Sebeka Man Featured on Discovery Channel´s "Dirty Job"

BY REBECCA KOMPPA


     “It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.”
     At least that is what Mike Rowe, the host of the Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs,” will tell his viewers on Monday night, May 19, when his series will feature the work of a Sebeka man, Chris Lee, and his fellow workers at Tri-State Diving.
     Rowe (and his camera crew) traveled all the way to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota, to “help” Chris and the others extract a car from the bottom of a lake. The car had fallen through the ice. What is normally a three- to five-hour operation, became an all-day affair, as Rowe needed to film every step of the process. That involved many camera shots from different angles, including underwater shots.
     When the filming was complete, Rowe told Chris and the others, “You are crazy to do what you do.” And that from a man who once dove for golf balls in alligator-infested waters.
     So what does Chris do? He is a scuba diver. It was a sport he took up in his senior year of high school, and he has been diving ever since.
     He got started by looking for something new to do on the water.
     “Everything that is possible to do on the water, I have done it,” said Chris.
     While growing up, he spent every summer at his family’s cabin on South Turtle Lake in Otter Tail County. He was in the water all the time, all summer long. His senior year, he attended a “splash party” in Fergus Falls, where he tried out scuba diving in a swimming pool.
     “Once I got started, I was hooked,” Chris said.
     He took his open water class in 1997 and also completed his advanced training that same year. That was 11 years ago. Since then, Chris has diligently advanced in his training from a recreational diver to a commercial diver, certified to do underwater welding, handling of hazardous material, rescue, and underwater retrieval operations. He received his commercial training in Florida, where he spent three to four months learning how to work underwater safely. He is certified to blend Nitrox gas and administer basic oxygen, and much more.
     In recreational diving he holds specialty ratings in: night, deep, ice, dive first responder, dry suit, rescue diver, scuba diving equipment repair technician, and Nitrox. He is also a dive master and a level one instructor.
     Chris has been doing commercial diving for Tri-State Diving for the past eight years. That includes retrieving fish houses, snowmobiles, ATVs and other vehicles out of frozen lakes.
     Chris observed that vehicle drivers are becoming more cautious about driving on ice. When he first started, there would be 10 to 20 vehicles go through the ice each winter. Now that number is down to less than half. This past winter, they pulled out just five vehicles.
     The retrieval process is carefully planned out. It begins with Chris and the team checking for an area of “good” ice to work from. Next, a hole is cut in the ice and Chris descends into the watery deep to find the vehicle and attach a guide rope to it. When the vehicle is located, a chainsaw is used to cut a larger opening in the ice.
     Chris will then dive to attach lift bags to the vehicle. Once inflated, each bag can lift 2,000 pounds. Once the vehicle is free and floating in the water, it is pulled to the “extractor,” and eventually lifted out of its frigid “car wash.”
     You will want to tune in to watch “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel at 8:00 p.m. on Monday, May 19, to see Chris and the Tri-State crew, as they are “assisted” by Mike Rowe in this interesting but "dirty job."
     I wonder if Chris told Mike about his “underwater skiing”?
     When a diver goes under the ice, he is always tethered to a rope being held by a fellow diver on the surface. Three sharp yanks on the rope, and he will be quickly pulled up to the surface opening.
     When he is below the ice, sometimes Chris puts a little extra air into his dry suit so that he can float upside down. He rests his flippers against the smooth underside of the lake ice and gives three quick yanks on his tether. His team on top of the ice pulls him in quickly, while he just “skis” along the bottom of the ice – until he pops up through the surface opening, flippered feet first.
     “The first time I did that,” Chris laughed, “[The men on top] didn’t know what to think.”
     Maybe they thought Chris was a little crazy – right, Rowe?
* * *      Chris is considering offering a scuba diving class in Park Rapids. If you are interested in learning more about it, contact Chris at 218-837-5794.

The above photographs were taken by Chris´s mother, Becky Johnson of Sebeka, during the extraction of a 1996 Chevy from Rush Lake in December 2007 by Chris and the Tri-State Diving team.