Stearns-Benton Dive Team Uncovers A Link To The Past

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- Last week, the Stearns-Benton Dive Team was called into action to help recover a vehicle in the Mississippi River in Sartell. It turned out the vehicle was from a missing persons case from 1967.

READ MORE:  Update: Remains Found In Submerged Vehicle In Sartell

Stearns County Sheriff's Office Sergeant Cory Bengston heads up the dive team. He says the 15 team members respond to a variety of recovery calls from weapons and evidence searches to finding drowning victims.

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It is a voluntary assignment for the members that requires a special set of skills.

Your qualities of what you can do, if you are clostrophic, because we obviously do ice dives.  That could be a scary thing for people.  A lieutenant asked me when I wanted to join if I was claustrophic, and I said no, and said Are you sure, he asked me if I've ever had my hands tied behind my back and shoved into a culvert.  I thought What do they do on the dive team?

Bengston has been on the dive team since 2012. He says last week's vehicle recovery was very unique and probably just the second one that he can recall since he'd been on the team.

The Stearns-Benton Dive Team trains 10 to 12 times a year, including ice dives in the winter.

He says they often have to work in very challenging conditions.

You are diving sometimes in pretty much zero visibility.  The river, we just dove into that, it looked like coffee. That's the best way to describe it.  Getting down there, you are literally working within inches of whatever you are looking for.  That can get to you and mess with you a little bit.  You're not sure what you are looking for until you get up on it.

Bengston says there are usually a lot of obstructions under the water as well.

He says the dive team is very unique, and they sometimes get called to help other smaller counties around the state that don't have a dive team.

The team was established in 1979 and is a joint effort with the Stearns County and Benton County Sheriff's Offices.