Calgary firefighters responded to another drowning at Mahogany Lake Sunday without a dive team — a capability the department suspended last year and has yet to reinstate.

Calgary fire crews were called to Mahogany Lake at the 0-100 block of Master Park SE on Sunday at 7:20 p.m. Sunday for reports of a drowning incident at a community lake.

It was reported to crews that a youth who had been playing basketball before had decided to jump off the dock into the lake. Witnesses had attempted to help the youth, but the victim went underneath the water, fire officials said.

The Calgary Fire Department (CFD) Aquatic Rescue Team began a search at the last point the victim was seen. Crews said there was poor visibility and cold water temperatures.

A rescue boat was launched and there was a surface search dive while CPS worked with the lake staff to look at video footage, while HAWCS provided aerial support. Once the general location was pinpointed, the youth was pulled from the water from a depth of just over six metres.

The last reported condition of the victim when they were taken to hospital was critical and life threatening, according to fire officials. They transferred care to Emergency Health Services Alberta.

Last year, after two people drowned in the same southeast Calgary lake, firefighters raised concerns about the CFD’s pause of their in-house dive team program. At that time, they said that it anticipated that the dive team would be reinstated for the 2026 season.

Jamie Blayney, president of the Calgary Firefighters’ Association, told LWC on Monday that despite the reassurance that the dive teams would be reinstated, he hasn’t seen any changes.

“To my knowledge, we’re no further ahead for having a dive team than we were last May when that tragedy happened in Mahogany Lake,” he said.

Dive team offers deeper water rescues

The CFD does conduct surface swims (less than six metres), and they use underwater cameras and handheld sonar scans along the aerial reconnaissance to look for potential drowning victims.

Last year, fire Chief Steve Dongworth said that some of the dive equipment they were using was out of date.

“We were struggling to keep up with the training for the size of the team. So, we’ve done a bit of a review. We’ve also found that we’re not operating to actually the latest kind of gold standard in terms of how we do public safety diving,” he said at the time.

The Calgary Fire Department is continuing to redevelop its dive program, according to CFD public information officer, Alex Kwan.

“Currently, we’ve expanded our Aquatics Technical Teams Office to have dedicated staff assigned to maintaining the current aquatic rescue program and research and investigate all the requirements and standards for a sustainable dive program,” read a response to questions.

“At our peak historical levels, we had up to 60 divers, while the majority of other teams maintain a smaller number of specialists.”

The Calgary Fire Department is continuing to determine the most suitable model for the City of Calgary.

“Many Canadian Fire services utilize third party dive services and CFD was one of the few that offered in-house dive search and recovery,” Kwan said.

Blayney said that it’s frustrating that firefighters don’t have the equipment needed in life-saving moments.

“Even the discussion with the members that were involved in that incident yesterday, the last thing our members want is to be dispatched to a call and not have the tools and resources available for them to make a difference,” he said.

“We saw that last May, and we saw that yesterday in Mahogany Lake. When you send members to a rescue scene and they don’t have the tools and resources, it’s extremely frustrating for firefighters to be dispatched to that sort of environment.”

Still, he said it’s difficult to know if the dive team would have been able to rescue the victim sooner. However, time is always a factor in life-saving events.

“Timing always makes a difference with every call, seconds count in these incidents,” he said.