Working as a rescue diver
Do you want one of the most challenging and important diving jobs in Sweden? The Swedish Coast Guard's rescue divers work along the whole Swedish coast and on Lake Mälaren and Lake Vänern. As a diver with us, you are part of a unique organisation that saves lives, protects the environment and fights crime.
A varied role
As a rescue diver, no two days are the same. You work on everything from pollution response to law enforcement assignments. The work takes place both within the Coast Guard's own areas of responsibility and on behalf of partner authorities such as the Swedish Police Authority, Swedish Customs, the Swedish Accident Investigation Authority, the Swedish Maritime Administration, the Navy (the Swedish Armed Forces) and the country's municipalities.
The rescue diver's main duties
- Save lives, protect the environment and fight crime under the water surface.
- Stop and clean up spills of oil and chemicals.
- Search for missing people, smuggled goods and sunken evidence.
- At accidents and crime scenes, document by taking photographs, filming and taking samples.
- Work with cultural heritage conservation by monitoring and protecting historic wrecks.
Certified for extreme environments
As a rescue diver, you have a unique range of skills. You are trained for assignments in three completely different environments. In water diving, you do light diving down to 40 metres and helmet diving down to 30 metres. In chemical accidents, you do chemical diving in hazardous environments under the direction of an On Scene Commander-Emergency Responder (OSC-ER). You also carry out smoke diving for firefighting and lifesaving in smoke-filled environments at sea.
The path to becoming a rescue diver
To be considered for the diving training, you must already be a permanently employed coast guard officer.
All applicants go through a rigorous selection process to make sure you have the right physical and mental abilities. The process has several steps. Interviews, fitness and strength tests, a swimming test, a test of good water confidence, and tests for claustrophobia and fear of heights.
When you have passed the tests, your basic and applied diving training begins. The training is intensive and is carried out in cooperation with several expert authorities and organisations, including the Navy (DNC), Swedish Civil Defence and Resilience Agency, the Swedish Police Authority, Chalmers University of Technology and the Swedish National Heritage Board.
You are first trained in advanced water diving in a marine environment, followed by specialised smoke and chemical diver training. After you pass the training, you are appointed as a rescue diver in the Coast Guard.
Being a rescue diver requires the highest possible preparedness. To maintain your expert skills and meet the applicable work environment requirements (AFS), you complete annual refresher training in water diving, smoke diving and chemical diving. We also train together every year with municipal MIRG units (Maritime Incident Response Group) to be ready for major accidents at sea.