and realized the importance of it being controlled by a law-enforcement agency. To make available a qualified recovery team for local law-enforcement agencies and maintain a uniform procedure that is acceptable to each agency, the NSS-CDS requested the following:
The NACD (National Association of Cave Divers) also created an almost identical process, and the instruction seminar created was used by both cave diver certification agencies. The team of divers grew successfully in numbers and its expertise. All of its members were formally trained as a rescue and recovery diver specialist. The team has basically consisted of NSS-CDS and NACD divers. In January 1999, the Board of Directors for the NSS-CDS and the NACD elected to remove the Rescue and Recovery Team from one particular cave diving organization and allow it to be established as a bipartisan program to be under the joint auspices of the NSS-CDS, the NACD, and other cave diving agencies. The intent of this move was to eliminate duplication, create harmony between the cave diving agencies, provide for a single-point-of-contact for Public Safety Agencies, have a single-point for consolidation of accident reports, and provide accident analysis services for the benefit of all underwater-overhead divers. The IUCRR is governed by a Board of Directors and a Law Enforcement Oversight Board (LEOB). The Oversight Board consists of Law Enforcement Officers that are Certified Cave Divers and trained in the management of a rescue and/or recovery operation. The organization has a world wide resource list of volunteer trained rescue/recovery divers. They are available by contacting the appropriate IUCRR Regional Coordinator listed on the IUCRR Web Page.
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