Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

msar-riders - Re: [MSAR] team records during an incident--Credentialing

msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Mounted search and rescue

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "irvin lichtenstein" <ilichten1@verizon.net>
  • To: "Mounted search and rescue" <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [MSAR] team records during an incident--Credentialing
  • Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 15:08:30 -0400

The position of my "home" county and most of the surrounding counties is
that credentials are issued by the organization, not the "government". This
also the state's approach and leads to lots of interesting questions at
scene boundaries.

What we have is two needs. To identify members responding to a call and to
qualify the organization as capable. Each organization can issue a photo-id
or other identification, properly organized SAR organizations can apply for
firefighter license plates for member's vehicles and use blue rotating
identification lights in an emergency. The organization must build its
credibility with the requesting agencies the old fashioned way-- by
performing in the field. We deploy organizations as organizations. The only
variation is dog teams that have only handlers and no infrastructure the
dogs are assigned flankers locally. CAP juniors get assigned adult EMT's as
well. The idea is to preserve the chain of command within the organization
and to more fully utilize its infrastructure capabilities. For the most
part SAR is a mutual aid response assisting the local authorities, most
often a police matter passed off the local volunteer fire company for
reduced labor costs.

All of the region's counties have mobile command posts, some are mobile
dispatch centers. Even Amtrak has a mobile command unit built on a motor
coach. The fire service is used to mutual aid operations and multi-agency
responses are common. But nobody asks for individual credentials at the CP.
If you came to the call you better be qualified or you don't get called next
time. And if you get on the county "do not call list" you might as well
liquidate your organization.

If you want to invest in laptops and personnel records systems in the field
I hope your budget can stand it. My tradeoff is one laptop versus the annual
liability insurance bill or as many as 4 portable radios. I would pay the
insurance, then buy radios, and then maybe get the laptop. The first two
enable us to search, the last just makes it a little easier to do the
paperwork.

Irv Lichtenstein



Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page