On December 9, 1956, three small brothers drowned in a lake near the City of Longmont. There was no one trained to recover their bodies. The tragedy pointed out the lack of adequate rescue personnel or equipment available to respond to such emergencies. This realization led to the organization of the Longmont Emergency Unit and it’s activation on June 25, 1957. At that time, there was no other dive team in the State of Colorado.

In 1996, the television program Rescue 911 featured Longmont Emergency Unit and other participating agencies for the 1995 rescue of two women from a car that crashed into the St. Vrain Creek. The section of that episode can be seen on YouTube here.