LYNWOOD | Public safety personnel parked two cars Wednesday at the bottom of a lake at Liberty Park.

It was all part of preparations for the eighth annual Public Safety Dive Team Skills Challenge on Sept. 20. Lynwood Village President Eugene Williams, Fire Chief Rich Eriks and the village of Lynwood are sponsoring the eighth annual event.

The challenge is designed to test the skills of local rescue dive teams, Lynwood Fire Captain Jeff Hinkens said.

"We set up eight different scenarios we go through, from drownings to weapon recoveries and a school bus going into the water," he said Wednesday. "We are putting a couple cars in the water and (replicas of) weapons used in homicides and robberies. All of the scenarios we do are re-creations of actual calls out in the Chicagoland area."

The course covers school bus accidents, vehicle recoveries, drowning victims, boating accidents, evidence recovery, weapon recovery, an airplane crash and scuba accident investigations.

Before the cars are sunk, the motor, transmission, gas tank and fuel lines are all removed, Henkins said. "The cars are completely environmentally safe when they go into the water, so we don't have problems back there," he said.

The Calumet Sag Channel is a growing waterway for recreational boating activities and the Cook County Forest Preserves host a variety of water-related activities. With increased use of the waterways in recreation, there has been an increase in water-related accidents, Henkins said.

In an effort to better serve and protect citizens, local fire departments and recovery and rescue teams have implemented, equipped and trained underwater search and rescue recovery teams.

Ten teams plan to participate in next weekend's challenge, including 130 divers out of 23 departments, Hinkens said.

The teams include Lakes of the Four Seasons, mutual aid teams from the northwest and southwest suburbs, Portage Fire Department, Palatine Fire Department, Aurora Fire Department, St. Charles Fire Department, Lake County Aquatics and the Elgin Fire Department.

"It's all about training and guys working together and everyone staying safe," Hinkens said. "We are very fortunate we haven't had as much as a cut finger. I hope we all learn from each other and everyone stays safe and goes home."

The event is open to the public and the first diver will go into the water at 8 a.m., with an award ceremony slated for later that afternoon, Hinkens said.