ACT Policing divers help local students with a "clean-up" project at Lake Tuggeranong
21 July 2005
It was sink or swim time for ACT Policing divers when they took to the water to help local students with a "clean-up" project at Lake Tuggeranong. In an effort to rid the lake of abandoned shopping trolleys, students from Lake Tuggeranong College had devised grappling hooks to snare the trolleys and reef them to safety.
Unfortunately, the students landed in deep water when the hooks sunk to the bottom one by one in recent months, leaving their mission all at sea. To overcome this setback, AFP divers offered to search the lake for the missing hooks, and the rescue operation was completed on July 21 with great success.
"Pulling trolleys out of the lake was a great project for the students to really hook into," Sergeant Allen Le Lievre of ACT Policing's Water Operations said after the event.
He said the sunken hooks could have put a dampener on the students' efforts. "When their hooks took a dive, the project looked as if it might hit rock bottom," Sgt Le Lievre said.
"Fortunately, police divers took to the idea like ducks to water and jumped right into this opportunity to help out," he added. In total, the divers pulled 17 trolleys to the surface, along with the missing hooks, a cane chair and a long-forgotten bicycle.
