Surface-water rescue trainees made a big splash on the Washington waterfront Wednesday night running drills and braving chilly water temps in the process.

Members of Washington Fire-Rescue-EMS, Washington Police, Bunyan Volunteer Fire Department, Greenville Fire and Rescue and PotashCorp-Aurora firefighters hit the Pamlico in a 3-hour training session, practicing both the basics of water rescue and more complicated procedures needed for swift-water rescue.

The 30 participants — some in wetsuits, dry-suits and just plain bathing suits; all of them wearing surface-water rescue gear including specialized water-rescue helmets, fins, water-rescue vests, mask and snorkel — are working toward surface-water and swift-water rescue certifications. The program is sponsored by Beaufort County Community College and was offered to anyone in the departments with general technical rescue certification and ropes certification.

“Our big goal is for Washington to have a water-rescue team that can actually go out and perform a rescue safely,” said Lt. Johnathan Hardin, Washington-Fire-Rescue-EMS rescue-certification coordinator.

The training will ensure each department has the skills to coordinate a river rescue in such scenarios as a sinking boat or hurricane victims trapped by high floodwater, Hardin said.

While they practiced the drills in the pool last week, Wednesday night represented an opportunity to put the knowledge to practice in an uncontrolled environment.

“One of the hard parts is just dealing with the water conditions, as far as it being a little bit chillier,” Hardin said. “I don’t know if the water got colder, but the air got colder for sure.”

Hardin said the toughest part of this segment of the training was an exercise called a “simulated strainer,” which involved negotiating over a moving object in the water, much like a log swiftly moving downstream in flood conditions. In the water, each participant had to take on a length of PVC pipe pulled by two boats.

“It’s like a tree coming toward you — you go over it and have to be defensive with it so you don’t get caught underneath,” Harden explained.

Between now and the end of July, the surface-water rescue class will be hitting the water in four more sessions.

“We’re training  during day and night. There have been times when we’ve gone out and done night rescues,” Hardin said.