Page 58 - Cityview_Jan_Feb_2014

CHARITY SPOTLIGHT

the KveRS rescue diving team usually
receives between 15 and 20 calls to

assist with a water rescue each year. each
volunteer also spends many hours training

to be ready for when the calls come.

cross other jurisdictional lines and go

wherever help is needed. for example,
the diving team assisted during the

2010 floods in Nashville, which was
nothing like anything Jenkins had

previously done.
“Recovery and rescue are never rou-

tine,” says Jenkins, “And every time out
is different. but normally, you’re alone,

you’re in the dark, there’s no noise, and
all you hear is bubbles. It’s peaceful.”

“Like being alone in outer space,”
another diver, Jeremiah McLeod, adds.

“Right,” continues Jenkins, “and usu-
ally you’re focused on looking for some-

thing. A body. If you find it fast enough—
within, say, the first 60 minutes—you

can start CPR. Maybe bump that time In contrast, the Nashville floods to respond to. Sometimes, I felt like a
up to 90 minutes in cold weather.”
were anything but lonely: “When we father dropping his child off at school

Jenkins remembers, for example, the did the rescues in Nashville, it was the first day. An 80-something-year-old
recovery of Will brown, whom Jenkins overwhelming,” says Jenkins. “That woman asked me, ‘What are they going

refers to as ‘Little Will’: “That was one
was an emergency-response system to do with us?’ and I didn’t know. There
of the most tragic I’ve ever worked on.” completely depleted of all its resources. were so many people that I couldn’t tell

he then briefly describes what happened There were agencies from Chattanoo- anyone what would happen to them
Christmas 2003, when the father of a ga, hamilton County, bradley County, next. My job was just to get them out of

20-month-old took the boy down with Knoxville—from all over Tennes- the water.”
him in a murder-suicide leap from what’s see—and not enough of us to handle it. despite the more than $1.5 billion

now officially named the James C. ford So many people needed help, and you in property damages from the 2010
Memorial bridge in South Knoxville.
realize you can’t help them all. People flood, thanks in part to the efforts of

Jenkins, however, does not like to are calling you in trouble now, and their volunteers like Jenkins, only 10 people
embellish what he does with sentiment; call is holding.”
in davidson County died. And the

to volunteer as a deep-dive rescuer for Instead of quietly diving for a single work did have its moments of humor:
more than 25 years requires focusing on body, “we went to a place called belle Jenkins answered the same elderly

stoic action rather than emotive words Meade and were cutting roofs off woman’s question of, “Where are you
and how he feels about it all: “There’s houses to bring people out of the attic boys from?” by saying he had come all

not a lot of happiness in what we do.” because there was so much water. So the way from Knoxville to pull her out
Nevertheless, his solitary work under- many people were hollering for help of her home’s chest-high waters.

water can sometimes prove rewarding that it seemed like everyone was holler- horrified, she said, “Lord! Is it this
in unexpected ways. After witnessing ing for help.”
bad out there?”

the efforts of KVERS firsthand, Little Rather than going into debriefing Whited says KVERS is a regional-
Will’s mother was moved to become a after each rescue, “you just jump back response service to the 16 counties

volunteer with the squad herself.
in the boat. You’ve got six more calls
surrounding Knox, many of which do

56 cityviewmag.com maRcH aPRiL 2014