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msar-riders - Re: [MSAR] Night lights - Part 1

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Subject: Mounted search and rescue

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Jorene Downs" <Jorene@CEOates.com>
  • To: "Mounted search and rescue" <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [MSAR] Night lights - Part 1
  • Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 17:57:49 -0800

Thanks for the test of chemical light sticks and report, Terry. When chemical light sticks were previously mentioned here as lighting I thought it sounded interesting for backcountry night trail riding when the rider was in particularly rough terrain on a particularly dark night. However, without adequate visibility at night you could literally ride right past a non-responsive subject not far off your path, much less the smaller clue that could lead you to that person.
 
From the SAR Management perspective I'd consider night searchers with inadequate lights to have an extremely low POD. In many situations the Probability of Detection might be limited to the subject needing to almost literally be in the path of the searcher. This isn't even reasonable POD for a night Hasty Team.
 
I think MSAR riders should consider the area coverage that a very good headlamp would provide the ground searcher, and seek lighting options that would cover at least as much area from the saddle. I say "at least" because the brightness of the lighting would likely need to be increased from the saddle (farther from the ground) in order to see the smaller clues visible to the groundpounder. And one of the big advantages to MSAR is the increased visibility in many environments due to the elevated platform, so it makes no sense to not take advantage of that elevation at night.
 
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jorene Downs
Tulare Co, CA
SAR, MSAR, Swiftwater Rescue, US&R,
Technical Rescue, Cave Rescue,
Hasty Team, ICP
www.CEOates.com/sar
Tulare-Kings CERT Program Coordinator
www.tk-cert.org
 
----- Original Message -----
From: wwfarm
MSAR night searching can be very effective maybe more effective than other types of
ground searching because besides ourselves we also have the horses senses to rely
onAnother benefit is that the horse can easily carry the weight of a additional light system.
The key to good night MSAR is night training and the correct lighting.

A week or two ago on this list we were discussing night searching. Some one mentioned
they use light sticks. Last night I gave the light sticks a test. I used a variety of colors and
quantities of the six inch  type of light sticks attached to my horses breast collar. They did
not work. I could not even spot playing cards placed on the ground five feet off to the side
with no ground cover. Maybe the person who gave this idea can elaborate on what type
 they were using, etc. [...]



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