The Sykesville Fire Department was called out at 5:41 PM on Monday, September 14th to assist the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department for a water rescue involving a dog. There were reports of a dog that had fallen into the storm water management pond near the intersection of Cornwall Drive and Lennox Drive in Sykesville, Maryland. Safety concerns were raised when Sykesville arrived as a person was in the water searching for the dog. Wading or swimming in any storm water management pond is not advisable due to erratic water flows and the health hazards that may be present in the water as these ponds are intended to capture pollutants from storm water. A medic unit from Sykesville was requested monitor the health of the divers after their dives and to standby for medical emergencies that may arise from water rescues.

Additional assistance was requested from Sykesville and Gamber Fire Departments. Engine 123 and Duty 12 from Sykesville and Dive Unit 13 from Gamber responded with additional personnel. Sykesville’s responders and Gamber’s divers tried to find the missing dog, but their efforts were hampered by the unstable ground within the pond. The underwater visibility was limited to less than a foot due to the debris that was stirred up by the recent storms within the area. The divers had to search by hand due to the limited visibility. Several dives were performed to recover the dog. The divers were unable to search inside of the two large concrete storm drain pipes that lead into the pond.

Additional assistance was requested from Howard County as the Howard County Fire Department had recently purchased an underwater remote operated vehicle (ROV) for water search and rescue. The ROV is small and is equipped with both video and sonar which makes it very desirable for hazardous underwater operations such as searching inside of submerged storm drain pipes and other obstacles. Howard County Special Operations Captain and Water Rescue 11 with ROV responded and arrived to help with the recovery operation. Several searches were made in the pond and the ROV was able to enter and search within the two storm drain pipes. One pipe was not able to be fully searched due to the ROV had reached its tether length of 150’.

The recovery efforts were called off around 10:30 P.M. As of this posting, the dog had yet to be found.