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http://www.times-standard.com/article/NJ/20180706/NEWS/180709920

Branagh said five units were to be sent out of the local airport on a SpaceX jet and that the Wing Inflatables crew will be willing to manufacture more pods to be sent if requested.

The pod is made of the same polyurethane the company uses on its boats and pontoons. It’s orange and black and about 7 feet long and 4 feet wide. On one end is a metal ring ropes can be tied to and the other end opens up with Velcro to allow for someone to scoot in with a SCUBA tank.

It’s covered in handles to give rescue divers lots of places to grab onto it. On the top, it has four holes that allow for air from the breathing apparatus to escape the pod if less buoyancy is required. The pod has two black pontoons on either side that can be inflated using air from a SCUBA tank for additional buoyancy if needed.

“They’d climb in and they’d have a breathing apparatus and you could pull them through the submerged part. That’s the big issue with the rescue right now,” Wing general manager Patrick Sproul said.

Work at the Wing Inflatables factory in Arcata began around 5 a.m. Friday, he said.

“That’s not our typical start time, but this isn’t a typical situation,” Sproul said.

By 1 p.m., five employees were testing the first one out in the Arcata Community Pool much to the delight of onlookers including a group of curious Arcata Elementary School children taking part in a summer program.

Wing Inflatables has decades of experience making inflatable craft and is no stranger to rescue situations. Last year, Wing Inflatables boats were used in Hurricane Harvey search-and-rescue operations.

“It’s kind of what we do. ... Give us a problem and we’ll find out a way to solve it,” Sproul said.

Sproul said the hope is that rescue divers can bring the pod to the trapped team and load them up and pull them out of the cave one at a time. The trapped boys wouldn’t have to learn to swim, dive or cave dive if the devices are implemented.

The tests at the pool were overseen by Charlie Notthoff, who is a Pacific Outfitters dive instructor with 40 years of experience teaching diving.

“It’s a whole different thing. I’m not a certified cave diver,” he said when asked to compare regular and cave diving.

The guinea pig at the pool was Wing Inflatables finisher Brian Peterson who has never dived before and got into the pod feet first like a sleeping bag hugging the SCUBA tank to his chest with the mouthpiece clenched in his teeth.

After the Velcro end was sealed, the pod was rolled into the pool with a splash. The team allowed the pod to be hole-side down to see how the pod filled with the respirator’s air, then flipped it to see how the holes allowed the air to escape before test filling the pontoons.

“He’s got a really great breathing rate, nice and calm,” Notthoff said.

This is important because fast, shallow, nervous breathing can run through the air in SCUBA tanks faster.

“It was definitely a hell of a new experience,” Peterson said.

Next to try it out was Notthoff himself.

“It’s not the most comfortable thing right off the bat,” he said about being in the pod.

He added that the alternative is for these untrained boys to dive through the cave in zero visibility water which can also be uncomfortable.