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msar-riders - Re: [MSAR] Risk

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Subject: Mounted search and rescue

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  • From: "Marie Lester" <marie.lester@gmail.com>
  • To: "Mounted search and rescue" <msar-riders@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [MSAR] Risk
  • Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 13:39:34 -0400

Thank you for a thorough explanation of factors leading to good
decisions, including the meaning of acronyms. As you can tell, many
of us are still working to get on board regarding the national
language pertaining to search efforts

Marie Lester
Central Ohio Mounted Search Unit

On 9/22/06, Una Smith <una.smith@att.net> wrote:
Phyllis Forrest wrote:
>You still need to assess your assignment upon arrival and be sure that the
>mounted units are being put to best use, and not assigned to areas which are
>better suited for foot searchers.

Well, that's not necessarily a risk assessment. Judgements re your
fitness for a given task, *compared to other SAR resources*, are SAR
management's job, not yours. There are far more factors that go
into making task assignments, than just which kind of resource is
best suited to which task. Those factors include the availability
of all SAR resources, of all kinds; the respective strengths of
the resources on hand (which teams have the most medical capability,
the best navigation, are the most experienced and reliable, etc);
and the priorities of the mission at hand.

As an MSAR field team, your job includes looking out for your own
safety (that's your highest priority), first evaluating and then
doing your assigned task, and doing it so well that in the future
you will be called out sooner and/or given more interesting tasks
with higher POA (probability of area, the likelihood that the
search subject is in your search area).

The difference between a training ride and a mission is that in
the case of training, there should be far more detailed briefing
beforehand, with an emphasis on a questions and answers period
at the end of the briefing; far more coaching during the ride;
and after the ride there should be a debriefing with emphasis on
evaluating the ride as a training tool per se. This may sound
very neurotic, but that is how good training works. I use the
word "should" above because if the trainer is not trained nor
experienced in the art of training, there is a tendency for
many of these steps to be skipped or kept too short and for the
educational value of the ride to be minimal. Also, the trainer
needs to be a strong enough leader, and have the full support of
the unit's officers, to make all these steps happen even when
the trainees think (as they often do) that a lot of talking is
a waste of good riding time.

Back to risk assessment. You could be assigned to search forest
with a lot of deadfall and undergrowth, off trails. Slow going
for anyone, and frustrating for horses. Such terrain is perfectly
safe for some MSAR field teams, but it is very, very dangerous
for others. The difference lies in the specific capabilities of
the riders and mounts. The *individual* capabilities of each
rider and each mount, I must stress. Now you might be tempted
to say don't ever risk horses in such terrain; it's much safer
to use groundpounders there. But in such terrain horses have a
far higher POD (probability of detection, given the subject is
in the search area ie POA=1) than people do. What to do? Either
take the safe approach and refuse any and all task assignments
in such terrain, or train specifically for safe negotiation there.
In planning a training, take care re contributing risk factors.
Eg, don't combine difficult terrain with cadaver scent training!
The scent causes some horses to panic. Similarly, think twice
before you accept a task assignment in difficult terrain if it
seems likely that the misssion will turn out to be a recovery:
horses not *known* to be calm in the face of cadavers would not
be safe to use under those terms.

Una Smith
New Mexico
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