Have you seen Bob? Strathmore Fire Department searching for wayward dummy

Have you seen Bob? The Strathmore Fire Department says its newest recruit has gone missing.

Affectionately known as “Bob,” the mannequin joined the Fire Department just this year and went missing while firefighters were doing some water rescue training on Strathmore Lake on Wednesday.

Fire Chief David Sturgeon says Bob the mannequin is specially designed for water rescue training.

“We were doing our yearly water rescue training with him for a couple days,” Sturgeon said on Thursday. “The crew that was out yesterday morning was doing some boat rescues. “They turned around and he was gone.”

“We aren’t pleased about why this happened,” Sturgeon said. “Bob is supposed to float from the shoulders up so obviously something malfunctioned.”

“You fill it for water and it has some water pockets for buoyancy,” Sturgeon says “It’s supposed to float from the shoulders up. It’s made to look like a real person swimming so we don’t need to put a real person in the water.”

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Sturgeon says Bob is worth about $2,000.

In an effort to recover their newest recruit, the Strathmore Fire Department posted a notice on social media asking people in the area to keep an eye out after “Bob decided not to bob.”

“Reminder: always wear a life jacket on the water. Also, we lost our dummy, Bob,” read the hilarious post announcing the mannequin’s disappearance.

He’s described as “last seen wearing blue shorts, no shirt, and taking on a lot of water.”

Sturgeon said  the fire department had a diver out Thursday morning to search the lake for Bob but, “it was like searching in chocolate milk because all the (rain) water is running into the lake and stirring things up.”

He said the lake is about 40 feet (12 metres) deep.

Sturgeon says the plan now is to wait for clearer weather and the water to settle before the diver does another search of the lake.

In the meantime the Strathmore Fire Department is urging anyone who sees “a suspiciously relaxed mannequin taking an unscheduled break,” to give them a call at 403-934-3022 because “there’s a  good chance it’s our Bob.”

And if you’re not sure it’s Bob — please call 911.