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Subject: Mounted search and rescue

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  • From: Bdurham05201@aol.com
  • To: msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [MSAR] Ref the Home Land Security comments
  • Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 20:43:26 EST

Now I could go on and on  about some of these topics. However, will try to keep it short wanted to mention a couple interesting things that have come from "building the rapport" and "getting on the resource list at the local EMA".
 
First being on the local EMA resource list not only makes you available for "disasters or events"  in your county, but your county will often share their lists with other counties when another county find themselves needing more or different resources.  That is how we became involved with the community with the floods, Adams Co, it was 3 counties away from our home, but when they our local EMA and expressed their needs, we were one of the resources they said might be willing/able to help.  Now we have been added to the Ohio EMA's resource list also.
 
The training Jorene made reference to may not be familiar to some or at times it may seem difficult to locate good training in those areas.  Again, build those relation ships, our County Coroner and County Prosecutor just put  together (for fire and EMS personnel) a new "death investigation class" which is equivalent to "crime scene preservation".  As soon as I heard about this I called the Prosecutor, introduced myself, told him the crime scene class was one of our mandatory classes and asked if he would include our folks.  They were at our next meeting and presented the 2 1/2 hour class.  The local fire depts' also welcome us to radio training and incident command classes.
 
Before I stop I want to share a search we responded to on foot last winter.  A father and his adult son and daughter went deer hunting in the morning, separated and were to hook back up around 11a.m. The daughter never showed up. We got the call at 9pm, it gets dark here about 6:30pm in the winter.  The deputies, one sheriff's office k-9 and a helicopter from Hamilton Co (Cincinnati Ohio) with it's heat sensor had not found her.  We had 3 mounted teams out and a foot team of 5 people, I was on the foot team that night.  I have noticed in other searches officers not trained in SAR don't "call" for the subject.  Guess who and how she was found?  That's right, 3 or 4 hours of searching before we got started and no one was "calling for her".  About 45 minutes into the search, she answered my call, I radioed it in and started toward her voice. I could barely hear her, the undergrowth, hilly, wet terrain made my progress slow. The most interesting part;  A deputy was very  close to her, but had no idea, when she answered me, he called on the radio, his location and then finally called back to her and made it to her in about 10 minutes "through the brambles".  One of our members on horseback spotted the deputies light and took a trail she knew right to them "no brambles".  The deputy was quite pleased when Shanon called to him from about 5 feet away and told him she was on a trail and could lead them out.  However the subject did have a leg injury and Shanon's team ended up shuttling EMT's and a stokes back to their location first.
 
When we work with a police dept., their is no question as to who is in charge.  However the next search following the above event, was again a foot search.  We were put into teams of one police officer (to be in charge of the teams), one firefighter and/or EMT and one member from our team.  We were instructed (by the Incident Commander a deputy) to do a line search, our team was the only ones who knew what that meant, thus had to try to keep everyone moving in the right direction at the right speed.  The best part, everyone there was ready to let us! They were looking to us for proper search techniques! 
 
We would not have been shown that respect 5 or 6 years ago.  Building the rapport, being available, and willing to help when and where we can AND even in our black jeans and green polo shirt uniform always be professional!
 
OK, so it wasn't so short, sorry:(


  • [MSAR] Ref the Home Land Security comments, Bdurham05201, 03/25/2004

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