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  • From: "T'mi Fi" <tfinkle@erols.com>
  • To: msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [MSAR] TROTSAR Member honored in national news publication
  • Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 23:08:07 -0400




Courtesy of the National FDA Consumer Magazine, July/Aug 2006 edition


Search and Rescue From the Saddle

As a biologist in the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), Michele McGuinness, Ph.D., spends much of her workweek evaluating new production drugs for poultry. But the weekends are spent with her horses, training to track down missing people.

McGuinness serves as assistant commander and team training officer for TROTSAR, a volunteer equine search and rescue (SAR) team that works with the Maryland State Police. McGuinness credits her 21-year-old equine partner, Tom, with saving a person's life. And she credits FDA-approved animal drugs with keeping her partner healthy enough to perform the rescue.

"We ride and train year-round, in all kinds of weather. We have to learn incident management standards, in addition to search and rescue skills, as part of the Department of Homeland Security mandate for search teams. We are trained in wilderness first aid and search techniques like clue awareness, crime scene preservation, and map and compass reading. If you're not properly skilled and trained, you become a liability on a search and rescue mission.

"You're supposed to be in good physical condition and so is your horse. If the lost person cannot be evacuated using your SAR horse and you can't get a vehicle in or land a helicopter, you may have to help carry somebody out on a stretcher. They say in Maryland, you're never more than five miles from a road. But five miles is a long way to carry somebody!

"Our team is called out between three and six times a year. We're supposed to be ready to deploy within an hour at any time of the day or night with our horses. We've already had three SAR missions this year. On the most recent one, a missing plane search, we worked with the Maryland State Police, Civil Air Patrol, and ground teams. The plane and deceased pilot were located by a ground team. Our TROTSAR mounted teams were working up the mountain toward the suspected crash site when we heard the find over the radio. We were happy to be part of a successful mission, although sad for the pilot's family.

"Horses provide us with a tremendous field of vision. If you're on the ground, you can't see anywhere near what we can see from the top of a horse. We can cover large distances without tiring because the horse is doing the walking. Having the horse doing the walking frees us up to look for clues or look for people. We don't have to watch where our feet are going--the horse is doing that. And they can carry a lot more gear than people can on their backs.

"When I met Tom, he was wild, sometimes dangerously ill-behaved, and nobody was willing to ride him. I heard Tom called 'useless,' but he was all I had to ride. It was an adventure, Tom and I working things out, but we did.

"Tom and I were out riding with my friend and his inexperienced horse when the accident happened. At one point, one of the reins got caught around the horse's right hind leg. He suddenly exploded into a fury of panicked bucking. I've never heard anything hit the ground so hard as my friend's body smashing onto that trail.

"My friend wasn't breathing. He looked pretty much dead, all crumpled up and with a bloodless white face. But there was a pulse, and I was able to restart the breathing. Eventually my friend regained consciousness, and I couldn't find any broken bones. We were several miles from a house or a road, and his horse was long gone. I had no cell phone service. My friend was lapsing in and out of consciousness and stopped breathing again. I had no choice but to load him onto Tom and take him with me.

"It took us nearly an hour to walk out of the forest. I then had cell phone service and called 911. Tom was fabulous, remained calm even when the LifeFlight helicopter landed in the field nearby.

"Tom is handicapped. He has arthritis and a heart murmur and when he pushes too hard, I can feel his heart doing the 'hokeypokey.' A CVM veterinarian was able to give Tom some mitigating drugs that help him keep going. Those equine drugs restored my partner's ability to perform, and that ability saved a person's life. It is ironic that an old, 'useless,' disabled horse is my furry hero."

Congrats Michele!

Tomi`
Commander
TROTSAR Mounted Team



  • [MSAR] TROTSAR Member honored in national news publication, T'mi Fi, 07/20/2006

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