This article can also be found as the Technology Feature in the Summer Edition of the Marine Technology Reporter as Custom Search and Recovery Gripper for Underwater Body Recovery
Boosting Mission Success for Underwater Body Recovery
Search and Recovery operations for victims of underwater fatalities are high-pressure, time-sensitive, and extremely technical. Investigating officers and grieving families are wholly dependent on recovery teams achieving mission success, an ever-present reality for Sergeant Jay White who heads up the National Underwater Recovery Training Center (NURTC). In addition to managing recovery operations, he trains specialized officers deployed to work in the RCMPs six Underwater Recovery Teams stationed in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. His expertise and field experience led him to initiate the development of an innovative new custom search and recovery (SAR) gripper for his Chinook ROV. The SEAMOR Marine team was keen to collaborate to create a custom field-specific solution to ensure Sergeant White and his team had the equipment they needed to guarantee mission success.
Not a Task for the Faint-Hearted
The standard challenges of working in a marine environment are ever present: high pressure at depth, strong or variable currents, and submerged physical obstructions. Every case presents multi-faceted circumstantial complications for operators to overcome, such as the victim’s body being trapped inside a vehicle, a seatbelt still intact, or the natural processes of decomposition actively taking place within the bodies. Without getting into specific details or graphic descriptions, the general challenge for the recovery teams is two-fold: find a reliable gripping point to maneuver the body free and then stabilize the ascent back to the surface.
A Custom-Fit Recovery Solution
Sergeant White found that the robotic manipulators commercially available to him proved insufficient for the challenges outlined above. In response, he initiated a collaboration with the SEAMOR team to develop a custom-made gripper specifically for the task of recovering submerged victims. Since its creation in 2023, the SAR gripper has been employed in eight successful recovery missions. Now this design has been replicated and deployed to multiple Underwater Recovery Teams across the country for use on their ROVs. So what is it that makes this instrumentation uniquely suited for recovery operations?
Expanded Grasp
Initial strategies using SEAMOR Marine’s dual-function gripper relied on using clothing as the primary gripping point. However, given the circumstances of many marine fatalities, it proved to be the case that often little or no clothing was accessible for these purposes. A widened grasp allowed operators to find more secure points to grip, primarily wrists and ankles. In addition, the field of view was increased by extending the neck of the manipulator so that the camera ‘eye’ of the ROV could capture a clearer picture of the environment. Extending the SAR gripper allowed ROV pilots to stay away from the silty bottom which when touched creates low visibility environments and threatens the preservation of the crime scene.
Holding a Steady Course
Early implementations of the prototype design encountered a challenge related to the biochemistry of decomposition: as bodies are raised toward the surface, the changing pressures can cause internal gases to expand in unpredictable ways. For example, a body might weigh just fourteen pounds due to buoyancy three hundred feet underwater. However, as it is recovered the expanding gases due to decomposition can cause sudden shifts or changes. Worse than the damage this twisting could potentially inflict on the body, which obstructs investigative efforts, there was always a risk of losing grip entirely. Therefore, extra reinforcements beams were added to stabilize the custom SAR gripper arm. This, in addition to the Chinook ROVs six powerful thrusters, was the key to achieving a reliably stable grip.
Spontaneously Adaptable
The integrity of the victim’s body is critically important for investigative purposes, regardless of the complexity of the extraction. Any new damage or disruption can severely impact forensic analyses, especially in cases where the fatally is still under investigation. Careful selection of instruments and on-site adaptation are crucial to complete the recovery as smoothly as possible. The design of the new custom SAR gripper allowed it to be swapped with the original SEAMOR dual-gripper or cutter without needing to re-trim the ROV. This allows teams to overcome additional obstacles such as seatbelts, broken windows, or other obstructions with spontaneous instrumentation swap-outs which take only mere minutes. And when the clock is ticking, every minute counts.
The Stakes are High – Your Standards Should Be Too
The stakes of these operations really cannot be understated. “When you find someone then lose them, it’s a really bad day,” says Sergeant White, who knows first-hand that investigators and families are counting on success every time. The reliable, portable, and versatile design of SEAMOR Marine’s Chinook ROV allows the operators at NURTC to confidently deploy their unit anywhere, from Baffin Island, to the East Coast, to the Great Lakes, to the wild coast of Canada’s western shore. SEAMOR Marine is incredibly proud of the innovative custom SAR gripper developed with Sergeant White and look forward to continued collaboration with his colleagues across the country in the RCMP’s Underwater Recovery Teams to provide custom solutions.