Source: US FBI
Training
Making it through tryouts is just the beginning of the USERT journey—the next step is to “turn qualifying candidates into USERT divers,” said Hudson. “So, you did your recreational diving, but what we’re doing is definitely not recreational diving.”
Trainees go through USERT Basic, an intense two-week certification course that’s held once a year in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. USERT Basic includes instruction in:
- Dry suit diving
- Underwater navigation
- Full-face mask diving
- Dive helmets
- Rescue diving
- Surface-supplied air
- Boat diving
- Emergency oxygen administration
- Public safety diving
- Deep diving
“You start in the dry suit and in the standard AGA facemask and learn the different search techniques we use,” explained Hudson. “As the course goes on, we introduce new equipment and scenarios.
“For example, you’ll have the dry suit and the AGA, but you’ll be learning emergency procedures. Then we start adding metal detectors and then move to surface air supply systems. We also cover things like how to lift a car underwater. When you’re done, you’ll pretty much have touched on and learned every basic piece of equipment we use.”
On the final day of training, USERT stages weapons in a Miami canal, where the trainees must successfully retrieve them. “It’s a dirty environment like they’re going to face once they’re on a real job,” explained Hudson, who also noted that criminals tend to dispose of evidence in places that aren’t easy to search. “We put divers to work. We have one instructor running the dive supervisor role, but the rest of the positions are covered by the trainees. They have to unload and set up the gear, conduct their dive, find the weapons we’ve thrown in, and then break everything down and clean it.”
In addition to these physical and tactical skillsets, Hudson stressed that it’s also important for USERT divers to stay calm under pressure and problem solve: “As you dive in water where there’s zero visibility, sometimes issues come up, and keeping calm and not panicking is the key to staying safe.”
Throughout their careers with USERT, divers have opportunities to learn new skills, including courses in boat driving, SONAR (Sound Navigation and Ranging), and ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicles). Training is also provided to refresh skills and to prepare the team for specific diving environments in conjunction with their assignments—which could range from how to dive under ice to how to dive and swim through fast-moving currents.
“They’re perishable skills, so you need to keep training,” said Hudson.
Meet the Agent: Supervisory Special Agent and USERT Program Manager Brian Hudson
Diving is what I’ve been doing for a while—I’ve been diving since about 2001 when I got certified in PADI, and I worked at a dive shop in college.
I joined the Bureau in 2011. My first office was Miami. Even though I didn’t join the Bureau to become a diver, it was lucky that my first office was Miami because that’s one of the four field offices that has a dive team [USERT]. I wanted a collateral duty and diving was something I enjoyed doing, so it was right up my alley to take the skillsets I had from diving and apply them to my work. It was an opportunity to “do what you love.” The option to dive with the FBI was awesome.
I stayed on as a diver until about 2019 and then spent about two years as a USERT training coordinator. In 2021, I became the USERT program manager. When it comes to managing USERT, I have myself and two other supervisory special agents. We also have a forensic operational specialist who works with us. We manage the budget and act as the focal point for when field offices have requests for jobs—they send the requests to us and then we assign the teams and program training to prepare the divers.