Members of Lake Travis Fire and Rescue took a KVUE News crew onto the water Thursday to show what hidden dangers are in the water.

"About 75 to 80 percent of our department is certified as a what we call a rescue swimmer, level one. That's where we can get in the water and if we deem it, we're 15 to 20 feet, we can search for the victim," said Lt. Jeffrey Dudik.

If a swimmer or boater is out on the lake and something goes wrong, Lake Travis Fire and Rescue springs into action. The department was called Tuesday afternoon after 18-year-old Sylvia Koffa did not surface while swimming with her family at Bob Wentz Park. The family pointed out the spot they last saw Koffa, which plays a critical part of any rescue.

Divers went in and using a technique called "duck diving," pulled her from the water within two minutes. She was about five feet from where she was last seen and around 15 feet under water.
 


Lake Travis firefighters took a KVUE crew onto the lake to show what hidden dangers in the water.

"We all get in a line, we try to stay about five feet from each other and we take a deep breath and then we go under like a duck, try to go under as deep as we can, average is about 10 to 15 feet," said Dudik, explaining the process. "We swim down, swim forward, look around then pop back up."

The team repeats the process if needed and and perform the dive for up to 20 minutes.

"The visibility's really never very good," said Travis County Sheriff's Office Sgt. Michael Stroh.

Stroth and another member of the Sheriff's Office dive team were also out training on the water Thursday. Both teams say it's what's in the water can be dangerous.

"There's debris from the floods, there's logs, stumps, parts of cars, parts of homes," said Dudik. "So it's always good to have a life jacket on to be safe. Even if you're a good swimmer it's always good to still have a life jacket on."

What swimmers and boaters can't see is parts of Lake Travis flow on top of cliffs. So someone in the water could be walking along a rock when all of a sudden it drops off five to 15 feet into the water.

"What you see right up here close to the top is pretty much what it's like all the way to the bottom. It's just rocks and cliff," said Stroh.

Both teams are clear that they're not discouraging people from enjoying the water. They just want everyone to realize what lies beneath so they can be safe.